300. Memorandum From Secretary of State Rusk to President Johnson1
SUBJECT
- Proposed Joint Statement of Agreed Objectives and Principles affecting the Limitation and Subsequent Reduction in Strategic Armaments
I am enclosing a proposed Joint Statement of Agreed Objectives and Principles affecting the Limitation and Subsequent Reduction in Strategic Armaments.2 It is based on the Soviet draft which we recently received but has been cast in the form of a Joint Statement and has been altered to the minimum extent necessary to meet the five points made in Secretary Clifford’s memorandum concerning it.3 The draft and this memorandum have been discussed with Secretary Clifford and General Wheeler.
Four of these five points have been met completely; one has been met in substance. This latter point is that the first and second principles in the Soviet draft phrase the scope of projected arrangements somewhat differently, the first indicating that they should deal with “offensive and defensive weapons systems” and the second indicating they should deal with “offensive strategic nuclear weapons delivery systems and anti-ballistic missile systems.” The point is made that the second principle would cover manned bombers but not bomber defenses and the suggestion is made that the second principle be dropped. This point is well taken but, consistent with the principle of minimum changes, it has been met by melding the two principles together and using the phrase “offensive and defensive weapons systems” throughout. You should be aware, however, that the phrase being eliminated, “offensive strategic nuclear weapons delivery systems and anti-ballistic missile systems” was used in your July 1 statement as well as the resolutions of the Conference of Non-Nuclear Weapon States and of the General Assembly of the United Nations on this subject.
One point made in Secretary Clifford’s memorandum and incorporated in the attached draft has implications of which you should be aware. This is the point that focuses on the fact that the third principle in [Page 759] the Soviet draft contains the statement that “… equal security should be assured for both sides.” The point is made (which closely relates to the first point in the DOD memorandum) that the intent may be to provide for substantial adjustments in the strategic arms balance. The DOD memorandum takes the position that, in view of the fact that our forces are not symmetrical and that our security needs differ, we should eliminate the word “equal” on the grounds that it is tautological because the notion of security being “equal” is involved in the very concept of security itself. Perhaps a related reason for the DOD objection is a general objection to the word “equal” because of overtones of “equality” or “parity.”
Based on a conversation he has had with Ambassador Dobrynin, General Wheeler is concerned that the Soviets are attempting to use this principle in order to obtain agreement, in principle, on a non-obtainable symmetry (bomber for bomber, sub for sub, missile for missile, warhead for warhead).4 The “equal” has been eliminated in order to smoke them out to see if that is what they are up to.
In putting the language back up to the Soviets with the “equal” eliminated, we might be running a risk that the Soviets would reply by pointing out that paragraph 5 of the McCloy-Zorin Joint Statement of Agreed Principles for Disarmament Negotiations, September 20, 1961, states that “all measures of general and complete disarmament should be balanced so that at no stage in the treaty could any State or group of States gain military advantage and that security is ensured equally for all.” This might weaken somewhat the argument based on tautology or redundancy. But read in its entirety, the phrase “so balanced that neither side could obtain any military advantage” is sufficiently comprehensive so that the Soviets might be trying to get something else with the concept of “equal security”, and I am not at all sure that we should regard a 1961 formulation as controlling.
The last paragraph on page three of the draft Joint Statement that containing agreement that special delegations should meet promptly to work out an agreement, has been put in brackets. This is to bring to your attention the concern that some have felt that it might be difficult to live up to such an agreement in light of the limited time available between now and January 20th, 1969. This is a matter on which I would, of course, defer to your judgment.
- Source: Johnson Library, Clifford Papers, Soviet Union, Talks on Reduction of Strategic Nuclear Weapons, Box 17. Top Secret. An attached December 24 memorandum from Adrian Fisher to Clifford notes that Secretary Rusk still believed “that the phrase ‘equally’ should be inserted in the second principle and will doubtless so indicate to the President when the matter is discussed today.”↩
- Not attached; for text, see Document 301.↩
- Document 288.↩
- Perhaps a reference to Wheeler’s conversation with Dobrynin on August 5; see Document 265.↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩