Office of the Historian

6. Memorandum From the Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (Courtney) to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (Armacost)1

Washington, December 17, 1984

SUBJECT

  • SDI Seminar

Participants in a START delegation seminar on SDI2 last week concluded that the Soviets were unlikely to agree soon to reduce offensive arms. Al Carnesale (Chairman), Brent Scowcroft, John Foster, Leon Sloss, Ray Garthoff, Colin Gray, and Sayre Stevens joined Ed Rowny and others. Key points from Carnesale’s concluding remarks:

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It is uncertain whether SDI would replace or enhance deterrence. The former goal is what appeals to publics.
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Under the ABM Treaty the Soviets, who cheat and stretch agreements, can do more “research” than we.
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The Soviets oppose our approach to SDI; they won’t agree now to plan a transition to a defense-heavy world, nor will they accept “meaningful reductions” in offensive arms so long as SDI looms on the horizon.
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We can’t comply with the ABM Treaty forever. We need to recognize this soon, so we can get the money to carry out tests that will violate the Treaty.
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It will be hard to maintain the momentum of the SDI program; we have to prepare, however, for the long haul.

Most of the participants were sympathetic to SDI, and sought to avoid or minimize its problems. For example, they didn’t address whether Congress would support SDI if this meant dashing hopes for offensive reductions and pulling out of the ABM Treaty. The participants eluded the issue of stability, yet most critics believe SDI would detract from crisis stability if space-based ABM components were vulnerable to preemptive attack.

The participants seemed uncomfortable with the idea that arms control could be a “friend” of SDI. Yet, a credible policy on strategic arms control may be as important for gaining Hill support for SDI research as for the MX (with mixed results). Also, beginning the process now of offensive reductions (however difficult) could facilitate SDI by limiting the saturation threat against it.

  1. Source: Reagan Library, George Shultz Papers, Executive Secretariat Sensitive (12/13/1984–12/17/1984). Secret; Sensitive. Armacost sent the memorandum to Shultz under cover of a December 17 note: “Mr. Secretary: I thought you might be interested in this summary of a seminar last week on SDI. Ed Rowny got together a group of senior defense experts who appeared to agree that the Soviets were unlikely to reduce nuclear arms as long as SDI continued.” (Ibid.)↩
  2. See Document 5.↩