SECRET

UNITED STATES PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE
ON THE
NORTH ATLANTIC COUNCIL

Paris, France

March 9, 1967

The Honorable
Foy D. Kohler
Deputy Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs
Washington, D.C.

Dear Foy:

On the theory that airgrams sometimes get lost in the shuffle, I would like to draw your attention to our NATTO A-263 of March 8 which enclosed a copy of my presentation to the Council March 7 on anti-ballistic missiles. An extra copy of this statement is attached.

This was the first time a full-scale discussion of ABM's and especially their political implications, has been brought into the NATO Council. From the ensuing discussion (reported in Paris 13617), it was clear that the policy implications for the Alliance will be an important item on the docket of most allied governments for some time to come.

For this reason, I thought you might like to see, in detail, how we tackled this problem in the Council. I have also made the text available to our Ambassadors in all the NATO capitals and to Tommy Thompson in Moscow for background.

With warmest regards,

Sincerely,
/S/
Harlan Cleveland


Attachment

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

NATO SECRET

STATEMENT BY AMBASSADOR CLEVELAND
AT SPECIAL MEETING OF THE COUNCIL,
MARCH 7, 1967

Mr. Chairman:

At the meeting of the Disarmament Experts last fall, US experts, at the request of other members of the Alliance, made quite a comprehensive report on the fundamentals of anti-ballistic missile systems, on what they can and cannot be expected to do, on the general state of the art, and on the status of US planning and thinking about this complex problem at that time.

Since that time, the subject of ABM's has moved to the center of the stage. As we have informed this Council, our development of ABM's has advanced to the point where we must take a decision whether to proceed with deployment. And before taking that decision, we have proposed -- and the Soviet Union has agreed -- to explore possibilities of an agreement to curb deployment of ABM's as well as strategic offensive weapons. We made this proposal because our intensive examination of the present and foreseeable strategic nuclear balance persuaded us that recourse on both sides to deployment of major ABM systems predictably would end at stalemate on a higher, costlier, and perhaps more dangerous level of nuclear stand-off -- with nothing to show for it but the expenditure of tens of billions of dollars and rubles.

This morning I will try to outline for you how we have come to this judgment. Hopefully the statement which I shall make and distribute will be a useful point of reference as the NATO Disarmament experts embark on their discussions on this and related problems, as NATO consultations continue regarding the talks which will begin shortly with the Soviet Union, and as the NPG meets in Washington next month with Anti-Ballistic Missiles as the first topic on its agenda.

This is the first time that the subject of ABM's has been before the North Atlantic Council as such; and I suppose, therefore, that it would be appropriate to start our proceedings today with a very brief comment on the nature of the animal that we are considering.

Although a technical description of the NIKE X system and its components will be furnished you with the text of my presentation, I believe just a few words covering what an ABM system involves would be useful as part of my introduction.

Basically, what the system must do is detect, identify, intercept, and destroy incoming ballistic missiles prior to their arrival on target. All of this must take place in a matter of minutes, and the system must be able to deal with various complicating factors such as multiple missiles, multiple warheads, decoys and other penetration devices.

Our NIKE X system is designed to accomplish these tasks using several different types of powerful new radars and two types of interceptor missiles. One missile (SPARTAN) is designed to destroy incoming missiles in the exoatmosphere (up to 280 NM altitude) and at ranges of several hundred miles from its launch site. Because of its range this missile can defend a large area. The second type missile (SPRINT) is designed to destroy any incoming missiles which have survived the area defense. It intercepts at altitudes up to 100,000 feet and at ranges up to 25 miles. Its role then is point, or local, defense. Both missiles would employ nuclear warheads. The more technical explanation which will be furnished you will also provide information on the current development status of the system and the plans for testing it.

I think we should also keep in mind that ABM defense, in addition to its technical complexities, is a very costly system. We have studied various levels of deployment with original investment costs ranging from a minimum of about 4 up to 40 billion dollars.

Further, to be fully effective an ABM system would require improvement and expansion in air defense programs and in civil defense shelter programs, both of which would also be costly.

I am sure that none of this comes as startling news to my colleagues; but that, in layman's language, is a thumbnail description of the weapons system and costs we are discussing here this morning.

Now, we have been aware for several years that the Soviets have been working on an anti-ballistic missile defense system, just as we have been. The Soviets are also now deploying such a system around Moscow, which uses the so-called "GALOSH" missile, which they displayed publicly in a Moscow parade in 1964, and which is a rough counterpart of our SPARTAN, though less advanced.

They are also deploying another type of defensive system at a number of locations in the Soviet Union, but the weight of the evidence at this time suggests that this system is not intended primarily for anti-ballistic missile defense, but for anti-aircraft defense.

The Soviets know from their own experience that ABMs are very expensive. The irregular pace of the Soviet ABM program in the past suggests that they may at one point have made a false start, run into technical difficulties, backed off and done more research, and started again.

These are the very sorts of problems that run up the costs of major research and development programs -- and of operational programs started at too early a stage of research and development. The Soviets do not, however, seem to have been discouraged by past experience.

Meanwhile, resource allocation debates in the Soviet Union leave no doubt that any large new military program could only be financed at the cost of something else. Yet it seems clear that cost considerations have not precluded a decision to proceed with at least a limited deployment.

If the Soviets feel the pinch, and depending on what priority they have assigned ABM deployment, they might hold annual costs down by stretching deployment out over a period of years, or by limiting the extent of the deployment program.

Under the circumstances, it might be supposed that the Soviets would be particularly sensitive to the argument that ABM deployment might provoke a "new round in the arms race." They have had the experience of generating a so-called "missile gap", which served primarily to cause a US build-up which left them in a worse relative strategic position than before. Nonetheless, they have continued to make exaggerated claims about the status of advanced technical developments, including the defensive weapons field.

Soviet officials and scholars, through such forums as the Pugwash meetings, have for some years been exposed to arguments from the West about the possible destabilizing effects of ABM's. And they have understood these arguments well enough to publish rebuttals.

As far as the public record is concerned, they have thus rejected the proposition that ABM's would be destabilizing, and have insisted instead on the legitimacy of ABM's as defensive weapons systems. This view is consistent with past emphasis on the defense in Soviet military thinking.

Taking all of this slowly accumulating evidence into account, we must, for the time being, plan our forces on the assumption that they will deploy some sort of an ABM system around their major cities by the early 1970's. Whether made up of GALOSH only, or a combination of GALOSH and other types of missiles, a full scale deployment would cost the Soviet Union at least as much as a comparable deployment would us -- $20 billion or more.

The question for us is, and has been, what the US reaction should be to this clear pattern of ABM development and deployment in the Soviet Union which threatens to project the nuclear arms race into a new costly spiral.

We have for some years been developing penetration aids against the contingency of Soviet ABM deployment. We have available penetration aids against such defenses. We have a broadly based R&D program to improve further our capability to reduce the offensive effort needed to penetrate the defense.

At the same time, we have, as the Council is aware, pursued actively the research and development stages of a potential US ABM system, but have withheld a policy decision to proceed with production and deployment.

Meanwhile, we have been conducting a good many studies -- taking into account NATO work on related matters -- on the strategic and political impact of mutual deployment of ABM systems on the present balance of arms, on the security of both the Atlantic and the Pacific, on East-West relations and on the prospects for general and specific progress toward an arms limitation with the Soviet Union, to which we have been devoting great efforts and significant resources for the past decade.

In any event, in these studies we have attempted to weigh this issue very carefully from as many points of view as we could imagine to be relevant. In some cases, the conclusions appear fairly clear to us, at least tentatively; in others the factors are so finely balanced -- or so unpredictable -- that no clear judgment seems feasible or wise at this time.

Our hope is that this meeting might serve to stimulate thinking in capitals about these and related aspects of this immensely complicated ABM issue. In the meantime, we throw out for your consideration some of the tentative conclusions or judgments which are emerging from the analytical mills in Washington. Very briefly, these include:

First; If the US, in response to Soviet ABM deployment, installed a US ABM system, the Soviets would in turn react to maintain their deterrent. They could increase the number of their offensive missiles; they could introduce more sophisticated penetration aids; they could put new emphasis on other types of delivery vehicles; they could decrease the vulnerability of their offensive missile forces; they could extend their own ABM effort. All these responses are within their technological capabilities. Which response or combination of responses they would elect would depend upon cost, on their judgments about military effectiveness, and, no doubt, on the psychology of the decision-makers concerned. But we feel virtually certain that some such reaction on the Soviet side would follow the deployment of a US ABM system.

Second; Mutual ABM deployments should not provide any temptation to strike first. Neither present nor foreseeable ABM technology offer the prospect of a "perfect" defense. Neither side could assume that it could escape all or nearly all damage by relying on defensive systems.

The Defense Department has made many calculations of strategic nuclear exchanges with various offensive and defensive forces postulated for the US and Soviet Union. In none of these cases has there been a situation in which either country could be confident of preventing significant casualties even if they spent large sums on ABMs. In some calculations, casualties would be substantially reduced by ABM defenses, but significant casualties would still be incurred even by the side striking first. It is hard to see how the Soviets could reach a different conclusion.

A combination of defenses plus a first strike would reduce casualties to lower levels than either of these alone. Nevertheless, the technology we already have in hand and our planned offensive forces are more than adequate to inflict entirely unacceptable damage on the Soviet Union, even assuming they struck first after having deployed an ABM system around their major cities. With or without ABM's, therefore, there seems to be no particular incentive for either side to strike first.

Third; Mutual deployment of ABM systems probably would not increase the risk of nuclear war by miscalculation.

The introduction of ABM's, on the one hand, and advanced penetration aids on the other, would make for a more complex strategic situation. Decisions would rest even more than now on the assumptions each country made about the relative effectiveness of such capabilities. It might appear that greater complexity and greater dependence on technical assumptions could, in a broad sense, open the way to greater risk of miscalculation.

Although this cannot be completely ruled out, experience suggests that as the strategic situation has grown more complex, caution has not diminished. The awareness that there are major uncertainties has a sobering effect that lessens any incentive for hasty judgments. The fact that calculations would rest very largely on unproven assumptions would not necessarily mean any over-eagerness to put such assumptions to the test.

We recognize that there are many intangibles involved in questions of this character. Perhaps the main consideration is that both countries now seem aware of the problem and danger of nuclear war. This awareness should continue to work against recklessness.

Fourth; The chances for an effective ABM system to defend the US against Chinese nuclear missile capability for some years appear very good, but no decision needs to be made about this at the present time. The prospect at this time is that the lead time for deployment of a significant Chinese offensive capability is longer than that needed for US ABM deployment. We already have a formidable range of capabilities and options to meet various problems in the interim -- though subsequent growth and increased sophistication of a Chinese ICBM force could in time lead us to want to have such a defense system.

Incidentally, we have attempted to puzzle out the probable reaction to ABM developments in specific countries -- notably India and Japan; the impact on the triangular Chinese-Indian-Soviet relationship; the significance of ABM's for US-Chinese and Soviet-Chinese relations; and other such enigmas -- without pretending to be able to see our way through the imponderables. The computers are helpful only to a point.

We also have attempted to evaluate the effect of a mutual deployment of ABM's on a country's decision to "go nuclear" and, although there are arguments on both sides, we do not believe this would be a decisive factor.

In addition, we have thought hard about the implications of competitive ABM deployment on East-West relations and here I come to the last of the judgments we submit to you with such cautious reservations today.

Fifth; If at this time the major nuclear powers seem to be launched on another upward spiral of the nuclear arms race, East-West tensions would almost certainly be increased.

Certainly such a development would not augur well for near-term progress toward that reconciliation between East and West which is the high policy of my government, which is the aim of all our governments, and which is one of the central preoccupations of this very Council at the present time.

So while we do not take an apocalyptic view of the possibility of mutual deployment of ABM weapons systems, we have found, for some of the reasons I have just reviewed, good and sufficient cause for doing our utmost to prevent this from happening.

Our conviction has been, and still is, that in so very dangerous a business as nuclear weaponry, the major nuclear powers share, or should share, a specially vital interest in arms control and disarmament. That is why we have pressed the Soviets to consider with us the irrationality of proceeding up the escalator to a more costly form of mutual deterrence.

We tried once to internationalize the atom; we have been trying without interruption for ten years to find with the Soviet Union mutually acceptable ways of limiting, controlling, and diminishing the accumulation of needless nuclear power; we have sweated out a limited nuclear test ban treaty; and we have worked out a treaty not to arm the unarmed environment of outer space.

Now, if we can agree, we have a chance to forego a new weapons system before it has been widely deployed.

Let me say at once that the Soviet Union has shown no interest at all in a moratorium on ABM deployment as such -- a suggestion which has drawn wide attention in the US and elsewhere. That argument that ABM's represent "the next round of the arms race" does not seem so far to have struck home with the Soviet leaders.

But we cannot rule out the possibility that the Soviet Union might consider a curb on ABM's as part of a wider agreement.

And so my government has come to this three-point decision on the ABM issue:

One. We have decided to continue to pursue vigorously the development, test and evaluation of the NIKE X system but to take no action now to deploy the system. The President has included about $440 million in his proposed 1967-68 budget for this purpose.

Two. As I informed the Council on January 19 we have decided to start negotiations with the Soviet Union to attempt to develop a basis for an agreement to limit the deployment of anti-ballistic missile systems.

Three. We will reconsider the deployment question in the event these discussions prove unsuccessful. We have included $375 million in the 1967-68 budget request to provide for such action as may be necessary at that time -- for example the production of NIKE X for the defense of our offensive weapons systems.

You will have noticed that in speaking of our studies and our tentative conclusions, I have hardly mentioned the implications for NATO, and especially for the European members of the Alliance, of this new and costly defensive technology. Of course we have some preliminary thoughts about all this -- but both we and you, our allies, need to think longer and harder about it -- and think about it together. The NATO and European angles to the unfolding ABM story cannot, and should not, be tackled by the United States alone -- and this is a prime reason for this consultation and those to follow.

And beyond these consultations and the discussions this week among our disarmament experts, we expect a full discussion of ABM's, including our own preliminary technical evaluations, at the first meeting of the NATO Nuclear Planning Group, which is to be held in Washington just one month from today. We would hope thus to work with allies in thinking through the policy issues which will face us in NATO whether the Soviets slow down or speed up their anti-missile deployment.

Let me now bring you up to date on the status of our efforts to get discussions going with the Soviet Union on this question. The scenarios so far goes like this:

On January 10, in his State of the Union address, President Johnson noted that the Soviets were employing ABM's around Moscow and spoke once again of the urgent need for controlling the arms race. To this end Ambassador Dobrynin had been sounded out as to whether the Soviets would be interested in exploring means to prevent a new round of escalation in the strategic arms race, especially in view of Soviet deployment of ABM's around Moscow.

On January 18, Ambassador Dobrynin reported orally to Secretary Rusk that the Soviet government would be prepared to hear any suggestions that the US government wished to advance on the question of curbing the arms race so long as strategic offensive systems as well as defensive systems are covered. As you will recall, I reported this to the Council on the following day.

On January 24, in his Budget Message to the Congress the President provided contingency funding for initiating ABM production in the event a decision is made later this year to go ahead but pointed out that the whole question would be reconsidered in the light of discussions then being initiated with the Soviet Union.

On January 27, Ambassador Thompson transmitted, through Mr. Gromyko, a message from the President to Mr. Kosygin, noting our readiness to consider offensive strategic missiles as well as ABM's.

On February 18, Ambassador Thompson saw Mr. Kosygin after the latter's return from London, and Kosygin indicated that a reply to the President's letter would be made soon.

On February 28, a letter from Kosygin to President Johnson was given Ambassador Thompson by Mr. Gromyko.

On March 2 the President announced that the Kosygin letter confirmed the willingness of the Soviet Government to discuss means of limiting the arms race in offensive and defensive nuclear missiles.

It is clear that the Soviets now look to us to make the next move, and we are actively engaged in Washington in preparing a position to put to the Soviet Union.

That, Mr. Chairman, is the current state of play in this affair.

It is not possible at this point to forecast the course or the duration of negotiations once they get down to substantive detail. But as President Johnson already has made clear, we intend to discuss this matter fully with our allies, so we anticipate coming back to the Council with this subject before starting substantive talks in Moscow.

Meanwhile, the Disarmament Experts begin their semi-annual meeting today and will be discussing, among other things, ABM's in the context of the strategic arms race. I know we shall all be following their deliberations and looking forward to the excellent work we have come to expect from this valuable and increasingly important adjunct of the Council.

And as I mentioned earlier, the Nuclear Planning Group will be going deeply into the subject of ABM's on our behalf.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

THE UNDERLINED PORTIONS OF THIS PAPER ARE CLASSIFIED SECRET

TECHNICAL ANNEX TO STATEMENT BY AMBASSADOR CLEVELAND AT NAC MEETING, MARCH 7, 1967

THE NIKE-X SYSTEM

The system would consist of a number of different types of phased-array radars and two types of interceptor missiles, which could be deployed in a variety of configurations:

The technical principles involved in the radars are now fairly well established. One R&D MAR-type radar has been constructed at the White Sands Missile Range. A contract has been let for the power plant of a second MAR-type radar, which is to be constructed on Kwajalein Atoll. The Missile Site Radar is well along in development and the construction of one of these radars on Kwajalein Atoll has also begun.

Testing of the SPRINT missile was started at White Sands in November 1965 with one complete success, two partial successes and three failures. The failures are attributed mostly to insufficient quality control but some of the missile's components may have to be redesigned. The tempo of the testing will steadily increase during the current fiscal year and we are advised by our technical people that the missile will eventually reach its design goals. The nuclear warhead is also well along in development and does not appear to present any particular problem.

The SPARTAN is still on the drawing boards. It represents a very substantial redesign of the original ZEUS and we will not know until it is flight tested a year and a half hence how well it will perform.

Facilities for testing both the SPRINT and the SPARTAN will be constructed on Kwajalein Atoll. These, together with the TACMAR and MSR and the programs for the computers will give us all of the major elements of the NIKE-X system which are essential to test its overall performance against re-entry vehicles fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. (We feel we know enough about the PAR technology to be able to use the mechanically steered radars already on Kwajalein as simulators.) The system will be tested in stages, starting with the MSR and SPRINT tests in January 1969, then the SPARTAN missile in July 1969 and the TACMAR radar between July and December 1970. Upwards of 100 test shots will be launched from Vandenberg to Kwajalein during the period 1969-72 to test the system thoroughly as a whole. The most important objective of this effort is to determine proper system integration and computer programming, since the individual components of the system will have already been tested ahead of time.

NATO SECRET