Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume XLIV, Part 1, National Security Policy, 1985–1988

222. Memorandum From the Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State on Arms Control Matters (Nitze) to Secretary of State Shultz¹

Washington, March 6, 1987

SUBJECT

• White House Meeting on Possible SDI Deal with the Congress

Subject meeting was chaired by Colin Powell today. Others attending were LTG Abrahamson, Richard Perle, Ken Adelman, Ed Rowny, Bob Linhard, William Ball, LTG Moellering, Max Kampelman and I. Linhard distributed a paper outlining the subject of the meeting.² We followed that outline.

The first subject was whether or not the Administration could commit itself to continue the SDI test program as currently structured (i.e., under the narrow interpretation) until a date to be specified. It was agreed that it could do so through CY 1987. Perle reserved his position by saying that Cap wished the commitment to be no longer than the current Fiscal Year, that is to October 1, 1987; Kampelman and I supported a timeframe through the current calendar year. Max wanted the Congress to be committed to a measure of Congressional support for at least that long in order to give the negotiators a chance to consummate a deal with the Soviets. I supported that timeframe additionally because I thought it would help to secure the cooperation of our Allies.

The next subject was: “What commitments should we seek from the Congress?” It was agreed that we should seek a commitment not to vote legislation which would restrict our Executive Branch actions to the narrow interpretation or otherwise inhibit negotiations through constraining resolutions. Also we should seek agreement to avoid speeches on the broad/narrow issue.

Additionally, it was agreed that we should seek support for “respectable” SDI funding as part of any deal. Funding wise, we should ask for early action on the five hundred million dollar, FY 87 supplemental (already submitted) to provide for early work on “heavy lift” and the SDI Institute. We also would seek a commitment to SDI funding of 5.2 billion dollars in FY 88, plus a Department of Energy appropriation of five hundred million dollars. In this regard, there was a consensus that before going below 4.5 billion dollars for FY 88, there should be further consultations in this group.

Kampelman proposed that additional steps should be taken to resolve the TTBT/PNET “dual ratification issue” which was of great concern to Nunn and others. This was agreed to, subject to getting a more “precise definition” of the reservation (precisely what should be required was not specified).

Kampelman also recommended that we take positive action on the issue of “treaty interpretation.” I strongly supported this. An examination of the question is already quietly underway in the Executive Branch. There was general support, with Perle dissenting, that we should prepare ourselves to move promptly to negotiations with the Soviets on this issue.

Linhard will prepare a paper on the above subjects overnight, circulate it tomorrow with a view to lower level resolution next Monday,³ and review by principals on Wednesday.⁴

1. Source: Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S Files, Executive Secretariat Sensitive (ES) and Super Sensitive Documents, 1984–1989, Lot 92D52, March 1–31, 1987 Super Sensitive. Secret; Sensitive. Pascoe initialed the memorandum and wrote “3/9.”
2. Not found.
3. March 9.
4. March 11.