Office of the Historian

225. Memorandum From Donald Fortier, Stephen Rosen, and Stephen Sestanovich of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (McFarlane)1

Washington, January 11, 1985

SUBJECT

  • State of the Union—Foreign and Defense Policy2

In the attached outline of the State of the Union3 we’ve tried to do three things:

—
Highlight the key issues that will dominate our legislative agenda (MX, SDI, contras). There are questions, in the Congress and elsewhere, about the President’s commitment to all three, and if he intends to protect them he has to indicate their importance to him right off.
—
Show how our policy hangs together as a whole. Above all, this means emphasizing that, even during arms talks, we have to counter Soviet policy in the Third World. A good strong statement on Afghanistan would undo continuing concern that the President is beginning to de-emphasize this issue.
—
Identify some broad “legacy” themes. Rather than state our goal as “Improving East-West relations”, we speak of “Lifting the threat of nuclear war.” And rather than “Strengthening alliances”, we say “Extending democracy.” These are familiar themes with which the President is comfortable, and they give a more positive, less anti-Soviet cast to his proposals.

Finally, we think the use of Yalta is important and should be retained. It helps us to get the World War II anniversaries off on the right foot—evoking the possibility of Soviet-American cooperation without seeming to ignore the Soviet actions that caused the Cold War.

Bob Linhard has done a more extensive defense section. We have tried to compress Bob’s work, without changing much substance. In the event you wish to compare, or go with a longer version, we have attached Bob’s work at Tab II.4 We have also gotten comments from all of the senior directors.

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Last year only two and a half pages, out of a fifteen page speech, were devoted to national security policy.5 Hopefully, we will do better this time around. The key, though, is to avoid giving the speechwriters too much, so that they are unable to distinguish between our main points and our rhetoric. In passing this formally to the speechwriters, you should probably re-emphasize what it is critical to have preserved.

Recommendation

That you forward the attachment at Tab I to the Speechwriters.6

  1. Source: Reagan Library, Donald Fortier Files, Subject File, Policy Planning (Second Term) I: [01/01/1984–06/12/1984]. Secret. Sent for action. Rosen initialed for both Fortier and Sestanovich.↩
  2. The President delivered his State of the Union address on February 6; see Document 231.↩
  3. Not attached.↩
  4. Not attached.↩
  5. See Document 177 and footnote 2 thereto and Document 184.↩
  6. McFarlane did not approve or disapprove the recommendation.↩