66. Minutes of a National Security Council Meeting1
SUBJECT
- Panama and START
PARTICIPANTS
- The President
- The Vice President
- The Secretary of State
- The Secretary of Defense
- Director of the Office of Management and Budget
- Chief of Staff to the President
- Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
- Director of Central Intelligence
- Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
- Assistant to the President and Deputy for National Security Affairs
[Omitted here is a discussion of Panama]
General Scowcroft: The purpose of this meeting is a discussion on fundamental decisions on START and CFE and how all of this fits into the budget. On START, the question is whether we should stick with the START proposal we have now, get it signed as fast as possible, or modify it and add other proposals and do something more that will make it more your agreement. The advantage of the first is that we can get it by June. If we add to it or change it significantly it will upset that time table. Any add-ons will slow it down and potentially mess up the strategic programs in the budget. Moreover, the Russians may not like it and it could derail things. By the same token the package is nearly three years old and doesn’t reflect recent developments—deployments, your election, and so forth. Nor does it take advantage of our current leverage. It doesn’t get at Soviet programs while they’re still in deployment. Jim, Dick and I are split on this.
Cheney: There’s not a big dollar savings involved as far as the budget is concerned. In the strategic arena we’ve seen less change in the Soviet posture. They are continuing to modernize and improve their strategic forces. We should take what’s on the table and run. It defines the state of the relationship and there is a political dynamic involved in getting the agreement. It’s important to close the deal. We’ll have enough trouble to resolve the remaining issues—ALCMs, SLCMs and [Page 435] so forth. To add de-MIRVing would add tremendous difficulties. Let’s resolve the issues and get the deal. We can do the rest in START II.
Scowcroft: There are two reasons to add on. First, we have zero chance to get through another budget year with two ICBM programs in the absence of arms control. Second the Soviets are rapidly deploying. In two years these new systems will be deployed and we’ll have no leverage to stop them.
Baker: I agree with Dick Cheney. First, we need to articulate our goal for START II at the Summit. We’ve gone too far to reopen START I now. We should have done it earlier. Political dynamics are more important than the strategic. If we had it all to do over again, we probably should never have said we’d try to get a treaty in 1990. At Malta, we said here’s what we should conclude at the Ministerial so we can get a Treaty done by June. Then in June we can put out a new proposal.
General Powell: I’m with Dick and Jim. Let’s complete what’s on the table. We don’t have so much leverage that you can get a Treaty quickly. The Soviets aren’t that hungry.
The President: Is there concern about the Congress?
Baker: I believe we should put forward Brent’s proposal in June.
The President: There’s a lot of water between now and June.
Cheney: The strategic environment is changing but the changes in Eastern Europe don’t affect our strategic programs. It changes our forces in Europe but nothing in START.
The President: Well, peoples’ views of the Soviets have changed.
Cheney: The Soviets are changing their conventional forces structure, not the SS–24s and 25s or their SSBN deployments. There’s less rationale to change strategic forces than the conventional.
Baker: Congressional pressure will be alleviated if we’re at the edge of getting an agreement.
The President: I see two tracks—a public one and a secret one. Maybe we can move forward on the other. Get together with Gorbachev on the side—conclude the existing treaty and talk about something more dramatic.
Sununu: How close are we to a treaty? Can we get it in June?
Scowcroft: It’s doable.
Sununu: Five years from now, would you want to have gotten the treaty and then have the grand gambit or do both simultaneously?
Baker: You can never predict. We don’t know what a new proposal would unleash on the Hill.
Scowcroft: You could announce in principle that our goal is to deMIRV the force and that the first step will be to freeze deployments and no modernization.
[Page 436]Cheney: But there’s no consensus whether that makes any sense on our side. We have nothing in the production line. We’re in a terrible military position.
Scowcroft: If we don’t do anything, they’ll stop everything.
Cheney: With Peacekeeper, we’ll have 500 survivable RVs in 1992 that we don’t have now. There’s great division in the Administration.
Scowcroft: There is no agreement on deMIRVing.
The President: What about the cost?
Cheney: deMIRVing is very expensive.
Scowcroft: By the year 2000 we don’t want just a few highly MIRVed missiles.
The Vice President: Would you not deploy MX?
Scowcroft: To stop the SS–18s and 24s, yes.
The Vice President: We have the Midgetman, they have the SS–25. The political risk is that you won’t get either of our systems.
Scowcroft: Will we be able to continue with two ICBMs?
Cheney: We sold it just six months ago.
Scowcroft: You sold it with a lot of assumptions about the future. Many don’t think we plan to go through with two. If Midgetman dies, then that will kill MX. We’ll just lose them now.
The Vice President: Depends on how much you value shorter warning. We have longer warning now. We need to make up our minds.
Scowcroft: If you buy a force for 20 years I don’t think you can count on long warning for that long.
The Vice President: I never have bought the idea of a bolt from the blue.
Powell: Scowcroft’s proposal of MX for 18s and 24s involves two negotiations. One with the Soviets to take an extended time and Congress which would kill MX instantly. Then we’d be left with little to trade.
Baker: To get to Brent’s point we should do it after START I. We should take it to the Summit. In START II we want to do something about MIRV mobiles but do this only if we can negotiate it with the Soviets.
The Vice President: If you kill rail garrison, Midgetman will be killed the next day.
Baker: If we put it on the table now it will be the worst of all possible worlds. We’ll have no agreement with Congress, no START in June and we’ll be accused of being against arms control. I’m willing to make the proposal. I just disagree with the timing.
[Page 437]The President: Why are you so pessimistic about the next six months? What’s so hard?
Cheney: We have a better chance of agreement with this group of people than with any Administration in the last fifteen years.
Baker: You can get a START agreement by June but you can’t get an actual treaty text by June.
The President: Why? What’s stopping us? The Soviets are open, let’s talk to them. I’m worried that the world is in change, demonstrable change. The Congress is going to take this and screw us up. This is the opportunity to get something from the Soviets.
Sununu: Can we iron out some principles with the Soviets?
Baker: I’m ready. I’m leaving on the 4th of February.
Scowcroft: Well, there are still unresolved issues. On CFE, the question is similar. Do we proceed as is or do we make an additional proposal on personnel—the US and Soviets in the same time frame, money is a big issue. A week ago this was impossible. Now, though, Woolsey says he’s not sure we can’t do it. If we went to the Allies, we could say we wanted to negotiate a bilateral cut to 200,000. We want to get ahead of the Congress and sustain the level. Then we would go to the Soviets and propose a simple deal of going to 200,000. Nothing else would be added. There’s a chance we might get it as an add on.
Baker: You’re right, “There might be a chance.” There are risks to the Alliance, US leadership and the continuity of the US presence. I worry that we are abandoning consistency if we go to 200,000 for domestic reasons. Congress will just go from there. Rather, we should stick with the formulation we have and emphasizing getting done what’s already on the table and talk quietly to the Alliance leaders about a bottom line of 200,000 in CFE II. Let us get CFE I or Congress will do more.
The President: Why are they worried?
Baker: To keep the US presence.
Scowcroft: We should use that in coming down to the 200,000 as a level we can sustain with the Congress.
Baker: Don’t abandon a good proposal too early. Get CFE I and then announce in June or perhaps in CFE II you are going to 200,000. This will make a major difference.
Sununu: Can you get CFE I in 30 to 60 days?
Director Darman: You could lose a lot through unilateral Congressional action. I’m certain of the politics. The gap in the budget to be closed is $36 billion or $70 billion according to the Democrats’ number. How much of that is coming out of DoD—$3.9 billion. Congress is expecting a big peace dividend. Should be $18 billion. But they don’t [Page 438] want to close bases and cut weapons so the troops will have to come out of Europe. There will be enormous political pressure to pull out.
Sununu: The first fight will be in the Budget Committee that will decree the budget level.
Baker: We can win if the President wants. My way accommodates both.
Cheney: The first day I was in Brussels I had to put out fires that the significant US reductions were trouble. The East Europeans, the Soviets, the West Europeans all want us to stay. Everybody but Congress.
The President: They don’t want us to pull out down to 200,000?
Cheney: According to the intelligence, the Warsaw Pact is basically irrelevant. DIA says that the Warsaw Pact no longer possesses any offensive capability. This will pose a bigger Hill problem.
The President: Isn’t this good news? So we sit here with 275,000 troops, no reaction to Soviet actions, the world is changing and we’re going to change with it.
Baker: Going to take a decision to do this, you have to tell the Allies quietly and that it’s not in CFE I.
The President: Instead of being concerned about Eastern Europe we should be asking what’s in it for us. Why do we always need the same number of troops and bombs? We should test the Soviets. Ask them to do something we think they’ll never do. Otherwise we’ll pass up the opportunity, be cut unilaterally and get nothing for it. We shouldn’t be seen as begrudging change but reacting boldly. We have an enormous opportunity to do something dramatically different. We can’t let the FRG or the UK drive us.
Darman: If you go to the Hill, they’ll pocket the change. They have the certainty that we’ll get something for it. If you go too soon, they’ll pocket it.
Baker: What about Korean withdrawals?
Cheney: The military situation there is just different than in Europe.
Powell: We can reduce there too but the numbers aren’t large.
Baker: Go to 200,000 as a potential and get into Europe later.
The President: What would the Soviets have to do for the US to go below 200,000?
Powell: They would have to truly restructure their forces and change their mobilization capability.
The President: What happens when the Soviets are gone from Eastern Europe? They are trying to preserve the USSR. What do they have to do to demonstrate this? Are we thinking about this? I don’t want to miss an opportunity.
Baker: There is less chance that Congress will pocket any reduction proposal if it’s part of an arms control negotiation.
- Source: George H.W. Bush Library, Bush Presidential Records, National Security Council, Robert M. Gates Files, Chronological Files, OA/ID CF00948–020, Chron File (Official): 1990 [3 of 3]. Secret. The meeting took place in the Oval Office.↩