Foreign Relations of the United States, 1989–1992, Volume XXXI, START I, 1989–1991

175. Memorandum From Richard Davis of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Scowcroft)¹

Washington, December 9, 1990

SUBJECT

• Data Denial in START

We have achieved substantial interagency agreement based on the data denial point paper you sent to your counterparts after the December 6 meeting. We need to make that consensus a fait accompli before staffs have time to unravel it.

That consensus includes agreement that the US should not exchange any information on how to interpret RV data. However, DOD, DOE, and the IC continue to disagree on the definition of “RV data.” The way in which “RV data” is defined will determine whether our proposed approach in fact would achieve a relatively effective ban on data denial, or instead would leave large loopholes which both sides could exploit.

The attached memorandum² to your counterparts confirms the consensus and directs further work to resolve the definitional issue and other questions that were left unanswered in your meeting.

DOD and DOE want to exclude information on how to interpret all data that we declare is RV data, from launch to impact. (Indeed, they would like to omit “RV data” from the tapes we would exchange with the Soviets, even though Moscow, already can collect all or virtually all of the data directly.) [less than 2 lines not declassified] The IC favors excluding only the information needed to interpret RV data that is transmitted after RV separation from the booster. DOE claims the IC approach would compromise sensitive arming and fuzing data that is transmitted during the boost phase.

There are several potential approaches that could help protect the data that DOE believes is important and help constrain the circumvention possibilities that worry the IC. At this point, however, we do not have a sufficient basis for you or the President to decide either what we need to protect, or how to alter our practices in order to protect it. The attached memorandum would take advantage of the momentum created by your meeting to get DOD and DOE, in cooperation with the IC, to analyze what have been very difficult issues for them to face squarely.

You should know that the compromise reached thus far is very fragile. We are at the very edge of what the IC can accept. At the same time, the weapon design labs have just been brought into the issue by DOE and it is their ox that will be gored if we “give away” their RV data or force them to change significantly their telemetry hardware and practices. We need to keep both camps on board enough to limit complaints to their friends on the Hill that will undermine support for the treaty.

RECOMMENDATION

That you sign the attached memorandum to your counterparts which records the consensus of your December 6 meeting and tasks additional work to flesh out the U.S. bottom line on data denial.

1. Source: George H.W. Bush Library, Bush Presidential Records, National Security Council, John A. Gordon Files, Subject Files, OA/ID CF01033–006, START—December 1990. Secret. Sent for action. Sent through Kanter. Gordon initialed for Kanter.
2. Attached but not printed. See Document 176.