326. Memorandum from Linton Brooks, Barry Kelly, and Robert Linhard of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Powell)1
SUBJECT
- DCI START Monitoring Assessment
The DCI has sent you (Tab B)2 his START monitoring judgement. We have extracted the “Key Judgments” section (Tab A) and recommend you read only that.
The report includes both a monitoring analysis and an identification of the monitoring implications of past decisions on verification in which the DCI’s position did not prevail (although not so indicated). It also describes Soviet potential for legally augmenting their forces under START in a way that gives some of us some concern. Points we would especially call to your attention include:
—The most difficult monitoring problems involve mobile ICBMs, deployed RV counts and the number of ALCM bombers. The report [Page 1532] states that the decision to allow non-nuclear ALCMs [less than 2 lines not declassified]
—[less than 3 lines not declassified]
—SS–24s present particular problems [less than 9 lines not declassified]
—[1 paragraph (7 lines) not declassified]
—[1 paragraph (less than 21 lines) not declassified]
—[1 paragraph (7 lines) not declassified]
The DCI caveats his paper to note that he does “not assess the tradeoffs that clearly must be weighed between monitoring confidence and such factors as cost, disadvantageous countering of US forces, the impact on US operational readiness, or the counterintelligence threat.” (One exception is his support for the recent SSI decision where those tradeoffs affected the Intelligence Community directly.)
We see no required action. The DCI’s cover note is a routine transmittal and does not call for a reply. The PFIAB has been given a copy of the paper and will be providing you its assessment shortly. We anticipate that they will comment on the differences between the JCS briefing on START and the monitoring report, differences Mrs. Armstrong has previously raised with you. (The JCS START briefing assumed no Soviet breakout and showed a significant U.S. advantage in warheads. While the monitoring report doesn’t list U.S. values it gives a much larger Soviet value by assuming a combination of legal and illegal measures. If the Soviets did this, the U.S. advantage the JCS project would be much smaller.)
Recommendation
That you read the Executive Summary at Tab A but that we take no formal action on this paper.3
- Source: Reagan Library, NSC Intelligence Files, 1988 SYS IV RWR INT (1989 to end of RWR Administration 1/20/1989 8940001-89400149). Top Secret; [handling restriction not declassified]. Powell initialed in the upper-right hand margin of the memorandum.↩
- Attached but not printed is an undated paper prepared in the Central Intelligence Agency, “Monitoring A START Treaty: An Interim Assessment,” along with Webster’s covering memorandum to Powell of November 23. [less than 1 line not declassified]↩
- Powell initialed his approval.↩