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

251. Minutes of a National Security Planning Group Meeting¹

Washington, May 9, 1988, 2–3 p.m.

National Security Planning Group Meeting

SUBJECT

• Review of U.S. Arms Control Positions (U)

PARTICIPANTS

• The President
• The Vice President

• State:

  • Secretary George Shultz
  • Ambassador Paul Nitze
  • Ambassador Edward Rowny
  • Ambassador Max Kampelman
  • Ambassador Rozanne Ridgway

• Justice:

  • Attorney General Edwin Meese

• Defense:

  • Secretary Frank Carlucci
  • Mr. Ron Lehman

• Energy:

  • Mr. William Martin

• CIA:

  • Judge William Webster
  • Mr. Richard Kerr

• JCS:

  • Admiral William Crowe
  • Vice Admiral Jonathan Howe

• ACDA:

  • Mr. George Murphy

• Vice President’s Office:

  • Mr. Craig Fuller

• OMB:

  • Mr. Joseph Wright

• OSTP:

  • Dr. William Graham

• White House:

  • Mr. Howard Baker
  • Mr. Ken Duberstein
  • Mr. Marlin Fitzwater
  • General Colin Powell
  • Mr. John Negroponte

• NSC Staff:

  • Colonel Robert Linhard
  • Captain Linton Brooks

Minutes

The meeting opened at 2:00 p.m. in the Situation Room. The President opened the meeting as follows:

Tomorrow night George and Colin will be leaving for their final Foreign Ministers’ meeting before the summit. They’ll deal with our whole agenda, just as I will in Moscow. Today, however, I want to focus on arms reduction, especially on START and Defense and Space. (S)

You and your people have done a huge amount of work coming to grips with these very difficult issues. I appreciate it and hope you will pass my appreciation on to your staffs. Because of Soviet stonewalling and the inherent difficulty of the issues, we weren’t able to have START and Defense and Space treaties ready for signature. However, as I’ve been saying lately, I want a good treaty, not a quick treaty. Nothing less than a verifiable agreement which enhances our security will do. (S)

I want us to keep working toward this goal after the summit. We have an obligation to finish development of a complete, coherent position to bring about deep reductions while setting the stage for one day deploying effective defenses. As we move forward, I depend on each of the people in this room to tell me if we’re moving too fast, or too slow, or in the wrong direction. (S)

After this introduction, the following discussion ensued (not verbatim): (U)

General Powell: Thank you, sir. While, as the President said, our focus is on arms reductions issues, we need to consider the overall context of the meeting. Secretary Shultz, could you review that context? (U)

[Omitted here are discussions not related to SDI or the ABM Treaty.]

Secretary Shultz: We have a dilemma. Increasingly in Congress and the general public there is a belief that the only ICBM to have is a survivable ICBM. As the weapons get more accurate, fixed silo-based ICBMs are not survivable. Maybe if we don’t have mobile ICBMs we won’t have any new ICBMs. That is why Admiral Crowe wisely wants no sublimit on SLBMs. We may need all 4,900 ballistic missile warheads on submarines. But there are good reasons to have a Triad. So we should keep ICBMs. But the basing mode is difficult; it is unstable if we have a vulnerable basing mode. We have to work hard to find the answer in our own interest, not just to accommodate the Soviets. The Soviets are miles ahead on mobiles. (S)

Admiral Crowe: Well some of the verification regime will help. (S)

Judge Webster: But that makes problems for the JCS. (U)

Admiral Crowe: We are going to accept some scheme, but we are not going to nail all the mobiles down. (S)

General Powell: In summary, there is progress on the verification scheme, but not everyone agrees that we are ready to lay down a number. (S)

Secretary Carlucci: If we indicate verification comes first, we would be willing to lay down a range of numbers. I would be willing to go with a range 500 to 700. State has another number. (S)

The President: The Midgetman that Congress loves. It is my understanding that the military just doesn’t want it. Is that correct? (S)

Secretary Carlucci: Yes that is correct. It is not cost effective. It would be $39 billion for Midgetman against $17 billion for MX. (S)

The President: Then why not holler and fight? (U)

Secretary Carlucci: I have hollered. The Senate has suggested the program to put only 45 million in Midgetman and the rest in MX. But the House is playing politics. Aspin says he has to have a big Midgetman number to deal with the Senate in conference. But MX will be funded. We just can’t afford Midgetman. (S)

The President: What’s their argument against MX? (C)

Secretary Carlucci: They say it is not survivable in a bolt out of the blue. I think this is all political. The basic motivation comes straight from the Democratic caucus. I told Aspin he was holding up a START agreement and he said he didn’t care; START is a problem for the next Administration. (S)

Secretary Shultz: Let me play the Devil’s advocate. As I understand it, if cost wasn’t an issue the military would rather have a hundred single RV missiles than ten multi-warhead missiles. (S)

Admiral Crowe: That is true in part. People are also a resource and we need more people with a larger number of missiles. (S)

The President: But there is no military problem; you would want them? (S)

Admiral Crowe: Yes. (U)

Secretary Shultz: So there are some arguments on this side. So it is a cost argument. If money and people were available we would want to go to single RV missile. There is also a verification argument. If we miss a MX, we miss ten warheads. Two or three years ago that is why we were interested in banning Soviet MIRVed mobiles. Personally I don’t dismiss Midgetman as politics. The problem is cost. That is why I have always said we ought to cut the number of warheads on our MIRVed system. (S)

Admiral Crowe: Then it’s the same problem. If you cut warheads you still need to buy more missiles. (S)

Secretary Shultz: Why not down load MX? (S)

Admiral Crowe: We could do that. (U)

Secretary Shultz: We say we worry about Soviet heavys because of the breakout question. They could breakout and have more warheads. If we down load MX we will have the same breakout potential. (S)

The Vice President: Isn’t there a survivability issue? MX can’t deploy as quickly. (S)

Secretary Carlucci: Yes. Midgetman advocates say that it is more survivable to a bold out of the blue. The difference is something like six hours. (S)

The Vice President: Isn’t that a convincing argument? (U)

Admiral Crowe: Some. It is like the big carrier-little carrier debate. The military would always prefer more but they don’t believe they are ever going to get it. (S)

Secretary Carlucci: If you take State’s idea of 1,000 warheads, it will really break the bank. It will cost you $80 billion for Midgetman. (S)

The President: How do we get back to the horse cavalry? (U)

Secretary Carlucci: This whole thing will lead to a stalemate on the Hill and no U.S. mobile. (S)

General Powell: Do we need to say anything more on heavy ICBMs? (C)

Ambassador Rowny: I favor a ban on flight testing of heavy ICBMs. That way we will force Soviet heavy ICBMs to atrophy. Even if we cut those ICBMs in half there will still be a unilateral advantage if we allow flight testing. We must not allow that. We won’t build any, so including a U.S. right to build is ephemeral. They can put 20 to 30 warheads on heavys. If we go to Congress we will get—correctly—significant problems on questions of equality. (S)

General Powell: Other comments? [Silence] In Defense and Space, we are close to having a complete U.S. position. We are agreed that in Geneva we should:

— Affirm the basic positions in our draft treaty, including: our right to deploy after the specified period; that we will not accept a rolling non-withdrawal period; and, that we believe START reductions should not be held hostage to D&S.

— Maintain our proposal that neither side object to space-based sensors and elicit a Soviet response.

— And, that we should not now formally table our ideas for stipulating that testing of weapons in space does not constitute deployment. (S)

The question is how far to go in changing our Defense and Space position. (S)

Secretary Shultz: We did get something on Sunday.² It shows the Soviets are anxious to move. There may be opportunity here. (S)

Secretary Carlucci: Yes, the opportunity for a swap may be present. (C)

Secretary Shultz: It is just motion. We don’t know if there is a swap there. If we could get something we want in SDI it would be a great help. (S)

Admiral Crowe: Remember it’s not just SDI that our “sensors run free” proposal is needed for. We also need it for BSTS, our next generation early warning system. (S)

Secretary Shultz: As I understand it we will have a complete proposal on sensors running free. (S)

Admiral Crowe: Yes, we have to be able to distinguish between sensors and weapons. That is not agreed within the United States Government. We can’t allow the Soviets to see Black programs. So there is movement here, but we have to be very, very careful. (S)

General Powell: Let’s turn to the ABM Treaty review. We are agreed that we should press the Soviets to correct their ABM Treaty violations and advise them that the U.S. will not sign START or Defense and Space Treaties until they agree to correct their violations in a verifiable manner. (S)

At issue is how to treat the ABM Treaty Review. According to the terms of the ABM Treaty the review must begin by October 3.

— Our first option is to tell the Soviets that we will not settle on timing and forum for the review if their violations persist.

— The second option is to tell them that the review will begin by October, but that major uncorrected violations could raise serious questions as to the future of the ABM Treaty. (S)

Secretary Shultz, would you like to comment? (U)

Secretary Shultz: As I understand the facts about the K-radar, its position and orientation make it a clear violation. The outer shell is built, but there is nothing inside; the guts are not there. And they have stopped construction. Also my understanding from Admiral Crowe is that the military judgment is that ending the ABM Treaty is not in our interest because the Soviets are more ready to breakout than we are. Also, ending the ABM Treaty would be hard to sustain politically, both in this country and abroad. So we don’t want to abrogate the treaty or get on any track pointing to abrogation. (S)

Secretary Carlucci: I agree. We shouldn’t get on a track toward abrogating the treaty. That’s why I don’t understand the State position. If we have an SCC [Standing Consultative Commission] meeting we will be forced to take some action. We should have no SCC meeting until we have a commitment on what they are going to do. (S)

Secretary Shultz: We have a commitment. An understanding that they will destroy the radar once we complete a treaty. If we agree we are not going to abrogate, we ought to be on a careful track. If we refuse to review the treaty, we violate it. If we review it we have a tactical problem, but it will have been reviewed. We shouldn’t abrogate the treaty, we should work things out. (S)

Secretary Carlucci: We agree we don’t want to abrogate, although we don’t want to keep it forever. But remember they may yet try to go to Thule and Fylingdales. (S)

Secretary Shultz: Mr. President this certainly is esoteric. (U)

General Powell: Meanwhile it gets closer and closer to 3 October. (U)

Secretary Shultz: This is a time bomb. (U)

General Powell: What do we need from the Soviets to schedule a review? What do we accept—blowing up the radar? Or do we schedule the review and explain the failure to destroy the radar will be a material breach. (S)

The President: What about other radars which are violations? (S)

General Powell: The radars at Gomel. (S)

Secretary Shultz: It’s a technical violation they can’t correct. (S)

Admiral Crowe: Can’t both parties agree to delay the review? (S)

General Powell: But they keep pressing for it. (U)

Admiral Crowe: But can’t we delay? (U)

Ambassador Rowny: They don’t want a delay. (U)

Secretary Carlucci: We are the ones doing the delay. (U)

Secretary Shultz: We won’t conclude a Defense and Space or START Treaty unless the K-radar is dealt with satisfactorily. (S)

General Powell: And satisfactory means it has to be destroyed. (S)

Secretary Shultz: They said they would do that, although I don’t like to say so in so big a room. (S)

Ambassador Rowny: Even most liberals know the K-radar is a violation and if not corrected there can’t be a new treaty. (S)

Secretary Shultz: We have a commitment tied to a new treaty, but not tied to the review. (S)

Ambassador Kampelman: We need more discussion. It is premature to do anything on this. Why not try to define the discussions we have had during the last three years as the ABM Treaty review. There has been more discussion on that treaty in the last three years than ever before. I suggest we need more discussion and we need to look at this. (S)

[Omitted here are discussions not related to SDI or the ABM Treaty.]

1. Source: Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC National Security Planning Group (NSPG), NSPG 0188, 05/09/1988. Secret. The meeting took place in the White House Situation Room. Brackets, except those indicating omission statements, are in the original. The full minutes are printed in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. XI, START I, Document 299.
2. May 1.