On December 17, 1986, the Secretary of Defense provided the President with a
briefing on the status of the SDI program
and made several recommendations to the President about that program. Since
that time, these recommendations have been staffed with other agencies. The
NSPG, scheduled for February 3, will
discuss the results of this staffing. A memorandum which was previously
prepared for the President’s reading, and which summarizes the issues and
decisions the President will face, is provided at Tab
A. Monday’s session with the President would review the subjects
covered in this memorandum to ensure the President is prepared for Tuesday’s
critical NSPG meeting.
The President, Vice President, Mr. Regan, Mr. Carlucci, General Powell, Colonel Linhard, and Mr. Ermarth.
No press plan.
Mr. Carlucci will frame the
purpose of Tuesday’s meeting and ask Colonel Linhard to walk through the current status of each of the
issues. This will be followed by general discussion. No decisions are
required at this meeting.
Tab A
Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security
Affairs (Carlucci) to
President Reagan2
SUBJECT
I. BACKGROUND
This paper is an overview of the status of a number of SDI issues we will face in the next two
weeks. It is for your information. No immediate decisions are
needed.
As follow-up to the briefing you received last month on incremental
deployment of strategic defenses, Cap
Weinberger has sent over a draft National Security
Decision Directive and a set of working papers on the concept he
presented.3
These papers raise two types of issues that will need to be resolved over
the next two weeks. The first type is a collection of generally
non-controversial, but important programmatic decisions. The second is a
single, difficult, and crucial decision—whether or not to restructure
the SDI program to take advantage of
our full legal rights under the ABM
Treaty. Your decision on this issue could be the most
important one you will make on the SDI program over the next two years.
DOD is presenting the briefing you
received to George Shultz and
his advisors and other key arms control officials. You will be meeting
next week with both Cap and George to clarify points of consensus, although I
believe they will differ sharply on the need to move to the legally
correct interpretation (LCI) of the
ABM Treaty. These issues must be
resolved. Following the February 3rd meeting, I will provide the
necessary option papers for your consideration.
II. PROGRAMMATIC ISSUES
There are four programmatic issues associated with incremental
deployments of strategic defenses:
- ○
- the concept of incremental deployments itself;
- ○
- the need for a Heavy-lift Launch Vehicle (HLV);
- ○
- commitment to a specific system or deployment date; and
- ○
- criteria for a deployment decision.
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Incremental Deployments
The concept of incremental deployment of strategic defenses makes a great
deal of military and technological sense. Such deployments would achieve
interim improvements in strategic stability (by complicating Soviet
attack planning and confounding their confidence in success of a
possible attack), while working toward your primary goal of
comprehensive defenses. Formal recognition of the advantages of
incremental deployments is probably appropriate.
Heavy-lift Launch Vehicle
A new cargo-carrying rocket is imperative for a strategic defense system
with space-based elements. A larger rocket with more reusable parts will
dramatically lower launch costs, a key factor in the cost-effectiveness
of strategic defenses. Such a system would also be of great use for
other military and civil space programs, for example the space station.
Therefore, there seems to be consensus that we should proceed with such
a system, although questions may arise on funding and management of the
program.
Specific Systems or Deployment Dates
Cap has stressed that the system he described to you was simply
illustrative of what might be done. No specific system or deployment
date has been fully analyzed or submitted to you, and much work remains
to be done before a meaningful deployment decision could be made.
However, there is already confusion in the press and on the Hill that you are considering a
decision on deployment of a specific system. Therefore, should you
decide to endorse the concept of incremental deployments (and I
recommend that you do), you may also wish to make clear that such an
endorsement does not constitute either approval of a particular system
architecture or commitment to deploy by a certain date.
Criteria for Deployment
You have directed, and Congress has subsequently written into law, that
any decision to deploy strategic defenses be made on the basis of three
criteria: military effectiveness; survivability; and cost-effectiveness
at the margin. The draft NSDD Cap
submitted, implicitly replaces these criteria with one that would simply
require initial deployments to be on a path toward comprehensive
defenses. Such a substitution would leave SDI vulnerable to criticism from those opponents who
believe strategic defenses would be destabilizing. So far, we have
defeated opponents’ arguments by demonstrating how our standards for the
program will guarantee strategic stability. If we abandoned our
criteria, we would lose this protection and end up in renewed debate
about whether we should pursue SDI at
all.
[Page 700]
III.
ABM TREATY ISSUE
Cap recommends that it is now time to restructure the SDI program to take advantage of our full
legal rights under the ABM Treaty,
allowing testing of space-based strategic defenses.
Background. You will recall that after careful
review of the ABM Treaty and its
negotiating record in the Fall of 1985, the State Department’s legal
advisor, Judge Sofaer, and others concluded that the ABM Treaty was substantially more flexible
than we had previously believed. In fact, it permits development and
testing of space-based strategic defenses, if they are based on
so-called “other physical principles” (OPP), e.g. lasers or infra-red sensors.
Therefore, on October 11, 1985, you issued NSDD 192 affirming our right to conduct ABM development and testing under this
legally correct interpretation (LCI) of
the Treaty. However, because the SDI
program had originally been structured to meet its goals under a
restrictive treaty interpretation, and because restructuring the program
would have political and diplomatic costs, you also directed that, as a
matter of policy, the SDI program would
not be restructured to take advantage of the “broader” or legally
correct interpretation, so long its as progress was not jeopardized.
Secretary Weinberger believes
we are now at a point where SDI’s
progress is being slowed by this policy.
Issues. In deciding whether to take advantage of
the LCI, you may wish to balance five
factors:
- ○
- The program costs of adhering to a more restrictive
interpretation;
- ○
- The best timing for taking advantage of the LCI;
- ○
- Tactics for dealing with Congress;
- ○
- Allied opinions; and,
- ○
- Effects on the Geneva arms reduction talks.
Program Costs. There is no clear-cut answer from
DOD on what are the specific dollar
or delay costs incurred by not continuing our current policy of not
restructuring the SDI program to take
advantage of the LCI. Clear cut answers
simply may not be possible.
In demonstrating the feasibility of ABM
technologies, SDI scientists have
designed creative experiments to work within more
restrictive Treaty restraints. They take a piecemeal approach, testing
different devices separately, and they also consciously scale back the
capabilities of the devices they test (e.g. the successful Delta 180
experiment last fall had scaled-back sensors). So far, this approach has
not prevented the SDI program from
making progress toward its goals. Nonetheless, OSD tells us that certain proposed experiments have been
delayed or denied by the Defense Department’s treaty compliance review
board which would have been approved under the LCI (e.g. the planned Delta 181 sensor experiment). Based
on what Cap has provided to date,
[Page 701]
it is not clear that from a programmatic view we
need now to restructure the program—but Cap may not agree.
In sum, the current piecemeal approach to testing increases costs,
contributes to delay, and actually diminishes our confidence in the
results because an integrated test of various strategic defense devices
is the best way to demonstrate the feasibility of technology. Indeed, to
have sufficient information for an informed decision on incremental
deployment, it will almost certainly be necessary to restructure the
SDI program toward the LCI at some point. When we do this, there
will be both political risks and costs. This raises the question of
optimal timing.
Optimal Timing. Because the outcome of a decision
to move toward the LCI is so important,
the timing of such a move is critical. There are really three choices,
this year, next year, or during a future President’s term. It is
difficult to know what pressure will face the next President, but in all
candor, there is a strong possibility that his commitment to SDI will not match yours; therefore, you
may not wish to leave this decision to a successor. A second
consideration is that next year it may be more difficult to take new
policy initiatives. Moreover, certain options may become impossible if
we achieve significant progress toward an arms reduction agreement. Even
this year, sustaining a decision on taking advantage of the LCI will not be easy. Much depends on
action in the Congress.
Strategy for Dealing with Congress. Senator Levin
and several of his colleagues are moving to legislate our adherence to a
restrictive interpretation of the ABM
Treaty. There are two alternative strategies for countering this move.
We could wait for Levin et al. to strike first, and argue that without
provocation he is attempting to breach separation of powers by tampering
with our right to interpret treaties and by undermining our position in
Geneva.
Alternatively, we could take the initiative and lay out our legal and
programmatic case, including, as a first step discreet discussions with
key Senators. However, this might incur a risk that even Congressmen not
inclined to support Levin would attempt to “punish” us by cutting SDI funding. Because of the extreme
sensitivity of the issue, we cannot get a firm head count on how
Congress might vote in either case. However, we are now making discreet
inquiries.
Allied Opinions. Allied opinion on implementing
the LCI will be unfavorable. We can
almost certainly expect strong reactions from both Britain and West
Germany. Moreover, after your decision in October, 1985, we pledged to
consult with the Allies over any decision to take advantage of the
LCI. On the other hand, some of our
Allies showed new (and ironic) appreciation for SDI when they perceived that it prevented the Soviets from
accepting the comprehensive proposals you made at Reykjavik and that it
would provide insurance as ballistic missiles were drawn down. The
bottom line is that the Allies simply do not like change when it comes
to strategic issues.
[Page 702]
Effect on the Geneva Negotiations
The impact on the Geneva negotiations depends largely upon whether or not
we succeed in implementing the LCI. If
the U.S. successfully implements the
LCI, it would vividly demonstrate
to the Soviets our resolve to pursue SDI. This would increase our leverage in Geneva and could
be a decisive factor in persuading them to shift their emphasis, from
trying to kill SDI to trying to get the
best deal they can on how and when defenses are deployed.
On the other hand, if the Congress were to legislate prohibition of
U.S. implementation of the LCI—either on their own, or in response to
your direction that the SDI program be
restructured to take advantage of the LCI—not only would the program be severely damaged, but our
negotiating leverage in Geneva would be sharply diminished.
Other’s Views. It is now clear that Cap will press strongly for immediate permission
to restructure the SDI program to take
full advantage of the legally correct interpretation of the ABM Treaty. It is equally clear that George
will strongly oppose such a move. He will argue that while this may be
necessary later, to do so now would cause major problems with our Allies
and needlessly foreclose negotiating options. In a recent memo to you,
George suggested an NST proposal that assumes we continue
under current policy—with the SDI
program following a restrictive interpretation of the ABM Treaty—for at least a few more years
as part of a negotiated agreement on permitted and prohibited SDI activity. Cap
believes this is the very type of agreement that we should avoid,
pursuing instead a simpler approach, negotiating the timing of
deployments. The JCS supported Cap’s briefing, but their formal views
have not been submitted. ACDA and CIA have not offered
opinions.
Bottom Line. All agree that if we could move now
to restructure the SDI program to take
advantage of the legally correct interpretation of the ABM Treaty, while managing Allied
reactions, and more importantly, maintaining Congressional support, it
would be in the U.S. interest. It would
accelerate progress, cut costs, increase confidence, and add pressure on the Soviets. However, the issue is whether
we can manage the risks and, if we are uncertain about this, whether we
should take the chance now. The discussions over the next two weeks
should focus on this issue.4
