212. Memorandum From Sven Kraemer, Robert Linhard, and Linton Brooks of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Carlucci)1
SUBJECT
- NSDD on Soviet Noncompliance Report
Proposed NSDD
Following your decisions on the findings for the Administration’s annual report to the Congress on Soviet noncompliance, we have prepared a proposed NSDD incorporating your decisions for the President’s signature at Tab A.2 A memorandum of transmittal to appropriate agencies is attached for your signature at Tab II3 following Presidential signature of the NSDD.
The proposed NSDD contains, in addition to the findings (pp. 6–9): (1) an introductory policy section (pp. 1–5) taken directly from the interagency-approved introductory materials of this year’s compliance report, and (2) a US Policy Response section (pp. 9–10) and an Issues for Further Work section (pp. 10–11). These update similar sections in last year’s NSDD and are also interagency-agreed. The Further Work section specifically includes the tasking for a comprehensive study by the Arms Control Verification Committee (ACVC) on TTBT compliance and verification issues. (FYI: The ACVC work program, targeted for an interim report in mid-April, is to be agreed by all agencies at an NSC Staff-chaired meeting this Friday, February 13, for transmittal to the NSC.) To try to fireproof the proposed NSDD, NSC staff (Kraemer) worked the attached text today with the DCI’s representative, Doug George, on an informal, very close-hold basis.
Memo to the President
For interagency and historical reasons, it is important to have the President’s approval and signature on the contentious issues decided in the annual compliance report NSDD. However, for the Administration’s past three reports, the NSDD has been discussed by the National Security Advisor with the President for the President’s approval, usually during 9:30 a.m. NSC briefing time, without a cover memo to the [Page 774] President attempting to encapsulate the issues and options. This was done because of the volume and great complexity of the individual issues, the urgency of transmitting past years’ overdue reports to the Congress, and past experience on involving the President in the details of such issues.
To assure the ability historically to demonstrate the President’s role in the NSDD decisions for the current report, Bob Pearson has requested that a brief cover memo on the NSDD be prepared, for the record, seeking the President’s review and decision. Accordingly, such a brief memo has been prepared for your use at Tab I.
We recommend that, at the earliest opportunity, and if possible by Friday morning, you discuss the report with the President as you deem appropriate and obtain his approval and signature. Upon the President’s signature, the NSDD would be transmitted to agencies and the text of the report would be completed as a package, along with appropriate transmittal letters to the Congress, for final coordination with Will Ball’s office and for transmittal through the office of the White House Clerk.
Further Interagency Work
It would be very helpful to the process to have the proposed NSDD signed by the President by noon Friday, February 13, in order to assure that the required additional interagency work can begin before the weekend. Following the release of the NSDD to agencies, considerable interagency work remains to be completed before the actual report (of some 20 pages) can be transmitted to the Congress. We have a 1:00 p.m., Friday, ACVC meeting on the major TTBT compliance work program tasked in the NSDD. The findings decisions must be retrofitted into the report; the report’s detailed analyses must be finalized; an unclassified version must be approved by the intelligence community; and interagency agreement must be reached on final versions of draft cable to allies, press guidance, Congressional briefing schedules, etc. For the past reports, this has usually involved a difficult 7–10 day period of ACVC work under NSC Staff leadership.
RECOMMENDATION
That you review the proposed NSDD at Tab A incorporating your decisions; that you sign the memorandum to the President at Tab I;4 that you discuss the NSDD as appropriate with the President to obtain his approval and signature of the NSDD as soon as possible; and that, following Presidential signature, you sign the transmittal memorandum to agencies at Tab II.5
- Source: National Security Council, National Security Council Institutional Files, Box SR–094, NSDD 260. Secret. Sent for action.↩
- Printed as Document 215.↩
- Attached but not printed. See footnote 1, Document 215.↩
- Printed as Tab A to Document 201.↩
- Carlucci approved the recommendation.↩