Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume I, Foundations of Foreign Policy

217. Action Memorandum From the Chairman of the Policy Planning Council (Rodman) to Acting Secretary of State Armacost¹

Washington, November 9, 1984

SUBJECT

• Foreign Policy in the Term Ahead

Attached is a Hill-McFarlane² memorandum forwarding our comments on the package of Forward Look materials passed to us by the NSC staff.

We have added some new tabs on the NATO conventional forces initiative and also on international educational exchanges. Second, we have added a reference to the fact that you will want to discuss negotiating initiatives (Central America, Mideast, Southern Africa) when you see the President. Third, we have offered some marginal comments on the draft Shultz/McFarlane memorandum and the various tabs.

Recommendation:

That you approve the Hill-McFarlane memorandum attached.³

Attachment

Draft Memorandum From Secretary of State Shultz and the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (McFarlane) to President Reagan⁴

Washington, undated

SUBJECT

• Foreign Policy in the Term Ahead

We have spent the last few months analyzing the fundamental choices and issues ahead in your second term. While tapping the best minds in the government, we have also reached out to thoughtful experts on the outside—leading retired senior military officers, former corporate executives, leading strategic analysts and others.

Although the challenges are formidable, the opportunities are larger still. Capitalizing on them will not, for the most part, require major changes of direction. In many areas, the imperative is simply to stay the course, though staying the course will at times require boldness. Other areas are now ripe for new departures and initiatives.

I. The International Environment

The international environment and political realities we face at the outset of your second term are different—in both positive and negative ways—from 1981.

— Then our job was largely defined by problems we inherited (like the need for a defense build-up or for follow-through on INF) and by events that had been brewing for some time (Central America, Poland, the Lebanon War). Now we have a greater opportunity to take the initiative.⁵

— Then resources for defense were abundant (DoD authorizations are up over 40% since FY80). Now there is a need for more careful management and trade-offs among desirable programs.

— Then the Soviets had experienced a decade of considerable foreign policy successes; they would have been uncompromising even without a succession crisis. Now adverse Soviet trends are clearer, and even a transitional leadership may have to reengage US in serious negotiations.⁶

— Then it was possible to defer foreign policy initiatives through the first year of your term to get the economy back on track. Now many issues demand early attention;⁷ to take advantage of the popular support you clearly enioy.

II. Taking the Initiative

We have assembled in the following tabs an integrated set of policies for you to consider that take into account the changed international and domestic environment and the opportunities and problems that have been created.⁸ We begin with a discussion of the U.S.-Soviet relationship, but in a sense all of the tabs deal with the U.S.-Soviet relationship, and develop ways that we can build leverage and generate constructive solutions to the problems we face. We regret the length of the assembled tabs, but we could find no other way to give adequate consideration to our foreign policy agenda and to discuss our recommended policies. Our recommendations include:

— An approach to arms control and strategic modernization that enables you to shift fundamentally the nature of the nuclear competition and leaves future generations more secure, through lower levels of arms and a more stable strategic balance.⁹

— A dramatic State of the Union initiative to rebuild security assistance to levels equal to the Eisenhower years.

— A new approach to defense procurement that will force the Soviets to spend their money in ways that will be less harmful to us.

— New institution-building in the Pacific, and a parallel push using the ideas of American industry to plant the seeds of economic resurgence in Europe.¹⁰

Finally, we have—as we promised in our original memo last summer—been sensitive to trade-offs and priorities.¹¹ We know our budget is limited, as is your own time. We cannot do everything at once. We can, however, do much if we are prepared to move quickly while our assets are at their peak.

III. Political Implementation

How we unveil these policies is of course immensely important.¹² Having just won an impressive reelection victory, your ability to shape events is quite high.¹³ The time available for exploiting this advantage, however, will be brief. Competing political forces will be jockeying to develop their own alternatives in an effort to capture public attention. A durable bipartisan consensus will be essential for sustaining the approach we have outlined. It will fall to us to reach back out to those who are essential for building this consensus.¹⁴ While it is important to indicate a willingness to listen to (and accommodate) the views of others in building a new national security strategy, we must define the goals and the broad solutions so as to set specific milestones and make recommendations for the best use of your time, travel and congressional involvement. We cannot allow it to appear as though we are sitting back allowing others to supply different answers.¹⁵

In the sections that follow, we propose several bold approaches to the problems and opportunities that you will be facing. In some cases, you will want to commission additional studies that explore these approaches even more. Others, we believe, you may wish to approve in the near term, both because the intellectual consensus in favor of them is better developed and because it is important that we not miss opportunities that could evaporate. Still others involve quiet, low-key actions that you can initiate by means of discussions with members of your Cabinet.¹⁶

George Shultz and I would like to meet with you on Wednesday, November 14 to discuss how to carry this program further.¹⁷ In order to preserve your options, we clearly should keep additional discussion of these strategies limited to your very senior advisers. We are not asking you to make any immediate decisions now, but as you read the tabs you can be thinking of where you:

— Agree with the strategy, and want to implement it quickly;¹⁸

— Disagree with the strategy;

— Agree with the basic strategy, but want to discuss its specific components and perhaps commission National Security Study Directives to investigate the ideas and options you wish to see explored further.

1. Source: Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/P Files, Memoranda and Correspondence from the Director of the Policy Planning Staff to the Secretary and Other Seventh Floor Principals: Lot 89D149, S/P Chrons 11/1–15/84. Secret; Sensitive. Cleared by Armacost (P). McKinley initialed the memorandum and wrote “10 Nov.” He sent the memorandum to Armacost under a November 10 handwritten note, writing: “Mike, Charlie said the Secretary was content for you to send this over this a.m. if it looks OK. The Secretary has the c.o. paper from Bud. He wants to reply orally and will do so when Bud returns to Washington. Brunson.” (Ibid.) See also David Hoffman, “Reagan to Get Agenda on Foreign Policy: 3rd World Aid Plan Included in Options,” Washington Post, November 10, 1984, p. A24.
2. Not attached. A copy of the November 9 memorandum from Hill to McFarlane is in the Reagan Library, Donald Fortier Files, Subject File, Policy Planning (Second Term) I: [11/15/84–11/15/84].
3. Armacost initialed the “Approve” recommendation.
4. Secret. No drafting information appears on the memorandum. Printed from an uninitialed copy. An unknown hand wrote “State Dept. editorial suggestions” in the top right-hand corner of the memorandum and drew a box around it.
5. An unknown hand wrote “Insert A” in the right-hand margin after this paragraph and drew a left-pointing arrow to the margin between this and the subsequent paragraph. The text for A, which is typewritten on a separate page inserted into the memorandum, reads: “—Then there were lingering doubts about American will (in the wake of the Iranian hostage crisis). Now there can be no doubt about the vigor and boldness of US leadership and the degree of our recovery from the Vietnam syndrome.”
6. An unknown hand inserted “the” between “reengage” and “US” in this sentence and placed a checkmark in the right-hand margin.
7. An unknown hand deleted the period in the semicolon, changing it to a comma, and placed an editorial deletion mark in the right-hand margin.
8. Attached but not printed are undated tabs entitled “Soviet-American Relations,” “Eastern Europe and Differentiation,” “An Initiative to Strengthen NATO’s Conventional Forces,” “Better Defense for Less,” “A New Security Assistance Strategy,” “Pacific Basin,” “International Educational Exchange,” and “U.S. Economic Strategy Toward the Third World.”
9. An unknown hand wrote “Insert B” in the right-hand margin next to this point and drew a left-pointing arrow to the margin between this and the subsequent point. The text for B, which is typewritten on a separate page inserted into the memorandum, reads: “—An Alliance-wide effort to improve NATO conventional forces, in order to strengthen Western defense, reduce reliance on nuclear weapons, and meet Congressional concerns about burden-sharing. —Diplomatic strategies for Central America, the Middle East, and Southern Africa, as our strong position in each of these areas may begin to bear fruit in the coming months. (These negotiating issues are not covered at tabs. Secretary Shultz will want to discuss them more fully with you directly.)”
10. An unknown hand underlined “a parallel push using the ideas of American industry to plant the seeds of economic resurgence in Europe” and wrote: “Is there a paper on this?” in the right-hand margin. Below this, the same unknown hand wrote “Insert C” and drew a left-pointing arrow to the margin between this and the subsequent paragraph. The text for C, which is typewritten on the same separate page as B above (see footnote 9), reads: “—A possible new initiative to give impetus to international educational and other people-to-people exchange programs, which have a significant payoff (in terms of good will, understanding, and contacts) for the United States.”
11. See Document 196 and the attachment thereto.
12. An unknown hand placed a checkmark in the right-hand margin.
13. An unknown hand added “Now that you have” at the beginning of this sentence, bracketed and struck through the word “Having,” and wrote “(Grammar)” in the left-hand margin next to the sentence.
14. An unknown hand bracketed and struck through the word “back” at this point, and placed a checkmark in the right-hand margin next to this sentence.
15. An unknown hand placed parentheses around and struck through the word “for,” at this point, and placed a checkmark in the right-hand margin next to this sentence.
16. An unknown hand placed a dash between the words “low” and “key” and placed a checkmark in the right-hand margin next to this sentence.
17. The President met with Shultz and McFarlane in the Oval Office on November 14 from 1:30 until 2:45 p.m. (Reagan Library, President’s Daily Diary) No memorandum of conversation has been found. In a personal diary entry for November 14, the President wrote: “A long meeting with Sec. Shultz. We have trouble. Cap & Bill Casey have views contrary to George’s on S. Am., the middle East & our arms negotiations. It’s so out of hand George sounds like he wants out. I cant let that happen. Actually George is carrying out my policy. I’m going to meet with Cap & Bill & lay it out to them. Wont be fun but has to be done.” (Brinkley, ed., The Reagan Diaries, vol. I, January 1981–October 1985, p. 396)
18. An unknown hand changed the capitalization of the first word of this and the subsequent two points from upper to lower case and placed checkmarks in the right-hand margin next to all of the points.