107. Minutes of a Verification Panel Meeting1

SUBJECT

  • SALT

PARTICIPANTS

  • Chairman—Henry A. Kissinger
  • State
  • John N. Irwin II
  • Ronald I. Spiers
  • Raymond Garthoff
  • Seymour Weiss
  • Defense
  • David Packard
  • Paul Nitze
  • Gardiner Tucker
  • CIA
  • LTG Robert E. Cushman
  • Carl E. Duckett
  • JCS
  • Adm. Thomas H. Moorer
  • LTG Royal B. Allison
  • Attorney General John N. Mitchell
  • ACDA
  • Gerard C. Smith
  • Spurgeon Keeny
  • Philip J. Farley
  • NSC Staff
  • Dr. K. Wayne Smith
  • Helmut Sonnenfeldt
  • Col. Jack N. Merritt
  • William Hyland
  • R. James Woolsey
  • Jeanne W. Davis

SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS

It was agreed:

  • … that the next major step should be for the Soviets to react to our proposal2 or to table a proposal of their own;
  • … to prepare a list of proposed adjustments to our proposal in three categories: (1) those the Soviets would construe as easing our position; (2) those they would construe as extending our position; and (3) those in the grey area in between;
  • … that the Working Group would: (a) prepare within the week a paper on the question of forward-based aircraft; (b) prepare a paper on transfers of weapons or technology to third countries; (c) consider whether an agreement on accidents could be concluded separately from [Page 351] a general SALT agreement,3 and whether Soviet interest in an agreement on accidents might help get the more comprehensive agreement;4 and (d) consider further the question of notification with respect to provocative attacks;5
  • … to continue to look into improvement of communications with relation to notification on provocative attacks;
  • … State would submit to the Working Group a paper on consultation with our allies.

[Omitted here are minutes of the meeting.]

  1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, NSC Institutional Files (H-Files), Box H–107, Verification Panel Minutes Originals 1969–3/8/72. Top Secret. The meeting was held in the White House Situation Room. A handwritten notation at the top of the first page reads: “Put in my SALT book.”
  2. See footnote 2, Document 104.
  3. In the margin next to point “c” is the handwritten comment: “No!!
  4. At the end of the phrase is the handwritten comment, “Part of this.”
  5. After point “d” the word “misstatement” is handwritten in the margin.