TREATY BETWEEN THE U.S. AND THE U.S.S.R.
ON THE ELIMINATION OF
THEIR INTERMEDIATE-RANGE AND
SHORTER-RANGE MISSILES

Tuesday, February 23, 1988

United States Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, D. C.

The Committee met at 2:02 p.m., in Room SH-216, Hart Senate Office Building, Hon. Claiborne Pell, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.

Present: Senators Pell, Sarbanes, Cranston, Dodd, Kerry, Sanford, Adams, Helms, Lugar, Kassebaum, Boschwitz, Murkowski and Evans.

The Chairman: The Committee on Foreign Relations will come to order.

We are indeed delighted that Dr. Kissinger, who has had such a distinguished record in the government, serving his country, is with us today. He participated in the negotiation of the Paris Peace Talks, SALT I. I know when he was at the United Nations how impressed I was with his negotiations on the Law of the Sea, a master of what one might sometimes call creative ambiguity, and we welcome him

ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.
20 F ST., N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20001 (202) 628-9300

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1 here with very real enthusiasm Indeed.

2 Senator Lugar: Mr. Chairman, I would simply join you in

3 welcoming Dr. Henry Kissinger. The hearings would not be

4 complete without hearing from Dr. Kissinger. I know that we

5 all look forward to his testimony and to his ongoing comments

6 to the press and other public fora.

7 It is great to have you here with us today, sir.

8 The Chairman: Thank you.

9 Please proceed.

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STATEMENT OF HON. HENRY KISSINGER, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE

Dr. Kissinger: Mr. Chairman, Senator Lugar, Senator Cranston, it is a great privilege for me to appear here.

Before I read my statement, may I ask the Chairman's permission for the following. I thought that I should focus on the limited issue, on the desirability of the ratification of the INF treaty. Then towards the end of last week I received a very thoughtful letter from the Chairman describing to me the range of concerns of the Foreign Relations Committee about the future of NATO, East-west relations and related issues. I then began to answer it and wrote a very long statement which unfortunately did not get finished until last evening, and which I am submitting tomorrow to the Armed Services Committee.

But with your permission, I would like to send it over as soon as it is typed this afternoon, to be incorporated also in your record, because I think it has a fuller statement of my overall views than I covered in the statement that I have submitted to you.

The Chairman: Without objection, that will be done.

Dr. Kissinger: Would you like me to read my statement, or would you like to go straight to questions?

The Chairman: How long is your statement?

Dr. Kissinger: Not very long.

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Mr. Chairman, I accepted your invitation with some
ambivalence. For many months I have expressed grave
reservations about the political and strategic implications
of the pending agreement, first directly to responsible
officials, in the end, publicly. I will sum up my doubts
below.

Nevertheless, my concerns cannot be removed by the
refusal of the Senate to ratify the agreement. On the
contrary, failure to ratify or attaching conditions requiring
renegotiation would generate a crisis in the Atlantic
Alliance which in the end would almost certainly lead to the
unilateral withdrawal of U.S. missiles from Europe and
undermine the cohesion of the Alliance.

My reservations can be summed up as follows:

A, the pending agreement does not reduce in any
significant degree the Soviet capacity to devastate weapon
with nuclear weapons. ICBMs, SLBMs and airplanes can carry
out the missions assigned to the SS-20s and the shorter-range
weapons. It is also important to keep in mind that the
warheads now on these missiles will remain in being.

B, the American capacity to retaliate against Soviet
aggression with nuclear weapons based in Europe is
substantially reduced, if not eliminated. This view is, I
believe, shared by all former NATO commanders.

C, since NATO is an alliance of 16 nations confronting

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the threat of a single state, the reliance for deterrence on
U.S. weapons based far away creates a psychological and
political imbalance which is greatly magnified by Soviet
superiority in conventional forces.

D, the INF agreement removes from the territory of the
Federal Republic of Germany the missiles which can retaliate
against the source of aggression and leaves only those
short-range nuclear missiles which would, if used, destroy
solely German territory and population. This reality has
generated pressures within the Federal Republic against
modernization and, in effect, for the denuclearization of
Germany. These pressures are likely to increase and become a
permanent feature of German domestic politics. The seeds for
strain within the alliance are thereby sown because other
NATO countries cannot be expected to run risks in defense of
German territory which the Federal Republic is not prepared
to run on its own behalf.

I would have preferred the process of nuclear disarmament
in Europe to begin at the short range end of the nuclear
spectrum. It would in my view also have been better if the
INF process had taken place in stages. One could have begun
with a reduction on the order of 50 percent, and made the
removal of the remainder dependent on a withdrawal of
substantial conventional forces from Central Europe.

But that is not the situation the committee confronts.

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and you have posed it in a way, in another way, so maybe you
could expand on this a little bit in the time remaining that
I have, but that the emphasis that we place on nuclear
weapons deals with the symptoms of the problem that exists
between ourselves and the Soviets, and not the fundamental
disease. I think you may have even used the analogy of the
symptoms and disease that you have talked about.

Dr. Kissinger: No, it is correct.

Senator Dodd: Why is that so? Could you expand on that
thought a bit? What is the distinction?

Dr. Kissinger: well, I think fundamentally we are in a
curious situation. If you look at the future, in the year
2010 there are going to be five or six major power centers in
the world. There will not be two superpowers. But the
process of getting there is going to produce enormous
dislocations.

Now, during these dislocations, the Soviets may be
tempted to keep getting marginal advantages according to
traditional diplomatic practice and their history. If one of
these explodes and leads to a conflagration, at the end, both
we and the Soviet Union will be weaker in relation to these
other emerging power centers than we would be before it. So
that a thoughtful, semiphilosophical debate of how we are
going to get to the year 2010 and what kind of a world this
is going to be would seem to me essential. And yet everybody

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shies away from that discussion because they cannot come up
with a -- they do not really know how to conceive it, and
partly because it runs against the American historical
tradition which is hostile to equilibrium.

And in a world of five or six powers, that is what you
have to do.

Senator Dodd: Your suggestion I think you made in one
article I read where you look at the world in the year 2010
and say what do you want it to look like and work backward.

Dr. Kissinger: Let's work backward from there, correct.

Senator Dodd: My time is up. I will come back with just
a couple more questions, but Senator Boschwitz.

Senator Boschwitz: I did not read that article about
2010. I would very much like to have it.

Dr. Kissinger: I think it was 2000 is what I used.

Senator Boschwitz: Pardon me?

Dr. Kissinger: I said 2000, but it was -- he quoted it
correctly. I think he gave me ten more years.

Senator Dodd: Rudy, would you mind just doing this?

Senator Boschwitz: I will yield back to you.

Senator Dodd: I have just a couple of questions. Why do
we not each finish up and then let the good Doctor who has
spent four or five hours go on. And that way we will not tie
everyone down.

I think Senator Kerry has a line of questions that is apt

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to run him a bit longer as well.

Just in that same line -- and I would like to pursue this a bit because I think it is so important that we further understand as we are about to, now, ratify one agreement -- and I must express I think the feeling, as you did earlier, a little nervously, very rapidly to the next, and I am anxious to see us achieve intelligent arms control, but I would like to make sure we know how one step leads to the next and what follows on after that.

But I think it is vitally important that we have a deeper appreciation of what is going on in the Soviet Union, and there has been a suggestion, and various witnesses we have had before us, one, Ambassador Garthoff, who I know you are familiar with, a Sovietologist, and a competent one, certainly. Let me quote him. He said the Soviets are coming to the conclusion that their interests, and I quote him here, "are congruent with world order."

Now, I interpret him to mean by that, and I do not want to put words into his mouth, but that the Soviet Union is moving to become sort of a status quo power rather than a revolutionary power. I am not as confident of that, if that is what he meant by that.

I wonder what your assessment would be. Is there that kind of a sea change occurring, that we are going from a revolutionary power to a status quo power, the decision to

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1. pull back in Afghanistan?

2. Dr. Kissinger: First of all, I want to know how Garthoff
can possibly know to what conclusion the Soviets are coming
3. because that would be, assuming that were not their
4. conclusion, it is certainly their necessity to have a period
5. of peace and quiet, and if possible, reduced expenditures.
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That I do not question.

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From our point of view, the issue is whether, on what
terms that is to be achieved.

10. I would not be surprised if the Soviet Union did not have
11. a clearcut idea of what they had in mind, and after all, I
talked this week to an eminent Soviet visitor who is one of
12. their leaders in their economic reform, and he described
13. their reform program to me, and this is a stupendous
14. undertaking, and I would not be at all surprised if their top
15. leadership did not simultaneously want to -- were reluctant
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17. simultaneously to conduct great crises now.

18. That does not mean, however, that five or ten years from
19. now, if we in the meantime have produced neutralism in
Europe, impotence in Asia, a vacuum in the Middle East, that
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Therefore, I think it would be safer if we gave them
difficult problems that were not incompatible with their
self-respect. For example, I do not think that the zero
option was a law of nature.

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Supposing we had said to them from the beginning we are
deeply concerned about this conventional problem. We are
willing to make realistic agreements with you, but you have
to give -- we have to settle the conventional and nuclear
thing simultaneously. We will pay the first 50 percent up
front in the nuclear field.

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Why would we assume that that would necessarily have been
rejected? Why is it impossible to start a dialogue that says
that along the analysis that I made previously of what the
world will look like in the next century and what we have to
do now to determine who can do what to whom, where? And
sooner or later we will have to come to some such
accommodation either by confrontation or by negotiation. And
that is what I have in mind.

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Has the sea change occurred? The problem is, assuming
Gorbachev intends to be conciliatory, whatever that means, he
already has to brutalize the central planning mechanism to
introduce prices. He is de facto reducing the importance of
the Communist Party by reducing the importance of the central
planning mechanism because that is where their strength lies.

Why should he tackle the KGB and the military when he is

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under no necessity from our side to do so? And this is, I am
talking of missed opportunity much more than I talk of actual
mistakes.

Senator Dodd: I am struck as well, and it strikes me the
Soviets do not shoot craps. There are not many casinos that
I am aware of in the Soviet system, and they are not inclined
to probably place all of their or a good percentage of their
future in areas where it is very iffy whether or not they are
going to emerge successfully.

Dr. Kissinger: They are very careful analysts of what
they consider the objective factors of international
relations.

Senator Dodd: But I presume in their own domestic
efforts as well would probably provoke the same kind of
reaction internally. And so while they would be not inclined
to ever admit this, that I presume as they step out into some
areas of total unfamiliarity for them, they are probably far
more concerned about the future success than they are willing
to admit.

So here they are in a political situation, an ideological
one, an economic one where they are in tough shape, very
tough shape almost at every level when you look at them, in
very tough shape, run the risk of becoming really a third
rate power very quickly, if economics --

Dr. Kissinger: But what are they going to do --

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Senator Dodd: But are they going to give up the one thing that maintains them in that status, and that is their military strength? Are they really going to be willing to sacrifice and so reduce their military capacity that they run the risk of both economically and militarily ending up in that situation?

Dr. Kissinger: It would be unlikely. I do not think the Soviets have a category for dealing with people who are trying to understand the hell out of them. I think they have a category for understanding balance of forces, objective factors, realistic, fair propositions. But when I read that, when I keep reading -- and this has happened now in every decade, that we want to show them farms in the Middle West and swimming pools. What do we expect them to do? I mean, what is he supposed to do, come home to the Soviet Union and say I saw a swimming pool in back yards, and now we are going to do what?

I think it is not a good basis for solving relations between societies that have such a hugely different historical experience. Even assuming the best intentions.

Senator Dodd: I agree.

Well, I have taken a great deal of your time. You have been very informative and helpful.

Dr. Kissinger: Well, thank you.

Senator Dodd: I appreciate it immensely.

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Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I have completed all of my questions, and I thank you for your patience.

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I thank Senator Kerry and Senator Boschwitz as well for being this patient.

The Chairman [presiding]: Senator Boschwitz.

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Senator Boschwitz: We are losing the crowd out there, but nevertheless, it is an interesting afternoon.

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I find the idea of In the year 2000 or 2010, and I remember now that 2000 was -- it was a Newsweek article, really fascinating.

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Who do you see as the five or six superpowers? Obviously the Chinese?

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Dr. Kissinger: Japan.

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Senator Boschwitz: As a superpower.

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Dr. Kissinger: Yes, Japan.

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Senator Boschwitz: But can it be super both militarily as well as economically?

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Dr. Kissinger: Yes, I think so.

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China, well, let's say It is major power centers. Let's not get hung up on the word superpower.

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Senator Boschwitz: Okay.

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Dr. Kissinger: Japan, China, India, Western Europe, United States, Soviet Union. Those are major power centers.

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Then we keep Ignoring the Western Hemisphere, but Brazil and Mexico have the potential of being very significant

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countries, and for us it is going to be a major experience
when Mexico emerges on our border with 100 million population
as a country that conducts foreign policy not from the
position of a very inferior country but with aspirations to
some equality. And the same with Brazil.

So we will be living in quite a different world in the
21st Century, even though neither of those two countries will
have quite the status of Japan and the others.

Senator Boschwitz: Let me return for a moment to the
tactical difference between the ICAMs and the INF weapons.
As you pointed out, that one is, the Russians would have to
have a different perception of when they would be used and
how easily they would be used, particularly if the INF
weapons are in their path and would be overrun.

How do the shorter-range -- and there are only a few of
them, as you say -- or the battlefield nuclear weapons, how
do they factor into that kind of thinking?

Dr. Kissinger: Well, the trouble with the shorter-range
weapons, and I think it is an illustration of the difficulty
we have as a nation, and the Alliance has to keep its various
policies in gear. In the same year in which we are
withdrawing the weapons that can reach the Soviet Union and
the Pershing IIs and the GLCMs and that can reach Eastern
Europe through the Pershing Is, a big debate has started
about modernizing the Lances.

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Now, obviously, to Germans, rightly or wrongly, this
looks as if we want to improve the weapons that can kill only
Germans and remove the weapons that are targeted at East
Europeans and the Soviet Union. And that has given rise,
perhaps unfairly, to the impression that Germany is being
singularized, as their phrase goes, singled out for nuclear
risk.

Now, the traditional neutralist, seminationalist,
dubious-about-NATO people are picking this up with a
vengeance, and I find it interesting that Chancellor Kohl,
when he was here, really asked for a delay in this policy,
and that some members of his party were reported in the New
York Times to have said we will not even touch this issue
until there is a new President because we do not want the new
President to change his mind again.

Now, the difference is that these weapons do not threaten
Soviet territory directly, and therefore, while they are
still an obstacle, they are a lesser and of a different
category than the INF weapons would have been.

Senator Boschwitz: Clearly they are a lesser obstacle
than the INF weapon, but would the Russians not have to
factor into their thinking that once these type of weapons
are used, short range, intermediate range, whatever, that the
escalation from that point could almost not be prevented, and
so would it not be?

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Dr. Kissinger: well, you know, this is a question of judgment. They might figure that, or they might figure that once they are used, there will be such a rush to surrender that the escalation becomes impossible.

It depends whether they believe Schmidt or whether they believe the theorists of escalation.

But I do not really think that the real danger is a Soviet all-out attack heading for the Rhine. The real danger is a perceived unbalance of forces which will tempt the Soviets to take the Berlin issue up again, for example, or to use a Middle East crisis to impose on Europe measures that amount to de facto neutralization.

I noticed that when Shevaronadze was in Bonn, he refused absolutely to consider any attempt to make Berlin a part of the Federal Republic or to let the Federal Republic speak for Berlin, even though this would be an easy way to confirm the status quo in Germany. But obviously they want to keep that lever open.

Senator Boschwitz: You have pointed out many, many problems with this arms treaty, and you said you wish that it had never been negotiated, I believe at one point. You note that the Russians have given away far less than we, even though perhaps --

Dr. Kissinger: More.

Senator Boschwitz: Even though perhaps more in numbers,

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because in a way, they have given less because they are more
easily substitutable, the SS-20s.

Dr. Kissinger: That is my view.

Senator Boschwitz: I understand.

And then we have all noted, and you have also discussed
the fact that START is even more difficult a treaty to
negotiate. So I ask you, and Senator Kassebaum asked you
also what you wanted to see with respect to conventional
forces.

I ask you what the proper course of action, or what do
you want to see with respect to nuclear forces? What kind of
agreement could there be that does not encounter the same
kind of difficulties that you are outlining for us so vividly
today?

Dr. Kissinger: Of course, I do not know the exact state
of the negotiations, but I have the greatest difficulty
imagining how they can possibly negotiate a serious agreement
by the end of May, if you consider all of what you have heard
here about the verifications of one single weapons system
that was reduced to zero? How can they have a verification
system negotiated that reduces things by 50 percent?

I would be much happier with, for example, an agreement
that banned multiple warheads and had -- or multiple warheads
on land-based weapons. And then the numbers would not worry
me so much because it would be much harder with single

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warhead, mobile missiles, I would think a first strike capability is almost out of the question.

So I would rather spend a little more time and come to some radical conclusions. Also, with single warhead mobile weapons, it would be easier to conceive a discriminating use of these weapons in response to local aggression because the beginning would not necessarily mean that the next step will be and assault on the retaliatory forces.

Senator Boschwitz: What about the verifiability of the multiple, of the MIRV, lack of MIRVs?

Dr. Kissinger: Well I have not studied that, and one would have to -- of course, to some extent we face this problem now because we are putting limits -- I mean, the START agreement, as I understand it, is putting limits on the total number of MIRVed vehicles. So we must have some capacity of checking those vehicles like the SS-25s that are supposed to be single warhead, to make sure they remain single warhead, because otherwise they might put the SS-20 warheads on them, and they have three warheads, since the weapon is more or less the same.

Senator Boschwitz: So that the difficulties that we have with all of these types of treaties at least least you to suggest that perhaps an elimination of the MIRVs, of the multiple warheads, would be a more stabilizing type of approach.

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Dr. Kissinger: That would be a radical change.

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Senator Boschwitz: what other -- have you thought through what other kind of approaches we might pursue?

Dr. Kissinger: I really have not, no.

Senator Boschwitz: May I ask a final question?

Dr. Kissinger: I do not know that anybody else has. I am not familiar with any alternative views on the subject.

Senator Boschwitz: It is very difficult. It is very appealing, the idea of reducing the weapons, and yet the vulnerabilities of it all, how does --

Dr. Kissinger: I just want to keep emphasizing, we ought to ask the question at the end of an agreement, in what way we are better off than we were before, not by abstruse criteria as to number of warheads that have been destroyed, but in what way -- are fewer people under threat, are fewer weapons under threat, are fewer allies under threat? And if none of this changes, then we have spent a lot of years on esoteric exercises.

Senator Boschwitz: Well, how does the SDI play into the alternatives? Is this --

Dr. Kissinger: Well, SDI, there is no doubt that it complicates the issue. On the other hand, I think the absence of SDI will in time lead to nuclear pacifism, and I just do not see how a President can keep telling his people that they are totally exposed to any third country accidental

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war, blackmail attack, and that their total vulnerability is
their security.

Senator Boschwitz: Is their security.

Dr. Kissinger: This is my hang-up, in addition to the
fact that if one could get some defense for the strategic
forces that are not mobile, it would certainly discourage
that sort of blackmail.

Senator Boschwitz: I also feel that these treaties do
not really improve the American condition very much, the
human condition very much, and I think that a large part of
coming to these agreements and feeling comfortable with the
agreements is wrapped up in the SDI and the abilities, as I
understand it, of kinetic weapons or others to even now
provide some defense or at least provide a good deal of
deterrence.

Dr. Kissinger: If I may say one thing about SDI that I
feel rather strongly about, if we want to give up SDI as a
nation, let's make that decision and get something for it.
But let's not slide into it by pretending that we are
preserving it while de facto giving it up just to get some
other sort of agreement.

And I cannot believe that a moratorium on deployment,
coupled with a limitation on testing to the criteria of the
narrow interpretation, not that I think we should put it on
that basis, will have any other consequence except ending

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SDI. And if we are willing to do that, then let's at least
get the SS-18s for it or something else. But we should not
play games with ourselves of giving the impression that we
are doing one thing where in effect the practical
consequences are something else.

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Senator Boschwitz: Without extending this too far, my
problem with giving up the SDI is my understanding of our
inability to verify the fact that they are giving up the SDI.

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Perhaps some of these tests, I understand, are just --
Dr. Kissinger: Well, I would not give it up. I would
negotiate the limits of SDI the same way I negotiate limits
of offensive weapons, and bring the two in relation to each
other.

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It is not self-evident to me that you begin the process
by getting rid of weapons aimed at weapons in order to
preserve weapons aimed at people.

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Senator Boschwitz: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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The Chairman: Thank you very much, Senator Boschwitz.

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Senator Kerry.

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Senator Kerry: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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Mr. Secretary, I had one line of questioning I did want
to pursue, but you have prompted me to want to ask a couple
of other questions by virtue of a couple of answers. I know
it is late, and I apologize.

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Dr. Kissinger: No, really, I have time.

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Senator Kerry: Well, I thank you. It has been very, very interesting, and I think you have opened a lot of significant questions.

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However, your last comment about blackmail and accident and SDI has always intrigued me, and I would like to just ask you. I mean, an accident is going to be one of the superpower nations, one of the current nuclear nations accidentally firing a missile.

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Is it not far cheaper and more realistic technologically to go the PAL, the permissive action link route and deal with the question of destruction of the missile?

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Dr. Kissinger: I am not so worried about the accident. It is the least --

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Senator Kerry: Then let me come off the accident, because I think there is an easy solution.

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Dr. Kissinger: That is the least reason.

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Senator Kerry: Okay. Blackmail. It seems to me that a country that is going to blackmail the United States is not going to choose the most expensive, nor will it be able to choose the most expensive means of delivery, which is an intercontinental ballistic missile, which requires launching pad, major nuclear fuel capacity and so forth, as well as development, testing, et cetera, all of which we would be tipped off to long in advance, and if necessary, could take preemptive action to. The reality of blackmail is a suitcase

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bomb or something surreptitiously delivered.

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Now, that is not going to be cured by an SDI.

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Dr. Kissinger: SDI does not cure all problems.

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Senator Kerry: Well, not even all problems. I am just taking about this notion of blackmail. I mean, it really strikes me as being something of a red herring.

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Dr. Kissinger: It seems to me, the fundamental point that I am making is that if we preserve the option of developing SDI, we can then have a rational debate in our country against what dangers we most need to protect ourselves, while if we forgo both the deployment and the testing of SDI, a priori, then we are making ourselves vulnerable to many unforeseen circumstances as well as developing a strategy that becomes increasingly absurd.

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So if the Secretary of Defense were to ask my view of now rapidly he should deploy SDI, there are all kinds of flexibilities in my view on that. If he were to ask me, however, whether we should negotiate it away in order to get a 50 percent reduction, since I do not see the great benefit of a 50 percent reduction, I have very grave doubts.

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Senator Kerry: Well, let me ask you, then, when the ABM treaty was negotiated, you among others talked about the inherent instability that is created when superpowers both possess a partial defense system.

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What are the risks if the United States were to proceed

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1 now, as we are -- that is precisely what Phase I of SDI is, a

2 partial defense -- and you and others, I think President

3 Nixon wrote about it, I think President Reagan even quoted

4 him, talking about the sword and shield issue -- are we not

5 proceeding to create the very instability that you talked
about?

7 Dr. Kissinger: Well, actually, the ABM agreement
involved a partial defense.

8 Senator Kerry: Agreed. I understand that.

10 Dr. Kissinger: The only problem was that because of our
domestic debate, what we were defending did not make any
sense. We were defending two missile sites in North Dakota.

13 Senator Kerry: In North Dakota, right.

14 Dr. Kissinger: And we never built the second missile
site, so we then negotiated that one away, but the Soviets
were defending Moscow, which makes eminent sense, in the
process of which, incidentally, they are protecting more
missiles than we were protecting because of the envelope that
is created and so many of their missiles are close to Moscow.

20 If I recall the ABM --

21 Senator Kerry: But the point of that was, and I
22 apologize for interrupting you.

23 Dr. Kissinger: No, please.

24 Senator Kerry: The point of that was that it was
25 strictly agreed upon in a mutual fashion where --

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Dr. Kissinger: I would welcome that with respect to SDI also. I am not saying there should be an unrestrained race in SDI any more than I say It should be an offensive weapon, but I think we should get the capability and negotiate a level for it.

Senator Kerry: Well, I happen to --

Dr. Kissinger: Or negotiate a level for it and then get the capability. I have no problem with that.

Senator Kerry: I happen to agree with you that theoretically -- and you have castigated us to a certain degree, and I think appropriately, incidentally, for some of the theory that seems to supersede hard thinking and application, but I can see a scenario in which some different defense could be mutually deployed, simultaneously with adequate verification and so forth, by which you might actually strengthen deterrence if you were in fact reducing strategic weapons at the same time.

And some people may be shocked to hear me say that, but I think you could do that. The problem is that the Soviet Union is not doing it. The problem is the Soviet Union does not want to do it. The problem is that we are proceeding unilaterally, as you have yourself said, I think, in a noncoherent fashion, which therefore it occurs to me can alter their perceptions of our capabilities, and ours of our own, which tips nuclear deterrence which alters the balance,

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1 does it not?

2 Dr. Kissinger: Well, the Soviet Union is doing it around
3 Moscow within the permitted parameters.

4 Senator Kerry: Within the ABM treaty.

5 Dr. Kissinger: Within the ABM treaty, but --

6 Senator Kerry: Certainly not the kinds of exotics that
7 we are talking about.

8 Dr. Kissinger: No, no, no, they do not have the
capability yet for the kind of exotics that we --

10 Senator Kerry: Is that not dangerous? I mean, is that
11 not the very partial defense that you talked about?

12 Dr. Kissinger: Well, but they have a partial defense,
13 not against sophisticated U.S. attack, and to the best of my
14 knowledge, they are doing a lot of development work and they
15 have that radar in Krasnoyarsk, so that in terms of existing
16 ABM systems, they are undoubtedly ahead of us.

17 I do not see any huge unilateral advantage -- I could
18 conceive situations in which both sides have the right to
19 develop ABM systems, and one side chooses not to deploy them,
20 as after all we chose not to deploy an ABM system, and still
21 not get a decisive advantage.

22 Senator Kerry: Well, we both agree on that. In fact, we
23 can do that right now under the ABM treaty.

24 Dr. Kissinger: Incidentally, I have not studied the
25 stage 1 of the current SDI program, and I have not taken a

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position on that.

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Senator Kerry: Well, let me come to another one of the questions, if I may.

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Is it not in the same way -- I happen to agree again with your statement that if we had single mobile weapons, and that was the agreed upon mutually deployed structure, it would be safer, and it would eliminate a first strike ability. But is not again the danger that we proceed to deploy mobiles, and they proceed to deploy mobiles without either side knowing precisely how many, and without a protocol for reductions so that you are merely adding to the current danger?

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Dr. Kissinger: Well, if we were to make a START agreement that eliminated land-based MIRVed missiles and set a ceiling for it, I would welcome that. I think that would be preferable to an unrestrained race in single warhead missiles.

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Senator Kerry: I think we are agreeing, then, that it is only under that kind of an agreement that you should deploy.

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Dr. Kissinger: Well, I am not saying only under such an agreement because I do not want to be kept from doing the right things by the absence of an agreement, but it would certainly strengthen what one is trying to do unilaterally.

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Absent such an agreement, I would first make most or many or some of the land-based missiles mobile, even if they remain MIRVed. The deMIRVing them becomes advantageous

[L.C.]

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On mobility, we should do it unilaterally, because it gives us no offensive advantage and reduces their vulnerability.

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Senator Kerry: Does it not raise more serious issues later in attempting to reach an agreement with respect to the issue of verification?

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Dr. Kissinger: Anyway, from what I read in the newspapers, this is now already agreed.

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Senator Kerry: Which?

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Dr. Kissinger: That mobile missiles will be permitted under the START agreement.

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Senator Kerry: I understand that.

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Dr. Kissinger: I am reading the newspapers. I do not know whether I read it correctly.

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Senator Kerry: Mr. Chairman, if I could just pursue a couple of other things.

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As we approach this question of START and this Treaty, would you agree that, looking at the whole issue of strategic stability, that we should seek as a matter of principle, if we were going to talk about principles that this Committee and the Senate ought to try to adhere to, particularly in light of this Treaty, would you agree that we should seek to disperse rather than concentrate our forces through the following three means?

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Number one, by emphasizing mobility, and I think you have

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1 said that, and the survivability of our land and sea-based forces.
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3 Two, by de-emphasizing the MIRVed, and I think you just said that a moment ago.
4

5 Dr. Kissinger: Especially if it is done as part of an
6 agreement. We are talking about an agreement now.
7

8 Senator Kerry: I understand. But what about unilaterally? Do you think we, not withstanding, should pursue those too?

10 And then the third one would be testing MIkVed ICBMs and
11 MIRVed SLBMs with a view to maximizing the number of delivery
12 vehicles that we would be permitted under the counting
13 rules. Delivery vehicles versus number of warheads. Those
14 three items.
15

16 Would those be sound principles to pursue as we move
towards --

17 Dr. Kissinger: Certainly for negotiations. As part of a
18 unilateral policy, if it is not part of an agreement, I would
19 certainly favor mobility.
20

20 I am not sure if I understood the implication of the last
21 one. Do you mean we should put the maximum number of
22 warheads or the minimum number of warheads?

23 Senator Kerry: The minimum number of warheads. The
24 maximum delivery vehicles.
25

Dr. Kissinger: Yes, I think both of these are

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desirable. And the single warhead as a unilateral step I
would like to think about a little more.

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But a priori, I think all three of those are certainly
responsible decisions.

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Senator Kerry: And as a matter of negotiated agreement --

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Dr. Kissinger: I would have no trouble with that. I
would think all of these are good.

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Senator Kerry: Now, as a matter of negotiated agreement,
In terms of the survivability of strategic forces, do you
think an agreement should include an incentive for both sides
to reduce the number of warheads on both ICBMs and SLBMs?

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Dr. Kissinger: Well, the question is, what are we trying
to achieve?

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Senator Kerry: We are trying to encourage nuclear
stability, strategic stability.

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Dr. Kissinger: Strategic stability as defined, reducing
the capability to launch a first strike. This will all
contribute.

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What we should, however, keep in mind is that the defense
of the Atlantic Alliance still depends on the American
readiness to initiate nuclear war.

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And we then have to answer the question, as the capacity
to define a military outcome to that war becomes more and
more obtuse, if not impossible, what is it that a President
does when the Soviets, should the Soviets bring pressure on

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Europe, when he initiates nuclear war?

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We have to answer that question as an alliance, and we
have answered it neither as a Nation nor as an alliance. In
any administration. So this is not a comment on this
Administration nor on its predecessors, or when we were in
office.

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Senator Kerry: Finally, Mr. Secretary, and I thank you
and the Chairman for your patience, you asked the question,
can you say that we are better? Can you say that the
relationship, the military balance, the allied relationship
and so forth, are better as a consequence of a particular
agreement?

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And I agree with you completely, and began early in these
hearings, and would reiterate that I think that unless we get
a START agreement, and unless we have some resolution of the
conventional force issue, there will be nothing significantly
gained or even at all gained by this Treaty.

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But would you not say that as an interim step towards
that agreement that we are better by virtue of the intrusive
inspection, asymmetrical reductions, and elimination or proof
that we could eliminate one entire class of weapons?

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Are not those three accomplishments, providing you get to
a significant and rational agreement, important? And
better? Are we not better for those three?

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Dr. Kissinger: This is the philosophical difference

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1 between me and my friends in the Administration.

2 I certainly do not consider the argument you have made
3 irresponsible or views that serious people cannot hold. I
4 would think we have here a Soviet leader with a demonstrated
5 willingness to look at things anew. In addition, animated by
6 the necessity of making some changes.

7 And I would have preferred, if we had early on had a
8 session in which we said, what are we trying to do here?
9 Where are we trying to come to? And then work back from
10 that. And I doubt that we would then have come to the same
11 conclusion.

12 I do not believe that abolishing whole categories of
13 nuclear weapons is desirable. We have this endless rhetoric
14 of the Administration that its purpose is to do away with
15 nuclear weapons.

16 I do not believe this is possible, and I do not believe
17 our leaders should create the impression that it is possible,
18 let alone desirable. And therefore the argument that this
19 abolishes two categories of weapons has never swayed me
20 particularly.

21 Now, Is it a first step towards better agreements, fuller
22 agreements? It is an interesting question whether an
23 agreement that in itself is of no huge consequence and pays a
24 political price or a price in political relationships is a
25 step towards something better.

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Well, I would argue, why do we not go directly towards something better? But you know, it is easier said than done.

Senator Kerry: Mr. Secretary, we understand that beggars cannot be choosers, and we have been beggars on this issue for a long time.

Dr. Kissinger: But I do not know why you have to be.

Senator Kerry: We would like to move further also faster, which is why I have said again and again, if we do not go further, I do not think this Treaty is very meaningful either.

The significance is the potentiality of a first step, and I understand why you disagree with that, and also want to be on record as having said that. Because I think the day will come when we will measure this against where we have wound up.

Dr. Kissinger: And of course, I mean, I have made it repeatedly clear that I am for ratification. So we are not talking philosophically.

Senator Kerry: We are getting the best of both worlds, right?

Dr. Kissinger: No. I am reluctant. It is my honest judgment that I may make few friends with that view.

Senator Kerry: I do not mean to make light of it. Mr. Secretary, thank you very, very much. It has been very

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1 interesting.

2 The Chairman: Thank you, Senator Kerry. Mr. Secretary,
3 Dr. Kissinger, I thank you so much for being with us. There
4 are a couple of questions that I have, and I am imposing on
5 your patience even now.

6 Dr. Kissinger: You are not putting me under any
7 particular strain.

8 The Chairman: I was struck by a couple of your
9 thoughts. I am not sure I agree with you.

10 But when you say what you do usually has merit, I can
11 think of many things that I have done that I am not sure that
12 they have merit, they are fun.

13 Dr. Kissinger: Well, you are a nicer person than I am.

14 The Chairman: Also, you said, and I agree with you, that
15 peace is not the normal condition of human beings. I must
16 say, I think you are right.

17 Human beings, unfortunately, are argumentative and
18 combative of temperament. And the job of we leaders is to
19 try to make sure that as few people get damaged in their
20 exchanges of hostilities as possible. That is one of the
21 reasons why men like myself seek to avoid nuclear weapons in
22 their entirety, if possible.

23 I have a couple of questions. First, why have the
24 Europeans really made the choice to accord conventional
25 superiority to the Soviets? Because when you see their

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1 capacity, the capacity of production, the capacity of
2 population, the amount that they are spending, you realize
3 that they could make much better efforts and more efforts.

4 Why is it that they have chosen to accord this
5 superiority to the Soviets when they are much closer to the
6 area of the threat than we are, who are much further away?

7 Dr. Kissinger: Mr. Chairman, that is a very good
8 question, to which there is no answer other than that the
9 European countries have deliberately decided to run these
10 risks, because they are giving priority to domestic
11 consumption, and to political survival of the governments
12 that might have to make the unpopular decisions to increase
13 spending, defense spending.

14 The Chairman: But do you not think that more of an
effort should be made to get them to pull up their socks and
16 carry a greater part of the load, since the threat is closer
to them?

18 Dr. Kissinger: I think that is inevitable now. I think
19 that is one of the good results of this agreement. I think
20 the Europeans are coming to that view too.

21 The Chairman: Thank you. Do you think that a limited
22 war is possible, that we could use the flexible response
idea?

24 Dr. Kissinger: No. Mr. Chairman, I would prefer no
25 war. I do believe, however, that if through any combination

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of circumstances, madness, revolutions, whatever one wants to imagine. a war should occur, we all have an obligation to limit its scope.

That it is irresponsible to pretend or to argue that any war must automatically become a holocaust, because the level of destructiveness is more than any responsible leader has a right to impose on humanity.

I am not saying limited war is desirable. But it must be attempted if there is a war at all.

The Chairman: It must be attempted. But in your judgment, is it possible? I guess it is possible.

Dr. Kissinger: I think, in fact, that as far as the superpowers are concerned, both sides will probably look for means to limit the war, because they have too much at stake.

What will happen when some of the Third world countries, with more fanatical leadership and a greater willingness to stake everything, develop nuclear weapons? That, I would think, is more of a problem. A much more complex issue.

The Chairman: I thank you very much. I just want to add into the record here that early in the course of this hearing it was asserted that the majority of intelligence agencies believe that more SS-20s have been produced than were declared by the Soviets.

The Administration has provided the following response, fully coordinated with all of the relevant Executive branch

136

agencies, including State Department, CIA, DIA, and INK.

"The statement is incorrect. The majority of the national intelligence community does not support the view that the Soviets withheld a number of SS-20s. All data will be reviewed in the updated MOU, memorandum of understanding, and verified through on-site inspection.

"The Director of Central Intelligence, speaking for the entire intelligence community, has said that the Soviet data in the MOU falls within the intelligence community estimates."

I just wanted to make that a matter of record. I thank you tremendously for your patience in being here for four hours. And we wish you well. This hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 5:52 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee.

Thank you for the invitation to testify about the
pending INF Treaty.

I accepted your invitation with some ambivalence. For
many months I have expressed grave reservations about the
political and strategic implications of the pending
agreement, first directly to responsible officials, in the
end, publicly. I will sum up these doubts below.

Nevertheless, my concerns cannot be removed by the
refusal of the Senate to ratify the agreement. On the
contrary, failure to ratify or attaching conditions
requiring renegotiation, would generate a crisis in the
Atlantic Alliance which would in the end almost certainly
lead to the unilateral withdrawal of U.S. missiles from
Europe and undermine the cohesion of the Alliance.

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a) The pending agreement does not reduce in any significant degree the Soviet capacity to devastate Europe with nuclear weapons. ICBMs, SLBMs, and airplanes can carry out the missions assigned to the SS-20s and the shorter range weapons. It is also important to keep in mind that the warheads now on these missiles will remain in being.

b) The American capacity to retaliate against Soviet aggression with nuclear weapons based in Europe is substantially reduced if not eliminated. This view is, I believe, shared by all former NATO commanders.

c) Since NATO is an alliance of 16 nations confronting the threat of a single state, the reliance for deterrence on U.S. weapons based far away creates a psychological and political imbalance which is greatly magnified by Soviet superiority in conventional forces.

d) The INF agreement removes from the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany the missiles which can retaliate

3

against the source of aggression and leaves only those
short-range nuclear missiles which would if used destroy
solely German territory and population. This reality has
generated pressures within the Federal Republic against
modernization and for the denuclearization of Germany.
These pressures are likely to increase and become a
permanent feature of German domestic politics. The seeds
for strain within the Alliance are thereby sown because
other NATO countries cannot be expected to run risks in
defense of German territory which the Federal Republic is
not prepared to run on its own behalf.

4

of substantial Soviet conventional forces from Central
Europe.

But that is not the situation the Committee confronts.
Failure to ratify the treaty or insistence on amendments
requiring renegotiation would not cure its defects; it would
on the contrary vastly magnify all difficulties:

a) The removal of American intermediate range missiles
is now irreversible. The process of negotiation and the
fact of a completed agreement coupled with the associated
briefings has destroyed the public support in Europe for
their deployment. Were the Senate to reject the treaty,
European governments would undoubtedly be forced by public
opinion to insist on the removal of American missiles.
Withdrawal of American missiles would thus become a
unilateral without any quid pro quo.

b) Confidence in American leadership would be severely
undermined. Neutralist sentiment in Europe would gain

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impetus; the pro-Atlantic element would be further
demoralized. The Soviet strategy of dividing the Atlantic
Alliance would be greatly enhanced.

For all these reasons, the Senate should consent to
ratification.

At the same time I hope that the Senate would exercise
its constitutional advisory role to the following effect:

a) Future steps towards nuclear arms control should be
coupled with measures to remove the Soviet conventional
superiority overhanging America's allies. It should be made
clear that this cannot be accomplished by vague Soviet hints
of asymmetrical reductions. At a minimum, the United States
must obtain a concrete Soviet scheme which lays out what it
understands by "asymetry".

b) Verification procedures which may be adequate for
the INF agreement are almost surely insufficient for the
next stage.

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New verification procedures must deal with three issues:

1) The magnitude of a violation necessary to threaten the strategic equilibrium.

2) American capabilities -- national or as created by the agreement -- to monitor potential violations.

3) Possible countermeasures.

On-site inspection is not an end in itself. It must be assessed in relation to the above criteria. It must also be kept in mind that verification can not make a bad agreement good. It can only make a good agreement enforceable.

c) Some relationship must be established between arms control and Soviet political conduct. Clarity must be obtained about parallel Soviet political conduct especially the dispatch of arms and surrogates to regions far from Soviet territory such as Angola and Nicaragua.

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d) The strengthening of Atlantic unity must be the highest priority. It requires attention to four components:

1) A common strategy for the decade of the '90s and the next century which includes a relationship between conventional and nuclear weapons and between so-called tactical and strategic forces.

2) A common Atlantic diplomacy towards the East at least with respect to arms control.

3) Agreement on burden-sharing.

4) Coordination of actions outside the NATO area or at a minimum a mechanism to deal with disagreements.

b) The American capacity to retaliatory against Soviet
aggression with nuclear weapons based in Europe is
substantially reduced if not eliminated. This view is, I
believe, shared by all former NATO commanders.

d) The INF agreement removes from the territory of the
Federal Republic of Germany the missiles which can retaliatory
against the source of aggression and leaves only those
short-range nuclear missiles which would if used destroy
solely German territory and population. This reality has
generated pressures within the Federal Republic against
modernization and for the denuclearization of Germany.
These pressures are likely to increase and become a
permanent feature of German domestic politics. The seeds
for strain within the Alliance are thereby sown because
other NATO countries cannot be expected to run risks in
defense of German territory which the Federal Republic is
not prepared to run on its own behalf.

I would have preferred the process of nuclear
dismarmament in Europe to begin at the short range end of the
nuclear spectrum. It would in my view also have been better
if the INF process had taken place in stages. One could
have begun with a reduction on the order of 50 percent, and
made the removal of the remainder dependent on a withdrawal

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b) Confidence in American leadership would be severely undermined. Neutralist sentiment in Europe would gain impetus; the pro-Atlantic element would be further demoralized. The Soviet strategy of dividing the Atlantic Alliance would be greatly enhanced.

3) Possible countermeasures.

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January 25, 1988

SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE TESTIMONY

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee:

Thank you for the opportunity to submit this statement
about the pending INF treaty.

I recommend that the treaty be ratified without amendments
or reservations requiring renegotiation. I do so despite strong
reservations about the merits of the pending agreement. I
attach ______ published articles which elaborate on these concerns.
For present purposes, my reservations can be summed up as
follows:

a) The pending agreement does not reduce in any significant
degree the Soviet capacity to devastate Europe with nuclear
weapons. ICBM's, SCBM's and airplanes can replace the two
categories of missiles (not warheads) being destroyed.

b) The American capacity to retaliate from Europe is

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substantially reduced if not eliminated. The Committee may
ask the judgment of former NATO commanders on this subject.

c) Since NATO is an alliance confronting the threat of a
single state this creates a psychological and political im-
balance compounded by the superiority in conventional forces
of the Soviet Union.

d) The INF agreement removes from the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany those weapons which can retaliate against the source of aggression and leaves only those weapons destructive of Germany territory and population. This has already generated pressures for the denuclearization of Germany which are certain to increase. But other NATO countries cannot be expected to run risks in defense of German territory, the Federal Republic is not prepared to run for itself.

e) The stigmatization of nuclear weapons focusses arms control on the weapons on which NATO has so far relied while leaving untouched the conventional forces of the Soviet Union.

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I would have preferred a 50 percent reduction of the two
categories of weapons under discussion with the removal of the
remaining 50 percent contingent on a withdrawal of substantial
Soviet conventional forces from Central Europe.

But that is not the situation the Committee confronts.
Failure to ratify the treaty would not cure its defects. It
would on the contrary magnify all difficulties:

a) The removal of American intermediate range missiles would become unilateral. The process of negotiation and briefing on the agreements has destroyed the narrow margin of support that existed for their deployment. European governments would undoubtedly insist on their removal now whatever the decision of the Senate.

b) The confidence in American leadership would be severely undermined. The neutralist sentiment in Europe would gain tremendous impetus; the pro-Atlantic element would be further demoralized.

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c) The Soviet strategy of dividing the Atlantic Alliance would be given further impetus.

For all these reasons, the Senate should ratify the agreement.

I respectfully urge however that the Administration be put on notice that this process must not be continued. Specifically:

a) The Senate should express its view that future steps towards nuclear arms control be coupled with measures to remove the Soviet conventional superiority.

b) This cannot be accomplished by vague Soviet limits of asymmetrical reductions. At a minimum, the United States must obtain a concrete Soviet scheme of what it understands by that term.

c) The verification procedures possibly adequate for the INF agreement are not necessarily appropriate for the next stage.

d) Some relationship must be established between arms control and Soviet political conduct. Clarity must be obtained about parallel Soviet political conduct especially the dispatch

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CJD

These and related issues should receive full consideration
by the appropriate Congressional Committees well before existing
talks reach major decisions.