SECRET

Special SALT Briefing Notes

The major criticisms of the agreements will be:

— The ABM Treaty leaves us with a worthless ICBM defense and useless Washington defense that no one wants while nothing has been done to reduce the offensive threats we face in the years ahead.

— Arguments that we get important operational experience will be countered by assertions that we get adequate experience at Kwajalein.

— The Soviets get something out of their Moscow defense (e. g., defense against CPR, UK, FR) and have the option to develop a useful ICBM defense.

— The offensive agreement ratifies not parity but Soviet superiority. They can catch up to us in MIRV but we cannot catch up to them on numbers of strategic missiles.

— The only thing we have left to bargain with in the follow-on talks are our forward-based systems and allied capabilities.

The basis of the presentation should be: that Safeguard deployments would be limited in any case; that we have no ongoing offensive programs which are affected by the agreements; the Soviets are in full production in both ABMs and offensive weapons. We are not in a position to race them in numbers of offensive missiles until 1978; an ABM race runs great risks that we would not get political support and that the Soviets could offset Safeguard with deployment of both offensive and defensive missiles; hard-site defense is still in the concept stage. Thus, the agreement we have negotiated should be compared not with an ideal agreement but with the situation we would face in the absence of agreement.

— In the most important characteristics of our forces, we are now superior to the Soviets, e. g. , warheads, EMT.

— If Soviets programs for deploying offensive and defensive missiles continued unabated at current rates, we could be threatened seriously even if they didn't deploy MIRVs.

— This agreement interrupts the momentum of Soviet programs and does not affect the things we are doing (MIRV) or can do (ULMS).

In effect, we are stopping at least part of their programs while we continue our own programs. Thus, the agreements are tailored to our strategic position and our force structure.

The ABM Agreement

The facts of the Safeguard program had to be faced in the SALT decisions:

— We could not get full Safeguard through Congress under any circumstances.

— The 4-site Safeguard tended to receive support only as a “bargaining chip.”

Further, hard-site defense is only a concept – we are years away from having a reliable, deployable system.

We had to make a decision in the negotiations concerning how much we were willing to limit ourselves in order to limit the Soviets. Given our concerns about Soviet ABM and the time it would take to get major new systems, we decided:

— The Soviets are held to two sites (without an agreement they could have deployed a comprehensive system),

— Limiting their system is critically important to the penetration capability of our offensive force. This is as critical as the question of pre-launch survivability.

As for the U.S., the agreement:

— Gives us the Safeguard site we have essentially completed. This site will give us important operating experience which cannot be duplicated by a test facility (e. g. , Kwajalein). This site provides coverage of some ICBMs and bombers of two major command and control centers (SAC and NORAD). Having ABMs to contend with seriously complicates the attacker's calculations.

— Allows us to continue hard-site developments; the Grand Fork radars will provide an early radar base for hard sites.

— Provides defense of the NCA at Washington. The NCA defense gives protection against small and accidental attacks, moreover, it complicates any attacker’s problem and gives the NCA important decision time. Since it uses many components from Malmstrom, the NCA will only cost about $100 million more than building the Malmstrom sites.

— The combined NCA defense and Grand Fork's deployment give us an important protected warning and assessment capability; the large radars at these sites, particularly by ABMs, can provide critical information. The protection of our command and control and the hardened and protected ABM radars allow the President to consider other responses than all-out nuclear war -- an important part of our strategy.

If the offensive threat becomes such that our retaliatory forces is threatened, we can break out the ABM Treaty by invoking overriding national interest. Nothing is lost; in fact, we gain time to develop hard-site defense.

The Offensive Agreement

In negotiating the Offensive Agreement, we faced the fact that we had no ongoing program but MIRV.

— We had no intention of building more land-based missiles.

— Our new SLBMs (the ULMS) were not due until the 1980s.

Soviet forces were growing in numbers, they were improving the amount of payload per missile and they were developing multiple warheads (MRVs not MIRVs).

— We tried to negotiate limits on MIRVs but our efforts were essentially rejected by the Soviets by the terms of their counterproposals (we wanted to limit testing and deployment of MIRVs -essentially the most verifiable activities; they wanted to limit production and deployment and would not accept on-site inspection essential to verifying these essentially unverifiable activities).

— Reductions to common numerical levels were rejected – particularly in the light of our warhead superiority.

— But, we were able to stop their ongoing programs and break the momentum in growth of numbers and capability.

Land-Based Missiles

Our MIRV program (Minuteman III) will double the effective size of our Minuteman force (about 2100 vs. 1100 RVs), but we had no plans or prospects for increasing the numbers of land-based launchers. Thus, the issue was not whether to "freeze" a Soviet advantage in numbers of launchers but whether to prevent an increase in numerical superiority which also might soon threaten our advantage in weapons.

We have obtained:

— a freeze on Soviet ICBM numbers; and,

— a freeze specifically on heavy missiles (SS-9s).

Perhaps the Soviets did not intend to go above present numbers, but now they cannot at least for five years without breaking the agreement.

Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles

Again, except for Poseidon MIRVs, we had no active SLBM program at the start of negotiations. The ULMS was planned for launching in the 1980s and maximum acceleration still means 1978 or 1979.

The Soviet program involves production of eight or nine submarines per year; in five years they could have 80 - 85 modern Y-class submarines with more than 1000 SLBMs.

The freeze:

— left the U.S. with its 41 submarines and 656 missiles and the right to have about three boats and 48 missiles if we retired our older Titan missiles;

— allows the Soviets up to 62 modern submarines and 950 SLBMs.

The Soviets now have operational and under construction about the same number of boats and missiles as we do. As they increase to the allowed levels of modern SLBMs, they will have to retire some of their older land-based missiles and SLBMs. [These older land-based missiles are large and "soft" and thus are most useful in a first-strike role.]

This freeze obviously allows the Soviets to build up to a numerical advantage in SLBMs. However:

— These systems are not capable of size or accuracies which threaten our force.

— Our own SLBM systems, while fewer in number, have better on-station time, are quieter, and have longer range. The Soviets are completing development of a longer range, 3000 n. m. missile but have not started deployment. However, our geographical advantage with forward bases still gives us greater SLBM coverage. Moreover, the Poseidon 10 RV MIRV gives us a large advantage.

Strategic Bombers

Strategic bombers were not included in the agreement. This is largely due to the fact that the Soviets wanted to include all of our capability to deliver nuclear weapons on Soviet territory, including tactical nuclear aircraft in Europe. On the other hand, they did not want to include their medium-range missiles which could hit Western Europe but not the United States.

While it is true that our forward-based aircraft could be employed against the Soviet Union, they are deployed as a part of a commitment to our allies and cannot be viewed the same as strategic systems.

As for our strategic bomber force, we maintain a sizeable advantage over the Soviets. We have about 450 B-52 bombers compared to the Soviet's approximate 190 heavy bombers. About 280 of our B-52s will be equipped to carry up to 20 stand-off missiles (SRAM).

Our Strategic Position and SALT Phase II

Our negotiating position in the second phase of SALT is enhanced by the fact that our programs begin to mature about the time the current agreements are up for review. Unless they stretch out their submarine program (not an undesirable outcome) and make marginal improvement in land-based missiles, their programs will stop completely; in any case, the momentum will have been broken.

Thus, the Soviets' interest in negotiating should be encouraged since they would be facing U.S. programs coming to fruition:

– The ULMS submarine will be ready to deploy at the end of the agreement period. We could deploy ULMS either as a replacement or as an add-on to the present force depending on whether we get a follow-on agreement.

– The ULMS I, 4000 n. m. , missile will be available at the end of the period for deployment both in the ULMS and in existing Polaris/Poseidon boats. This development alone increases ocean operating area from the current four million square miles to some 35 million square miles.

— Hard-Site ABM development should be complete by the end of the agreement period and ready for deployment if required.

— Our continuing B-1 development program would allow a new strategic aircraft near the end of the period and our stand-off missile program, the SRAM (as many as 20 SRAM could be carried by a single bomber) increases the effectiveness of our force.

— Our MIRV program is far more sophisticated and advanced and can respond quickly to evidence of extensive Soviet MIRVing. (As a first step, we could add nearly 1000 RVs by MIRVing the rest of the Minuteman force; and, by decreasing range, we could put 1500-2000 more RVs on the submarine force.)

If, in spite of the programs we will have underway during the agreement period, the Soviet force appears threatening we have the right to break out of the agreements to protect our national interests.

The Congress can assist the effectiveness of the agreement by:

— early approval of the agreements; and,

— giving strong support to our ongoing strategic programs, ULMs B-1, and NCA ABM defense.