Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume XI, START I

293. Minutes of a Meeting¹

Washington, April 15, 1988, 7:30–9:20 a.m.

SUBJECT

• Meeting with Secretary Shultz and the Joint Chiefs of Staff

PARTICIPANTS

• Admiral William J. Crowe, USN
• General Robert T. Herres, USAF
• General Carl Vuono, USA
• Admiral A. Carl Troust, USN
• General Alfred M. Gray, USMC
• General Monroe Hatch, USAF
• Secretary of Defense Carlucci
• Deputy Secretary of Defense Taft
• General Gordon Fornell, USAF
• Admiral Thomas Fox, USN
• Admiral Jonathan Howe, USN
• Colonel Michael Wheeler, USAF
• Mr. Robert Joseph
• Secretary of State Shultz
• Ambassador Paul Nitze
• Ambassador Edward Rowny
• Ambassador Max Kampelman
• Ambassador Allen Holmes
• General William Burns
• Judge William Webster
• General Colin Powell, USA
• Colonel Robert Linhard, USAF

(The main principals—Shultz, Powell, Crowe, Carlucci, Webster—had a private meeting from 7:30–8:00 a.m. The regular meeting started at 8:00 a.m. in the CJCS Dining Room.)

Minutes

Admiral Crowe: After the session we had on Monday,² Mr. Secretary, we’ve been working very hard on the tasking you had given us, and we are ready to address the questions that you had asked us to address.

—Before we can agree “in principle” on any of the areas that are of concern to us, we need to make sure that we agree internally on detail. This is essential.

—The idea of a “test range in space” is a primary example. We need a lot more work before we can move forward on something like that.

—There’s no way we can reach a START Treaty by May, that is, a Treaty that is verifiable and ratifiable.

Secretary Shultz: So it is your military judgment that there is no chance for a START agreement during that timeframe?

Admiral Crowe: Yes, that’s a corporate position of the Chiefs. It’s a matter of not being able to do the military assessments needed and have confidence in them within that time.

Secretary Shultz: I want to underscore, then, you’re telling me that’s your military judgment, and it’s a matter of reality.

—This leads, of course, to a political concern that we not be portrayed as the country that is not prepared to move to a stabilizing arms control agreement. We must stay on the high ground on this issue.

—I told Shevardnadze that we were prepared to work as hard as possible, but there was just a very, very hard set of issues and, for example, that we can’t see any way of getting a ratifiable SLCM solution by May.

Secretary Carlucci: Once again, George, the Chiefs are saying there’s simply not time for them to make the military judgments that have to be made to support such a Treaty.

General Powell: After April, it will be clear to all concerned that we’re in this situation. I think many will sigh a very deep sigh of relief with respect to that situation.

Secretary Shultz: I’m not sure of that. I think we may have a battle in Europe.

Admiral Crowe: Yes, we need to consider this problem and think about how we limit public affairs damage. However, people are working this problem (i.e., of a START Treaty) very hard, and the people who are working this problem are overextended and almost dead.

What we need to do, perhaps, is to refocus on a few critical issues first. We should focus our best talents on them and resolve them so that we can move forward on a sound basis.

Secretary Shultz: Yes, that’s important. We need to build as a constructive a base for the next Administration as we can.

Admiral Troust: You understand, Mr. Secretary, we really are not stonewalling this. It’s just a matter of being too hard.

[At this point, the Chairman physically poled each of the Service Chiefs, one at a time, and had them verify that that was a unified Chiefs position, and they all did.]

[Admiral Crowe then had his staff pass out a paper³ that summarized the GRIP papers⁴ so that they could be used as a basis of discussion.]

Admiral Crowe: Here’s a paper that in varying levels of detail is simply a listing of the issues raised in the GRIP papers. What we’d like to do is to walk through them issue by issue.

—From our point of view, it’s okay to drop the 3300, but we should, at least, resolve that issue.

Secretary Carlucci: Well, OSD disagrees.

General Hatch: (Vice Chief of the Air Force) We should be able to trade it (dropping 3300) for the Soviets dropping their 1100 sublimit on bomber weapons.

Secretary Shultz: We shouldn’t trade anything to get them to drop the 1100. That 1100 number simply must go.

Secretary Carlucci: The problem with dropping the 3300 is we’re going to generate a problem on the Hill. Ron Lehman knows all about this, and I wish he were here to explain it.

Secretary Shultz: You know I have authority to move on this area. I’ve had it for a very long time. My authority is vested in the mind of the gentleman sitting next to me, and General Powell can confirm this.

General Powell: Yes, that’s exactly right.

Secretary Carlucci: But what would we trade it for?

General Powell: Whatever we can get.

Ambassador Rowny: I’m very opposed to this. There are two things that we need to be able to say to establish the fact that after 50% reductions, we’ll still establish a stable regime: the first is restriction on heavies; the second is the tightest limitations on ICBMs.

Akhromeyev said that he intended not to go beyond 3300. We should press for this. We can get it. Don’t throw in on this now.

Secretary Shultz: I agree, Ed. That’s, of course, where we are.

Admiral Crowe: We don’t oppose lifting the ban on modernization on heavy ICBMs. But that needs to be symmetrical.

Secretary Shultz: Of course, this means that we let them go and obtain for us a right that we know we aren’t going to exercise.

Admiral Crowe: That’s right. But another consideration is we must protect modernization in other areas.

Secretary Carlucci: But you’re saying we want to let them modernize. I thought we had most of this agreed but that we needed some constraints on modernization.

Ambassador Rowny: I don’t agree. Why let them modernize? This doesn’t add to stability. It’s destabilizing. I think we ought to hang tough on this.

Admiral Crowe: Well, we’re not there at all on mobiles.

Secretary Shultz: I thought you had told me early in the week that this area was okay.

Admiral Crowe: No, my staff says that we are rapidly regressing in this area. And I don’t think we can discuss any number until we get the verification worked out.

Secretary Shultz: Shevardnadze talked to me about this over in Geneva.⁵

—He reminded me that he gave us some number (i.e., 800 launchers) for mobiles at the last meeting.

—I explained to him that the number they gave us was on launchers and didn’t mean anything. The number was so high it could be completely contained in any agreement. Shevardnadze said that we will get a number based on warheads in Moscow.

Secretary Carlucci: We can’t do very much here unless we have Congressional agreement. And until we do, we can’t really fall off our ban of mobiles.

Secretary Shultz: We’ve worked ourselves into a totally inconsistent posture.

—The problem is that we really don’t want MIRVed mobile ICBMs for verification reasons. If we miss a few MIRVed launchers, we miss an awful lot of warheads. Also, we all think that single RVs are better not only for verification, but also form a much better basis for stability.

—I recognize the cost arguments.

—However, our problem is that the only mobile ICBM we can conceive carries 10 RVs.

General Hatch: The rail garrison concepts that we have are fairly well developed. Their verification scheme is fairly well developed, and it looks fairly good for verification.

General Herres: Any of these garrison concepts that we’ve got look good for verification, and we ought to apply them to the road mobiles too.

Admiral Crowe: I think the Soviets are ready to come to us on this.

Secretary Shultz: I agree, they are ready to work. The problem is that we’re in disarray, both on our programs and budgets.

General Herres: Many in Congress claim they favor the 1-RV mobile missile, but those who do that have no concern whatsoever with the operational realities of such a system.

Secretary Carlucci: When we talk about concepts of verification and stability, we’re letting arms control concerns drive national security. The President said we would never do that.

General Hatch: We’re working concepts for both rail and road mobile ICBMs, and I felt we were making progress. We will be able to solve this, but we need more time.

Admiral Crowe: The issue is certainly complicated.

—We can work it out.

—We need time to let the solution evolve and we get comfortable with it.

—We can’t continually simply send disagreements over to Colin Powell and ask him to pick one of the options.

—Don’t go for this in April, and don’t go for an exploration of this area in April. Finally, you can’t put a number down for the US-preferred sublimit on mobile ICBM RVs until we understand the verification.

Secretary Carlucci: I suggest that maybe Shultz, Crowe, and myself go up and sit down with the Congressional leaders and talk about the relationship between the mobile ICBMs we have available, the Defense program, and arms control.

Admiral Crowe: I think that’s a very good idea.

Secretary Taft: Don’t go up and just talk to the leadership; talk to the followership too.

Admiral Crowe: The Congress really doesn’t know a lot about the impact on START of their maneuverings on this mobile issue.

Secretary Carlucci: The problem is that some really do, and they are using it for the wrong purposes.

Admiral Crowe: Once again, what we need is to be consistent, and we need to make sure we have all the details worked out.

Let’s move to ALCMs. The Chiefs have been consistent on one other point. We cannot move to 1,000 km range on ALCMs, or below 1500, until we have the distinguishability, the counting rule, and the verification worked out.

General Hatch: I think we made a lot progress here, but we’re just not quite there.

Admiral Crowe: I understand we have problems on the distinguishability paper.⁶

Admiral Fox: Yes, Sir, there are three options in the paper now.

General Powell: If we get the other conditions though, you don’t have a problem with 1,000 range cutoff?

Admiral Crowe: That’s exactly right. It’s just a matter of order. We have to have the other pieces first.

—The other elements basically of the ALCM package are okay for us. I don’t know about for others.

—We must protect the conventional options, especially in light of all the debate on the Hill about futures.

—General Herres, I didn’t talk to you since yesterday. I’m glad you’ve survived alive. How did it go?

General Herres: It went okay overall, but not with Quayle, and we’re not going to be able to make much progress with Danny. They may wind up asking for some confirmation from the Soviets in writing. (General Herres did not mention that some in the Senate would call for a Senate Select Intelligence Committee Hearings on this general subject.)

Secretary Shultz: I did raise this issue after listening to the Senators with Shevardnadze.

—The Senators basically told me don’t raise this with the Soviets until the Senate had a chance to work all this out; however, in discussing it with my Cabinet colleagues, they encouraged me to go ahead and contact the Soviets. I guess I know who I work for. I raised this and went through the Talking Points that we had cleared. Obukov was there. He looked scared as a ghost when he found himself being quoted by the US Government. Shevardnadze and the rest of them, I would say, were totally mystified. They said “where is the problem—we thought we agreed that for any missile in the range, it would be covered if it carried a weapon. Therefore, we don’t understand the problem.”

—I explained the issue to them. I answered that there are some people who think there is ambiguity here and probably do not like that answer and, therefore, they are forcing us to get confirmation that we share this understanding. Shevardnadze said he didn’t see any problem at all, but he will check it out and get back to us. At the same time, I can understand why he would do that. I would probably do the same if I received, out of the blue, this type of a request from the Soviet Union. They’re not sure that they’re not being tricked.

Admiral Crowe: It is comforting for us to think that they think we’re as smart as that.

General Powell: This is a big issue for Senator Byrd.

Secretary Shultz: We’ll get a Memcon on all this. I don’t think we should try for a letter. If we signal that we need a letter, we surrender some negotiating leverage, and we may wind up paying for it.

—I understand that we have no issue on most of the ALCM things.

—We do need a way of distinguishing between ALCMs that are covered, or bombers that are covered, and those that are not.

—I understand the ALCM-counting rule: an ALCM-Heavy Bomber counts 10, even if it carries some gravity bombs or SRAM.

—I think that this is almost unnecessary statement. Once we identify an aircraft as a 10-counter, it’s going to count 10 if it’s totally empty. So why should we be arguing about whether there’s a gravity bomb or SRAM involved.

General Herres: The tricky part is going to be convincing them that the bombers that are not ALCM carriers, and not START counters, are such.

Admiral Crowe: We still need to make sure the detail on distinguishing is done right, and it’s my understanding that there’s an interagency controversy about the counting rule.

—I propose we move on to SLCM.

Admiral Troust: I recognize that there was agreement somewhat at Reykjavik and an agreement in December that we would find a solution to Soviet concerns about SLCMs, but we (the Chiefs) sure don’t like this.

—The Soviets are really showing us that they fear the deterrent value of TLAM-N. There are essentially 200 platforms that could carry SLCMs; half of them surface and half of them submarines.

—We recognize the significant problem that Soviet SLCM poses against us too.

—But we must consider requirements and signals in a post-INF environment. Therefore, our position ought to be we avoid any constraint we can because we can’t verify this stuff.

—We talked about declaratory policies and things like that. They can certainly check all this out with the Congressional Record. I would love to withdraw from this entire area, but I guess we can’t.

Admiral Crowe: We also have a problem with the SLCM experiment. I think all agree we shouldn’t do this.

Secretary Shultz: I think also we are all agreed.

Secretary Carlucci: Yeah, I guess I agree too, but we need to figure how to handle the public relations aspects of our rejection.

Secretary Shultz: Yes, it’s his PR problem because anything that has to do with SLCM has immense appeal for the Nordic countries and the Canadians.

Secretary Carlucci: I understand that there’s a draft⁷ out of the language that could be used for a declaratory statement.

Colonel Linhard: That’s true. An LDX came out late last night from the Department of State, and it will be looked at over the days. After the conversation between the SecState and CJCS on Monday, we understood that the Secretary expressed an interest in seeing if we could agree on what a declaratory statement might look like, so I asked Timbie to go ahead and circulate such a statement to the Support Group. And we have just received the draft. There’s been no conversation; and I don’t think it’s appropriate, since none of principals here, or the staff, has had a chance to look at it, to comment on that, except for the fact that it’s going to be staffed over the weekend. The idea was to see if we could understand what a declaratory would look like before the Secretary and General Powell left for Moscow.

Admiral Crowe: Okay, I think that we can find a declaratory approach that is acceptable. If asked for a number, I think the number ought to probably be about 1500; but I will not be sure how sound this number is until we get a good chance to look at it.

Secretary Shultz: There has to be some place to go in START. They proposed a number of 400 SLCMs. How does all this work?

Admiral Troust: Of course, we ought to watch this closely. They will want platform limitations, and they will want to exclude a lot of other of their missiles that are at sea.

Secretary Shultz: I think we might want to come back to this subject and start avoiding hanging ourselves out too far on simply saying that SLCM limits are not verifiable. As we talked about last time, what we need to say is that they are not verifiable under conditions of acceptable intrusiveness.

Ambassador Rowny: Let me make sure I understand this. Is 1500 the bottom line?

Admiral Troust: I don’t know how to answer that—1500 is basically the summation of the stated requirements for the CINCs, plus 15%.

Ambassador Rowny: I understand, but what I’m asking you is Secretary Shultz identified a 400 number, you identified a 1500 number—obviously, the 1500 number could be considered a starting point. Could you accept 1000? Because if you really wanted 1500, you ought go in higher.

Admiral Troust: I could accept, probably, 1000, but you have understand our program now is more like 800. And we think we need more, but I’m not sure exactly how much more. The 1500 is the compilation of the CINCs plus 15%.

Ambassador Kampelman: What about the Soviet idea of verification by checking on choke points on land?

Admiral Troust: We can’t do that because of the geographic diversity of the SLCM program.

Secretary Shultz: What we need to do is we need to try to position ourselves as the Soviets have done.

—The Soviets have positioned themselves so they’ll have a complete package on the table, and then they will be in a position to challenge us for not being ready.

—For example, their SLCM regime looks very powerful to a layman.

—What I’m trying to do now is to consider how to shift from thinking about trying to get an agreement to thinking about how to get the USG into a position that protects the President from any charge that they’re ready and we’re not. Let’s face it, folks, we don’t have positions on everything.

—I’m concerned that it’s going to be hard for us to come out of this looking good.

—We need to do a lot more on each of these areas, and each is a big problem. As you look at the remainder of issues on the page here, I’m not sure we need to discuss them. Our problem is we don’t have things we are in favor of; we’ve got things that we are afraid of. This is not a good posture. The public here and in Europe love the INF Treaty, and they love the idea of arms control.

—We need to get ourselves into the posture of having a “forward thrust on a sound basis.”

Admiral Crowe: Well, you know, Mr. Secretary, the Commandant, General Gray, says his problem is that it’s hard to explain our position to the good ole boys down at the 7–11.

Admiral Troust: Maybe we can play on the basic mistrust all good Americans have of the Soviets. We ought make the point that we’re not going to get an agreement because they’re not ready to give the store just to get an agreement.

Secretary Shultz: Well, I agree we could do that. We did that on SDI. Our problem is we’re not in that posture now, and we have to move around a lot of furniture to get there.

Admiral Crowe: You got to remember the country’s different inside and outside the Beltway.

General Gray: There’s a difference between a zero-zero treaty and what we’re doing in START.

—After START, both sides will still have enough nuclear weapons to end mankind or alter it significantly, and we have to take extreme care in this.

—By the way, with respect to the Soviet SLCM position, although it’s all on the table, it’s all unacceptable.

Secretary Shultz: I’m not arguing the case of the Soviet position. I’m worried about the case from a public diplomacy point of view. The Soviets do care about public affairs, and they’re making points on this.

General Gray: I think we can sell our position too.

Secretary Shultz: I agree, once we find a position to sell.

—Can we point to any increment of progress in START since the December Summit?

Admiral Troust: Well, we have wide areas of agreement, but we need to resolve a lot of details.

Secretary Carlucci: We’ve reversed the process on INF. The verification and data issues are up front. This is not a write-off—I mean we’re doing something here.

Secretary Shultz: Well, I agree that we’ve had some progress. There’s some push on verification, and we’ve made some progress there.

Admiral Crowe: We have made progress, and we understand the issues a hell of a lot better.

Secretary Shultz: Okay, in April, can we focus on getting the ALCM-counting rule, on dropping the 1100 sublimit, and on keeping or doing what we have to do on the 3300? In other words, try to get these numbers in place so that the focus for the April Ministerial in START is to complete the circle on numbers.

Admiral Crowe: After that, we really need to focus on mobiles and ALCMs by the Summit. We need to get back to them by the Summit, but we have to apply a distinct focus on those two subjects.

General Powell: Okay, then I understand that we can press on the counting rule, the 1100, and the 3300.

General Herres: You can do everything on the list except the distinguishing because I don’t think that’s going to be ready.

Admiral Crowe: That’s right. We support all on the list but the distinguishing between one type of ALCM and another.

General Powell: This should be enough for a major step forward. (At this point Gordy Fornell called me down the table and said there’s new there, is there. And I answered him back to let it drop, and he signalled in an appropriate manner.)

Secretary Shultz: Let’s turn to Defense and Space, if we could.

Admiral Crowe: The sensors in space idea, in principle, is okay. I’d like a little more detail, but we think that’s alright. I can’t see how any one can object to that. It makes sense. On the test range in space idea, however, the debate is absolutely vigorous. The DCI has very strong views. Director Webster, maybe you’d like to make some points.

Judge Webster: This does present problems for us, but I’m not prepared to make any comments on this at this point.

Secretary Shultz: Well, let me see if I understand this. This idea of the test range was proposed by Abrahamson, and what we’d have is an agreed area in space.

—If you are going to test, you would identify in that broader, big area where the test activity is going to be. At the end of the test, you may pick another area wherein the broader area you’re going to test the next time. Isn’t this about right?

Ambassador Rowny: No, I believe that the test range in space idea should just be thought as predictability. All we should do is to tell them where we want to test, and that’s about it. We shouldn’t negotiate where those areas are, and I share Crowe’s view that this is all complex right now.

General Gray: My problem right now with all our proposals in the predictability area is our predictability basically reduces to “why don’t you come on and observe what we’re doing,” and their ideas focus on verification.

Secretary Shultz: All I want is some kind of proposal here. Is there something here?

General Herres: This is a real problem. Even at the concept stage, the issue is too complex, and we could get into trouble. We need to be very careful. We’re going to be bound by what we’re permitted to do. I think we’re much closer on letting space-based sensors off the hook. The test range, however, has a different set of problems. It could be implemented in many ways (e.g., limits on numbers, limits on inclinations of orbits, etc.). But we need more time to study this.

—The problem in the test range area is if we propose the concept, then there is no solution, and we find ourselves in a box canyon with the Indians with the opening.

Ambassador Kampelman: Why is there an asterisk then on the chart that shows we shouldn’t raise sensors in space?

General Herres: I don’t think there’s any problem concentrating on sensors. We ought to make sure we work the language as precisely as we can before we go.

General Powell: Okay, I understand the test range is out for this meeting; sensors are okay.

Admiral Crowe: I know most of this is not very comforting, but that’s the reality of it.

General Powell: I would like to call the attention to all the Cabinet principals that there will be a memo out this morning on Canadian SSNs. We’ll get your vote, and then we’re going to move on the action. So please give some focus to this.

The meeting broke up at about 9:20 a.m.

1. Source: Reagan Library, Linhard Files, JCS Breakfast, April 15, 1988 (2). Secret. Brackets are in the original.
2. April 11. See Document 290.
3. The undated JCS paper listing issues raised in the GRIP paper is in the Reagan Library, Linhard Files, JCS Breakfast, April 15, 1988 (2).
4. Not found.
5. Shultz met with Shevardnadze in Geneva on April 14. The memorandum of conversation is in Foreign Relation, 1981–1988, vol. VI, Soviet Union, October 1986–January 1989, Document 142.
6. Not found.
7. Not found.