236. Memorandum From the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Secretary of Defense Clifford1
JCSM-272-68
Washington, April 27, 1968.
SUBJECT
- Arms Control on the Seabed (U)
- 1.
- (TS) Reference is made to:
- a.
- A memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of Defense (ISA), I-35409/68, dated 16 April 1968, subject as above, which requested the comments of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on a draft position paper prepared by the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA).2
- b.
- JCSM-235-68, dated 15 April 1968, subject: “Arms Control Proposals for the Ocean Bottoms (U),” which recommended that the Secretary of Defense forward to the President the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that US support for arms control measures on the seabeds would not be in the national interest at this time and, in fact, would bear a potential for grave harm.3
- 2.
- (S) ACDA proposes a treaty in which “each state party to the treaty undertakes not to station or fix nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction on, within, beneath or to the seabed beyond 12 nautical miles from its coast and up to the coast of any other state.” ACDA also proposes that any verification required for compliance with the seabed arms control agreement would be by “unilateral verification capabilities.”
- 3.
- (TS) The Joint Chiefs of Staff do not oppose the consideration of arms control measures provided such measures will not have the effect of weakening the relative strategic posture of the United States and if an effective control system is established. Reference 1b sets forth the views and recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the broad subject of arms control measures on the seabeds. The Joint Chiefs of Staff reaffirm those views at this time. In that memorandum, while noting arguments that acceptance of a denuclearization proposal might serve the immediate political purpose of helping to develop a climate of opinion favorable to the Nonproliferation Treaty, the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that the long-range consequences of banning the emplacement of nuclear weapons on the seabeds would be detrimental to the security of the United [Page 586] States. If, in the future, the US nuclear capability were to depend in part on the emplacement of weapons and devices on the ocean bottoms, the option for their use would be politically foreclosed by the terms of this proposed agreement. While it is premature to decide whether the United States should emplace weapons on the seabeds in order to maintain the necessary strategic nuclear capacity in the future, the Joint Chiefs of Staff believe that such a requirement is a distinct possibility. It is not a question of current programs but the risks to future US strategic nuclear programs that must be the primary consideration in appraising a seabed denuclearization proposal.
- 4.
- (TS) Possible future risks to the US nuclear forces include enhanced effects of nuclear weapons, such as X-rays and electromagnetic pulse (EMP), on US strategic missile systems. Another risk can be identified in terms of the advancing technology in long-range underwater surveillance systems. Therefore, there is a reasonable possibility that scientific or technological breakthroughs could make present US strategic offensive and defensive missile systems vulnerable to enemy attack. To counter this possibility, the United States might well be required to expand its nuclear weapons deployment base to the seabeds.
- 5.
- (TS) If “pindown” and submarine vulnerability were to become a reality, the geographical differences between the United States and the USSR would become of great importance. The fact that the Soviet Union has a land area over twice that of the United States gives it an obvious land-development advantage over the United States. However, the United States has a conveniently located territorial base for the effective use and control of a wide range of deep seabed areas in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, whereas Soviet access to the deep oceans is relatively restricted and environmentally difficult. Soviet coastal control of sea bottom nuclear sites and its range of site deployment would be significantly inferior to that of the United States. Clearly, it would be in the best interests of the USSR if it could offset any US geographical advantages with an international arms control agreement.
- 6.
- (S) A distance limit in connection with a seabed arms control proposal would prejudge and reduce the credibility of our current position on territorial seas. This could adversely affect the US bargaining position in forthcoming discussions on the breadth of the territorial sea.
- 7.
- (S) The United States does not have a verification capability now, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff do not believe that any nation has now or will obtain such a capability in the foreseeable future. In their opinion, an effective control system for a seabed denuclearization agreement could not be developed satisfactorily, and an international agreement by itself accomplishes little unless it can be effectively enforced. An unverifiable agreement could encourage a false sense of security in the United States. Lacking a dependable US detection/verification system, the USSR could probably emplace significant numbers of weapons on the seabeds. It is [Page 587] important to note that even a few nuclear weapons, if properly located, can seriously threaten US security as was amply illustrated by Soviet clandestine emplacement of a few missiles during the Cuban crisis.
- 8.
- (S) In view of the above, the Joint Chiefs of Staff believe that discussion and/or negotiations concerning the undersea environment should be limited at this time to such matters as scientific research, exploration and exploitation of resources, and establishment of marine parks and preserves. Although future marine research and exploration may well indicate that there could be arms control measures which would be in the national interest, adoption of the present ACDA proposal would not be in the national interest and, in fact, has a potential for grave harm.
- 9.
- (U) In view of the wide variety of argumentation presented in the ACDA proposal, additional specific comments are provided in the Appendix.
For the Joint Chiefs of Staff:
Earle G. Wheeler
Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff
Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff
- Source: Washington National Records Center, RG 383, OASD/ISA Files: FRC 72 A 1499, 388.3, January 1968. Top Secret.↩
- The ISA memorandum of April 16 has not been further identified, but the “draft position paper” is presumably a reference to ACDA’s April 12 proposal to the members of the Committee of Principals on arms control on the seabed; see footnote 4, Document 233.↩
- See Document 234.↩
- Top Secret.↩
- For the statements by the Maltese Representative, Pardo, to the First Committee of the General Assembly: Sea-Bed and Ocean Floor, November 1, 1967, in which five proposals for inclusion in a treaty on the peaceful uses of the ocean floor and seabed were advocated for adoption by the United Nations, see Documents on Disarmament, 1967, pp. 547-554.↩