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

304. Minutes of a National Security Planning Group Meeting¹

Washington, May 23, 1988, 2–3 p.m.

SUBJECT

• US Options for Arms Control at the Summit

PARTICIPANTS

• The President
• Mr. Gregg Fuller (Office of the Vice President)

• State

  • Secretary George Shultz
  • Ambassador Max Kampelman
  • Ambassador Rozanne Ridgway
  • Ambassador Edward Rowny

• Defense

  • Secretary Frank Carlucci
  • Ambassador Ronald Lehman

• Treasury

  • Secretary James Baker, III

• OSTP

  • William Graham

• CIA

  • Judge William Webster
  • Mr. Jay Castillo

• White House

  • Chief of Staff
  • Kenneth Duberstein
  • Colin L. Powell
  • John Negroponte
  • Marlin Fitzwater

• NSC

  • Robert E. Linhard

• Energy

  • Secretary John Herrington

• JCS

  • Admiral William Crowe
  • Admiral Jonathan Howe

• OMB

  • Director James Miller

Minutes

The meeting opened at 2:02 p.m. The President opened the meeting as follows:

—This is our last chance to meet as a group before my final meeting with General Secretary Gorbachev.

—Last week we discussed areas other than arms reduction.² Today, I want to focus on START, Defense and Space, and the ABM Treaty.

—I need your advice in two areas.

—First, what should we try to accomplish in Moscow to further our START and Defense and Space goals?

—Second, what are we going to do about what George Shultz referred to at our last meeting as a “time bomb?”³ I mean, of course, the ABM Treaty Review.

—We’ve been putting off decisions in this area, but we can’t do so forever. I need your advice on how to proceed.

—Looking to the future, even though we weren’t able to have START and Defense and Space treaties ready for signature at this meeting, we musn’t stop our efforts.

—I want to leave as a legacy as complete and coherent an arms reduction position as I can.

General Powell: We’ve discussed a number of the issues in the last two NSPGs. Today, we’ll focus only on those arms control issues where additional discussion is needed.

—Among them the ABM Treaty Review is extremely important. As the President has said, it is a time bomb.

—First, procedural points. We agreed that there would only be a START/Defense and Space Working Group at the Summit—no other arms control Working Groups.

—Well, let’s start in on cruise missiles as our first substantive issue. Up to now, we’ve been insisting on a discounting rule in which we would attribute 10 ALCMs to every ALCM heavy bomber under the START counting rules. The Soviets want our bombers to count with a higher number. Lately, they have been hinting that they may accept operationally realistic loads (i.e., smaller numbers), if we would accept a different number for each type of bomber associated with ALCM carriage. For example, right now, most agencies would agree that if the Soviets would accept 10 or less for the US B–52 bomber, we could accept six or more for the BEAR-H bomber and eight or more for the BLACKJACK. I think that’s the way, Mr. President, this issue plays out. Perhaps Secretary of Defense Carlucci would like to start the discussion.

Secretary Carlucci: The basic problem that we have is we have no loading information at all on the BLACKJACK bomber. We prefer all be counted as 10, but we are not opposed to the other figures.

We prefer to count 10 across the board for all ALCM-carrying bombers. We’re just not certain that eight is the right number for the BLACKJACK.

The President: If we count six and eight, wouldn’t that give them somewhat of an advantage? I mean, couldn’t they load a hell of lot more on their bombers than those numbers?

Admiral Crowe: Mr. President, we’re doing the same thing.

The President: You mean we can, in fact, carry 20 on our B–52H?

Admiral Crowe: Yes, we can.

Secretary Carlucci: Mr. President, we need discounting to avoid bumping into the 6000 limit.

Secretary Shultz: I don’t have any expertise on how to load a bomber, but I understand that by counting six for BEAR–H and eight for the BLACKJACK, we use parallel procedures like our counting 10 for the B–52H. In other words, Mr. President, I think they’re fair numbers.

Secretary Carlucci: I think that would be okay if you want to go that way.

The President: Well, we should recognize that we do this kind of thing better than they do. It’s an area of natural superiority, isn’t it?

Admiral Crowe: Yes, it is, and they know it is. So I’m not sure that they’re going to give us this. But certainly, the numbers we’ve just talked about have an element of fairness.

Secretary Carlucci: Ron Lehman thinks that we need more flexibility for the B–52 so that we can change the number when we go to the B–1.

General Powell: General Burns, Ambassador Nitze, do you have any comments? (Neither offered any.)

Ambassador Rowny: I think what we ought do, Mr. President, if they say that they want six and eight for their bombers and will give us 10 for ours, we ought grab it and run.

Secretary Carlucci: That’s okay by me.

Admiral Crowe: That’s okay by me too.

General Powell: Okay, let’s now move to mobile ICBMs. The decisions on mobile ICBMs verification are pending. If they’re ready for the Summit, and I believe they will be, the issue will be what number to use with them. Some feel that we should not propose any number associated with mobile ICBMs until the Soviets accept our complete verification package. Therefore, only after accepting such package should we talk about either a range of numbers like 500–700 or a single-point number like 700 or a number that’s imbedded in the 1540 heavy warhead limit. Others feel we should put down the numbers at the Summit so that we can have a complete and coherent position.

Secretary Shultz: I guess I’m taking the negotiator’s point of view, kind of in between. We have not laid down our verification regime which we should get down as quickly as we can and then have a back and forth on verification. If it looks agreeable to the Soviets, then we ought let the negotiator use his judgment when he puts a number down. We need to emerge from the Summit with a clear statement of what we’re for. We should not give them a number until the thrust is clear that the regime we propose will make it. But we can’t wait until we’ve got it all marked down before we begin to talk numbers.

Secretary Carlucci: I agree. Let’s lay down our verification regime first before going any further, and certainly before putting down numbers. From our point of view, Mr. President, we don’t know if we’re going to have mobile ICBM’s because of the Congress. The worst of all worlds would be to agree to let them have mobiles and then not get a US mobile program ourselves. Therefore, it’s very important that we get the verification first.

Secretary Shultz: You know, I took it from the remarks made by General Welch last Friday⁴ that the issue is whether they will accept the basing mode scheme we have in mind, and the material that Bill circulated⁵ (Bill Webster, the DCI) shows high marks for being able to verify deployed systems.

Secretary Carlucci: Yes, that’s true, but the problem is in non-deployed systems.

Admiral Crowe: I think a lot of our verification is generally in good shape except for the area of suspect-site inspection.

General Powell: I think the whole package will be there shortly. OSD, as I understand it, wants to complete the entire package and get Soviet acceptance, not just have a feel that the Soviets think the package is pretty good. State, on the other hand, wants to have the package presented, and if there’s any receptivity on the Soviets’ part, put down the number so that we have a complete numerical picture.

Secretary Shultz: I hope, Frank, that you don’t mean by complete that they must sign up to all the language we put down.

Secretary Carlucci: No, all we want them to do is to agree on the type regime—just to agree with us on the fundamental points.

Secretary Shultz: We agree. Let’s just stop the discussion there.

The President: Will someone tell me why we wouldn’t be better off with no mobiles? It seems like their mobiles are bigger than ours and they have a bigger program.

Secretary Shultz: If we have no mobiles, then we’re only going to have fixed silos. Fixed silos can be taken out by accurate weapons. They’re an invitation to a first strike.

Secretary Carlucci: You know, Mr. President, we don’t advocate launch on warning, but they do have two types of mobiles ready to deploy and we have none. They’ve out done us. It would be no good to endorse mobiles if we had none for ourselves.

Secretary Shultz: We must be able to deploy what we want to deploy under a treaty or no arms control makes sense.

Admiral Crowe: We do have mobiles now, Mr. President, at sea, and if fixed ICBM silos become very vulnerable, it would be more of a problem for them than for us because they have a higher percentage of their forces in ICBMs.

Secretary Shultz: I agree. They’re going to mobiles no matter what we do.

Judge Webster: I agree. They are going to mobiles.

General Powell: Except perhaps the SS–24 plant explosion, will settle them down a little bit. (General laughter.) Whatever the number, should it be within the 1540 or not?

Secretary Carlucci: This has always been our position. We have always taken the position that they should be forced to trade off between mobiles and heavies.

Secretary Shultz: No, no, no, that’s not right. We had a number of 1650 at one time and we dropped it. You know, we want to get 50% reduction from heavies; we shouldn’t come out with that as an alternative to mobiles.

Secretary Carlucci: I agree, so let’s put the number in as a subset for the 1540.

Secretary Shultz: No, no, no, 1540 should be heavy only.

Secretary Carlucci: From the beginning, we said we wanted to force the Soviets to trade heavies for mobiles.

General Powell: I can see that this is not as much of a subordinate issue as I thought. Chiefs, do you have anything you would like to add?

Admiral Crowe: No.

General Powell: The Chiefs are open-minded about this. If we get it in the 1540 number, that’s okay, but if not, that’s okay too.

The President: Tell me again, the 1540 number is 1540 warheads, right?

Secretary Shultz: That’s right—1540 warheads on heavy missiles.

Secretary Baker: Treasury agrees with the Joint Chiefs.

Ambassador Rowny: We need to get the heavies. If we get a flight-test ban for future heavy flight tests, that’s okay; if not, let’s put the mobiles under the 1540. That would force them to get rid of heavies that way.

General Burns: The whole mobile issue can be looked at as a litmus test to whether the Soviets really want a START treaty soon. If we get a lot of interest in our mobile verification scheme, and serious interest, then we’re probably on course; if not, that’ll give us a good indicator that the Soviets are not serious about trying to get a treaty soon. 1540 is a good number to play with; maybe we ought see what the traffic will bear.

The President: In Moscow, then, the key will be how the Soviets react to our verification scheme. We’ll need to make some decisions in Moscow once we see their reaction.

Secretary Carlucci: Yes, we could pick a number or a range of numbers.

General Powell: Mr. President, you summarized correctly. As for range, I guess the numbers would be 500–700. Let’s turn to Defense and Space.

—We still need to complete our position on Defense and Space—both on sensors and on testing in space.

—On testing in space, State basically takes the position that this idea ought to be negotiated with the Soviets, whereas OSD thinks it should be a unilateral declaration.

—Secretary Carlucci, would you like to start on this subject?

[After some confusion about what the testing issue was about, the Secretary focused on sensors.]

Secretary Carlucci: We favor a unilateral declaration on sensors vice negotiations about them.

Secretary Shultz: You know, this discussion highlights the fact that we can’t get straight internally what we want. How can we possibly negotiate with the Soviets when we can’t even articulate to each other what our position is in a meeting like this?

Secretary Carlucci: We know what we want. We want sensors to run free. We have language to that effect.

General Powell: But we need to pin down both the sensors, Frank, and testing in space.

Admiral Crowe: The idea of sensors has a lot of appeal, but we must be careful about capturing unintended effects. We don’t want the Soviets crawling all over our space vehicles. Right now, we don’t have any definition of sensors; we need to work on that. And we certainly can have no discussion of testing in space until we’ve gotten the sensors nailed down.

The President: You’re very concerned about sensors—about the distinction between sensors and weapons. You don’t have any idea of putting nuclear weapons in space, do you?

Admiral Crowe: No, I’m just talking about regular weapons, like kinetic-kill vehicles. But we still have a problem with sensors, because some sensors can turn into weapons if you get the power up high enough.

Dr. Graham: You know, Mr. President, one way to look at it is you can say let’s not look at anything on the ground, you can look at anything you want in space, and what you should look for is to make sure that whatever is up there isn’t shooting down ballistic missiles.

Ambassador Rowny: I tried to solve this, and I recommend to you Option C.⁶

Judge Webster: Option C may capture some of my intelligence assets.

Ambassador Rowny: Oh no, it only refers to things in the ABM Treaty terms—it makes no definitions, just explanations, but in a backhanded way it lets you know what it means.

Secretary Shultz: Once again, this conversation confirms my overall view—we work hard to try to understand what we want, but we have not yet found something we’re ready to put down on paper and sign. The only thing we can do right now is listen and keep our options open and look for the right opening. We’re not in a position to state anything.

General Powell: We may still to be able to solve the sensors issues prior to the meeting, but probably not the testing issue.

Secretary Carlucci: Well, I think we’re in a defensive crouch. We also have to deal with the Soviets and with Congress.

Secretary Shultz: Yes, Mr. President, it’s kind of hard, because we’re trying to talk the Soviets into giving us what the Congress will not give us and they know it. At the same time, as we work on that problem, among ourselves we can’t agree on how to put down an explanation of what the hell we want.

General Powell: The Soviets may come at us again with a short D&S treaty, tracking the Washington Joint Statement, but still maintaining all the ambiguity.

Secretary Shultz: You know, we could tell them, as we did before, that the Washington Joint Statement is okay, but at the same time, not only do we agree on the language, but we also agree that we don’t agree on what the language means. Therefore, it does not settle anything. We probably want to settle the issue on supreme national interest and on duration.

General Powell: You probably won’t be able to solve the supreme national interest issue until all the other elements, including duration, are solved.

Secretary Carlucci: It’s not clear to me that you want to solve duration until everything else is solved.

General Powell: Let’s turn to the issue of the ABM Treaty Review. The issue here is should we do it on the margins of the Summit?

Secretary Shultz: As you know, Mr. President, this Review must start by 3 October. The Soviets say we ought to get going and get it out of the way. The Review has one major problem, the K-Radar. Other than that, we’ve been reviewing the Treaty for the past three years. So the question is where do we want to be at the end of the Review? I would think that we want to be at the following position.

—The K-Radar is a violation, and it should be destroyed. But they stopped construction on it and they said that if we sign a D&S treaty, they will take it down.

—I also believe that getting out of the ABM Treaty this year is not in our interest. That’s what we’ve been told by the Joint Chiefs.

—So where we want to be at the end of the year is basically where we are right now. There’s certainly no material breach call; that would end the ABM Treaty. One way to do this at the Summit is to simply say that we’ve been discussing the ABM Treaty for three years, so we’ll have a short meeting on the margins and clear the books.

—If we don’t do it at the Summit, we need to put a review process in motion, I’ve got to tell you, it’s not likely that they’re going to destroy the Krasnoyarsk radar.

Secretary Carlucci: I’m here to tell you, George, that if you come out of the Review with the K-Radar not down, and you don’t declare a material breach, you’ll never see a START treaty. There can be no review until the K-Radar is down, or if we do have such a review, you’ve got to call a material breach. And calling a material breach is not the end of the treaty.

General Powell: Helms will put great pressure on us on the Hill to conduct the Review.

Secretary Carlucci: I would prefer to kick it down the street a bit.

Ambassador Rowny: I think what we ought to do is let him hear from the President. You know, he may tear the thing down once he hears our strongest card; once we have you, Mr. President, talk to him face to face to tell him that it’s got to come down.

The President: Well, the K-Radar isn’t the only issue. I have questions on other radars, don’t I?

[Several principals said “Gomel.”]

Secretary Shultz: How can you claim a material breach and still retain the ABM Treaty? And by the way, when we call material breach for that, they’ll call a tit-for-tat at Fylingdales.

Secretary Carlucci: Well, but we can take compensatory measures.

General Powell: There’ll be a lot of pressure on the Hill to do a hell of a lot more than just take compensatory measures.

Secretary Shultz: There isn’t going to be any change in the current situation by the time we get to September or October. Why do you want to talk to yourself in that environment? All that’s going to happen is that we are going to be perceived as walking away from the ABM Treaty then.

Admiral Crowe: Tell me, what’s the difference between destroying and simply keeping the K-Radar in a condition where it won’t work?

General Powell: Our position is that the K-Radar has to come down. We need to have it come down because it is a violation, and in order to put us back into compliance with respect to the ABM Treaty.

Dr. Graham: Mr. President, it would take them a lot of time to rebuild the radar, but less time for them to re-equip it.

Secretary Shultz: Yes, time is essential—and an essential consideration when we picked this item in negotiating the Treaty. The feeling was that time would give warning.

Ambassador Nitze: At the time we negotiated the Treaty, we expected it would take five to 10 years to build this kind of radar. You can equip one in a much shorter time. So you’d lose the breakout protection that’s involved in the radar. On the other hand, if we don’t conduct a review before the 3rd of October, we ourselves will be in violation of the Treaty.

Secretary Carlucci: Well, that’s just a technical violation.

Secretary Shultz: Do we want to handle this at the Summit? The question is do we want to handle this at the Summit; and, if not, then what do we do?

Secretary Carlucci: The point, George, is that you’re prepared to come out of the Review without taking the K-Radar down and with no declaration of material breach, and I simply am not there.

Secretary Shultz: I disagree. What would you do?

Secretary Carlucci: I’d take compensatory measures.

Secretary Shultz: What do you mean—more money on SDI?

Secretary Carlucci: Well, that’s one way to go.

Secretary Shultz: Fat chance.

Judge Webster: Couldn’t we do something with confidence-building?

Secretary Shultz: Yes, we’ve tried that in the Predictability Protocol, trying to work something on confidence-building that might provide an out, but let’s not kid ourselves. The Soviets know they have a violation on their hands. It’s just a matter of how to handle it.

Admiral Howe: Well, the way I see this, the question is do we do this Review at the Summit, early thereafter in, perhaps, late-June, or later in September or October. But before you can decide the timing, you’ve got to ask yourselves if the K-Radar is still there, what do we do about material breach—how do we handle the K-Radar. You have to answer that question first.

Secretary Shultz: You know, we all agreed that there would be no START treaty until the K-Radar is down. That’s something we should point to.

Admiral Crowe: You know, it’s strange that the K-Radar and START are linked. How about another option? Couldn’t both sides just decide to change the dates of the Review—maybe slip it for a year by mutual consent?

Ambassador Rowny: I say let the President take his run at Gorbachev and see if they take it down, and then decide what we do after that.

Secretary Shultz: I guess we could try for a one-year delay.

Secretary Carlucci: No you can’t. You would leave the President completely politically vulnerable. We’ve already got dozens of letters from Jesse Helms on why we aren’t conducting the Review.

Admiral Crowe: So what.

Secretary Shultz: We all agree that it’s a violation. What we’re struggling with is how to handle it.

General Powell: Mr. President, we owe you a recommendation. But this, at least, has given you a good feel for the debate on this issue.

—I’d like to turn to one final issue, and that’s Nuclear Testing.

—Right now, we have two documents that we’re going after—the JVE (Joint Verification Experiment) agreement and the PNET (Peaceful Nuclear Explosion Treaty).

—The JVE, Mr. President, is 167 pages long and 37 annexes in all. So far it’s under control, but I need each of the Cabinet members to pay very close attention to the input, because if they don’t, we’re never going to finish this treaty in time for you to sign it.

—For example, I’ve had at least one agency, recently, that’s given me two absolutely conflicting inputs. You have to know that I’m going to be absolutely vicious in getting this treaty complete. So please review the inputs that we get on testing from your agencies, and make sure they represent your views.

—On PNET, we have two problems. One is that the articles are just starting to come back to Washington for review. So we need your cooperation in reviewing them; and secondly, the Soviets have suggested that rather than use CORRTEX on any shot above 50 kilotons, we use CORRTEX on all shots. But we know that CORRTEX is not useful on lower range. We’re going to have to sort this one out.

—Finally, in INF, we’re driving ahead. Right now, the current minor flap is on Article VI, paragraph 2, where some of our friends want a letter on this subject.

—If there are no other questions, that will conclude the meeting.

The meeting ended at about 2:50 p.m.

1. Source: Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC: National Security Planning Group (NSPG) Records, NSPG 190, 05/32/1988. Secret. The meeting took place in the Situation Room. All brackets are in the original.
2. On May 17, Reagan held a meeting of the National Security Planning Group to discuss regional affairs and human rights in advance of the upcoming Moscow Summit. The minutes of that meeting are printed in Foreign Relations, 1981–88, vol. VI, Soviet Union, October 1986–January 1989, Document 154.
3. See Document 299.
4. See Document 302.
5. Not further identified.
6. An options paper was not found.