Office of the Historian

294. Minutes of a National Security Planning Group Meeting1

Washington, April 15, 1988, 11–11:30 a.m.

SUBJECT

  • Preparations for the Moscow Ministerial

PARTICIPANTS

  • The President
  • The Vice President

  • The Vice President’s Office

    • Craig Fuller

  • State

    • Secretary George P. Shultz
    • Assistant Secretary Rozanne Ridgway
    • Max Kampelman
    • Paul Nitze
    • Edward Rowny

  • Treasury

    • Secretary James Baker

  • Defense

    • Secretary Frank Carlucci
    • Robert G. Joseph

  • Justice

    • Attorney General Edwin Meese

  • Energy

    • William F. Martin

  • CIA

    • Director William Webster
    • Robert Gates

  • JCS

    • Admiral William Crowe
    • VADM Jonathan Howe

  • ACDA

    • Director MG William Burns

  • OSTP

    • Director William Graham

  • White House

    • Howard Baker
    • Kenneth Duberstein
    • Colin Powell
    • Marlin Fitzwater
    • John Negroponte

  • NSC

    • Nelson C. Ledsky
    • Robert Linhard

[Omitted here are discussions not related to START.]

Then Secretary Shultz turned to START and Defense and Space. He noted that the going here was getting very difficult. There were many outstanding issues, and all of them hard. Our problem now was to figure out what to focus on in this environment. It looked like we could focus on the ALCM-counting rule, and on mobiles. There also was the hope to be able to negotiate something to help on SDI deployment, but our discussion this morning was quite discouraging. The Secretary [Page 1329] concluded his summary by emphasizing that we need to work on this some more, and turned the meeting over to Colin Powell.

General Powell stressed that, with respect to START, we had three general parts of the problem which we have to worry about. The first part involved those things that we have agreed from the Washington Summit. This included the 6000 limit on overall weapons, the 1600 limit on SNDVs, and the 4900 limit on ICBMs and SLBMs. These issues were basically resolved; we have to work out the details associated with them. The second part involved issues on which the U.S. Government had a view, but where we need to gain Soviet agreement. Examples of these were 3300 limit on ICBMs, agreement on asymmetry on handling the modernization of heavy ICBMs, an ALCM-counting rule that counts ALCM heavy bombers as 10, basic information on the range bans for ALCMs, and the like. These we needed to negotiate with the Soviets and gain their agreement.

The problems in the third basket were the most difficult. These were ones on which we did not have U.S. internal agreement. One category of these was mobiles. Mobiles were especially difficult for two reasons. First, the Congress had not been clear on our own position and on what is likely to be given Congressional funding. Therefore, it was exceptionally hard to make military judgments supporting arms control in the absence of information about your own program. This is an extremely difficult issue to resolve in Washington.

Another issue, continued General Powell, associated with mobiles was verification. The verification regime was extremely hard to develop because we were breaking complex new ground. We’re struggling here, but working. The second major cluster of problems was on verification itself. The issue of detailed verification was very, very tricky. For example, we still had to resolve the fundamentals with respect to suspect-site inspections, perimeter-portal monitoring, tagging, and limits on non-deployed missiles. The third cluster had to do with SLCMs. General Powell said he was not encouraged that we could solve this problem, especially the verification on SLCMs, anytime soon or before the Summit.

Secretary Shultz informed the President that he had told Shevardnadze it’s not going to be possible, in his opinion, to resolve the verification questions satisfactorily before the Summit. There was just too much verification work to be done. Therefore, unless there was a breakthrough in the interim, Secretary Shultz said, that SLCMs were not going to be ready, and also that we would not have closure by the Summit on mobiles. There was a possibility that we would be able to handle the ALCM issue and the heavy ICBM issue, and in addition, we may have to address some secondary issues like BACKFIRE and the like.

[Page 1330]

General Powell remarked that he would be curious as to whether Secretary Carlucci or the Chairman agreed with all this before moving forward and to talk about Defense and Space. Both Secretary Carlucci and Admiral Crowe responded that they were in complete agreement with Secretary Shultz’s statements. Judge Webster also said he had nothing to add.

General Powell next mentioned that the Defense and Space situation was largely the way the Secretary of State had outlined it. We told the Soviets at the last meeting that we needed to reduce ambiguity in this area. To do so, we suggested letting sensors “run free,” and we may be close to being able to do something in this area. We’re certainly close to being able to articulate our position without hesitation in this area.

General Powell added that the other idea that we’ve had was loosely called “test range in space.” We were examining this now. He then explained to the President that it was like a column of air that’s identified as a test range, and each side confines its systems to that column in such a manner as to show that it is not a threat to anyone. Unfortunately, we needed more study of how to explain this, how to define it precisely, and what the implications were. He then turned to Secretary Carlucci and Admiral Crowe to ask them if this were correct. Secretary Carlucci responded that this was exactly right. Admiral Crowe addressed his remarks to the President and reiterated that this was a potentially good idea. We were studying it, but there were implications for all of our space programs. Therefore, it could not move further without making sure we’ve taken an absolutely careful look.

General Powell then turned to the topic of the upcoming Summit, and said we would be able to demonstrate that we’ve made progress between the Washington Summit and the Moscow Summit. We also needed to position ourselves so that after the Summit there would be a legacy for future actions. And, finally, when we’re done, if nothing else, that there would be left a firm foundation for the President’s successor so that he could pick up the baton and run with it without missing a beat. We also had to work on the public dimension so that it would be clear to all concerned that we were not holding back, but that we were trying to get a good foundation. As the President has said in the past, it’s important that we do it right, not necessarily that we do it fast. Everyone was working very, very hard. As Admiral Crowe had said often, it was not a matter of applying resources; we just needed time for the resources to produce and gather our position together.

The President summed up the meeting by saying that the discussion confirmed that we were on the right track. He concluded by saying that we need to keep pressure on Moscow for improved performance [Page 1331] on human rights and constructive moves on regional conflicts. The meeting then shifted to a discussion of Persian Gulf issues.

  1. Source: Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC: National Security Planning Group (NSPG) Records: NSPG 184. Secret. The meeting took place in the White House Situation Room. The full minutes are printed in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. VI, Soviet Union, October 1986–January 1989, Document 143.↩