267. Memorandum From Spurgeon M. Keeny, Jr., of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow)1
SUBJECT
- Status of Preparations for Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
The Committee of Principals is scheduled to meet at 10:30 am, Wednesday, August 14, to review and prepare recommendations for the President on our proposed position (Tab A)2 for the strategic arms limitation talks (SALT). On Saturday, the JCS completed its review of this specific proposal that has been developed by an Interagency Working Group. On the basis of the JCS recommendation to Secretary Clifford, I believe that the Committee of Principals should be able to agree upon a favorable recommendation to the President on a slightly revised version of this proposal. The JCS, except for the Navy, bought the interagency proposal, subject to four clarifying changes, which should be acceptable to all the other agencies involved. The Navy split was in the form of a proposed modification favoring Navy systems which was not acceptable to the other Chief on the grounds of security. (General Wheeler prepared a separate strong paper rebutting the Navy position.)3 I assume, therefore, that Secretary Clifford will support the proposal subject to the changes proposed by the majority of the JCS. (Bob Ginsburgh has presumably obtained an advance copy of the JCS paper for you.)4
At a meeting of the Committee of Principals last Wednesday, August 7, the status of preparations for the talks was reviewed, and the Committee endorsed Secretary Clifford’s decision to proceed on August 16, as scheduled, with the first all-up test launch of the Minuteman III with a MIRV. (See attached Minutes, Tab B.)5 As you know, the latter point has been made a major issue by Senator McCarthy and Bob Klieman (New York Times), among others, on the grounds that the successful [Page 667] test of a MIRV would make a strategic freeze impossible. It was agreed that, on the contrary, quite aside from security considerations, a unilateral moratorium on such testing at this time could hurt the prospects for a agreement by its effects on the attitudes of both Congress and the Soviets.
The staff preparations for the talks are on schedule, and I believe in general are in reasonably good shape. The proposed position developed by the Interagency Working Group (Tab A) has been carefully drafted to take into account specific problems that have been advanced while retaining the form of a general commitment. There should be no misunderstanding as to the nature of the proposal on which interagency agreement and Presidential approval are being sought.
Systems Analysis has prepared the attached detailed study of the proposal which was summarized for the Committee of Principals last Wednesday. (Presentation to Committee and complete study, Tab C.)6 You should read at least the summary presentation to the Committee. Although not formally agreed to within the Pentagon, it appears to be generally accepted as the point of departure in evaluating the proposal. The basic point is that our forces are so large and diverse that our assured destruction capability is relatively insensitive to most forms of qualitative improvements, cheating, or abrogation scenarios. The most serious threat appears to be the rapid clandestine deployment of a massive, highly effective ABM system; however, even in this case, there would be compensatory actions we could take to maintain a high level of assured destruction.
CIA has prepared the attached SNIE 11-13-68 (Tab D),7 which was approved by USIB, estimating the capabilities of US intelligence to monitor the proposal by national means. This is, in general, an excellent, responsible job, which comes directly to grips with the problem and does not hide behind qualifying uncertainties. You should read it in its entirety. It does not, however, answer all the questions. In particular, I am not satisfied with the treatment of MIRVs which, although not now covered in our proposal, could be subsequently introduced by the Soviets or ourselves. While on balance the judgment may well be correct that we would probably detect a Soviet MIRV test program, I am not yet convinced of the intelligence community’s ability to back up this conclusion in the face of critics fearful of a Soviet clandestine program.
CIA and DIA have also prepared a detailed report (Tab E)8 concerning the critical problem of the possibility of upgrading the Tallinn SAM system into an ABM system unknown to our unilateral intelligence. As I [Page 668] indicated above, the military analysis concluded that this type of development was the most serious threat we would face under the agreement. Unfortunately, this report is somewhat confusing since, although it concludes that the system could be upgraded to have ABM capabilities without our knowledge, it also concludes that the resulting system would have quite limited capabilities and be extremely vulnerable. The problem of defining present and future capabilities of the Tallinn system clearly remains one of the most serious and difficult issues to be dealt with in these talks.
In view of the above, I think we can now count on being able to pre-sent an agreed-upon, forthcoming specific proposal, which has been staffed in considerable depth, in the event the talks begin in the next few weeks. There are, however, still some major tactical issues that will have to be resolved before the initiation of the talks. I believe the most difficult of these will be how we deal with the question of on-site inspections. Although it is agreed that our present proposal could be monitored by unilateral means, it is also obvious that it could be more effectively monitored if there were provisions for on-site inspection of critical facilities or suspicious activities. The JCS has specifically asked that an effort be made to obtain provisions for on-site inspections. How this is to be done in an effective manner in the talks without jeopardizing the prospects of success, since we have certainly implied our proposal would not require on-site inspection, will be a major challenge to the skill of our negotiators.
There are also a number of major unresolved substantive issues which preferably should be resolved before the talks but will certainly have to be resolved early in the negotiations if they appear to be going anywhere. The most important of these is what level of limitation on ABM deployment we wish to achieve. Our present position calls only for a “set and equal number,” and we have not as yet agreed on a preferred level. Consideration is currently being given to the relative merits of 0, 100, 600, and 1000. Closely related is the difficult issue of how to deal with the Tallinn system in defining its present capabilities and controlling future upgrading. Finally, there is the general question of whether the agreement should be in the form of a detailed formal treaty or some form of informal understanding.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Intelligence File, Arms Limitation Talk, Box 11. Top Secret.↩
- Not found. Reference presumably is to a draft of Document 264.↩
- General Wheeler expressed these views in a memorandum to Secretary of Defense Clifford, August 9 (CM-3572-68). (Johnson Library, National Security File, Intelligence File, Arms Limitation Talk, Box 11)↩
- The JCS position was contained in a memorandum from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Secretary of Defense Clifford, August 9 (JCSM-498-68). Robert Ginsburgh, NSC Staff Member, forwarded this paper under cover of an August 10 memorandum to Rostow which summarized the paper. (Ibid.)↩
- Not attached. Seaborg’s notes (Document 266) are the only record of the August 7 meeting found.↩
- Not found.↩
- Document 257.↩
- Dated August 1. (Johnson Library, National Security File, Intelligence File, Arms Limitation Talk, Box 11)↩