EUGENE V. ROSTOW
YALE LAW SCHOOL
NEW HAVEN, CT. 06520

January 6, 1975

Dr.Dr.h.c. Kurt Birrenbach
4 Dusseldorf
Berliner Allee 33
Federal Republic of West Germany:

Dear Kurt:

I have given your question about the ratification of the NPT a good
deal of careful thought, and now have the considered views of the Secreta-
ty of State on the subject, as well as those of his distinguished predecessor,
Dean Rusk.

I fully recognize the importance of the signals we discussed in Bonn,
when you raised the question with me, and I agree with you that they may
portend storms. But I conclude, as my interlocutors do, that these signals
are not a sufficient reason for abandoning the long effort of NPT in which
we have been engaged together for nearly ten years. It seems more obvious
to me every day -- and I know you are of the same view -- that in the world
as it is, the security and prosperity of Western Europe, North America, and
Japan require their organized interdependence. One of the indispensable
pillars of that system of interdependence is the American nuclear arsenal.
There is no practical alternative to it -- that is no national nuclear system
which could for many years hope to deter the huge and growing mass of Soviet
nuclear power. As the Chinese have discovered, small national weapon systems
are meaningless, save in situations of ultimate nightmare, unless they are
linked to those of the United States. And if we do move into situations of
ultimate nightmare -- if we elect a President like McGovern, to take your
example -- then there are ample safeguards in the escape clause of NPT itself.

So, my conclusion, for what it is worth, is that Germany should complete
the ratification promptly, as part of the desirable process of Atlantic
and Pan-Atlantic consolidation which is now going forward reasonably well
on the energy and monetary fronts.

Thank you for your Christmas card. We didn't do much in that line
this year. I went into the hospital on December 13 for some surgery. All
went very well, but the usual busy holiday routines were ruined, as you
can imagine.

[L]

COALITION FOR A DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY

Foreign Policy Task Force

EUGENE V. ROSTOW, CHAIRMAN

Professor, Yale Law School

Former Undersecretary of State

## Task Force Members

Eugenie Anderson *
former U.S. Ambassador to Denmark

Joseph H. Cople

William A. Douglas
Director of Education, American
Institute for Free Labor Develop-
ment

Henry Fowler *
partner, Goldman, Sachs
former Secretary of the Treasury

David Friedman

Stephen P. Gibert
Consultant, Strategic Studies
Center, Stanford Research Institute

Roy Godson *
Director, Georgetown University
International Labor Program
Secretary to the CDM Foreign Policy
Task Force

Ernest Green *
Director, Recruitment-Training-
Placement, Inc.

K. Scott Gudgeon
junior fellow, New York University
Center for Strategic Studies

Abraham Halpern

Don Irwin *
Mayor, Norwalk, Connecticut

Fred Isquith
attorney, New York

Jeane J. Kirkpatrick *
Professor, Georgetown University

Robert James Maddox *
Professor, Penn State University

Max M. Kampelman
attorney; former Counsel to Vice-
President Hubert H. Humphrey

Norman Podhoretz *
Editor, "Commentary"

Penn Kemble
Executive Director, CDM

Clifford H. Pruefer
Captain, U.S. Navy (Retired)

Lucian W. Pye *
Professor, MIT

John P. Roche *
Professor, Fletcher School of Law
and Diplomacy, Tufts University;
former Special Assistant to President
Lyndon B. Johnson

Peter J. Rosenblatt
attorney; former special consultant to
Senator Edmund S. Muskie

Leonard S. Sandweiss
attorney, New York

Paul Seabury *
Professor, The University of California
at Berkeley

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COALITION FOR A DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY
FOREIGN POLICY TASK FORCE

Preface
=========

That party politics should stop at the water's edge is one of
the finest principles of American public life. The Coalition for a Demo-
cratic Majority will abide by that principle in the statements and studies
of its Foreign Policy Task Force, and the statements on foreign policy which
its Board of Directors will issue from time to time. The rule _does not_ mean
that the policies and actions of the government in the field of foreign affairs
should be above criticism. It _does_ require that foreign policy problems be
discussed in terms of their wisdom and efficacy in promoting the national
interest, not the interests of either political party.

Since the time of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, at least, the
foreign policy of the United States has been presented and debated as a national
problem, not a party problem. As the shadow of war deepened, President
Roosevelt's cabinet included Secretary of War Stimson and Secretary of the
Navy Knox. Senator Vandenberg cooperated fully with President Truman, as
Senator Johnson did with President Eisenhower. The foreign policy we have
pursued for more than thirty years has been developed and supported by a stead-
fast bipartisan coalition. We approach our problem in the spirit of that ex-
perience.

Coalition for a Democratic Majority

Task Force on Foreign Policy

Statement No. 2

For an Adequate Defense

As they did in the Truman years, liberals and Democrats must
again take the lead in rallying America to increase our defense capabil-
ities, both nuclear and conventional. The defense budget recently
proposed by the Ford Administration would at best keep our defense posture
constant. We believe this static policy is not enough, in view of the
nature of Soviet policy and the massive regular increases in Soviet
military programs, which show no signs of abating. We therefore recommend
an increase in our defense capacity, especially for the Navy, for research
and development, and for ready conventional forces.

We have reached this disagreeable conclusion reluctantly.
We share the general anxiety about the world's mounting stockpile of
military weapons. We too would infinitely prefer our tax dollars to be
spent for domestic social and economic needs, which must be met in any
case if the nation is to remain strong and healthy. We share the mood
of the nation in the aftermath of our tragic Vietnam experience, and
the nostalgic yearning for the isolation of the nineteenth century which
so many Americans feel in their reaction against the turbulent condition
of world politics.

These feelings and concerns have tended to obscure the
inexorable facts. We are dismayed by the drift toward military vulner-
ability and political timidity in which the nation seems to be caught up.
At one level, every American knows that the nineteenth century is over,

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and that isolation is not an available option for American foreign
policy today. If there had ever been serious doubt on that score,
the oil crisis which began in 1971 or 1972 should put it to rest.
Unless we set a new and responsible course, the next two years may see
the military balance shift decisively towards the Soviet Union and its
allies; an irreversible deterioration of our alliance network; and the
conquest or destruction of many small nations whose existence we and
others have guaranteed -- among them the embattled state of Israel,
which came into existence in reliance on international promises which
must be kept.

I

In the first statement of our Task Force, The Quest for
Detente, issued on July 31, 1974, we concluded that "our basic security
position is strong, if we understand it as it is, and undertake to do
what is required to sustain it. Our fundamental national interest in
world politics is to achieve and maintain a balance of power which could
effectively deter general war. On the foundation of such an equilibrium,
we could hope in time to build a system of peace, faithful to the
principles of the United Nations Charter.

"The logic of nuclear weapons, and the threat of Soviet power and policy, have forced China, Japan, Western Europe and many other countries to realize that their security interests and those of the United States are indivisible. If the United States consolidates its rapprochement with China; it if achieves once again a relationship of complete and cordial solidarity with our European and our Pacific allies; and if, with our allies, we do what is required to deter Soviet nuclear

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and conventional power, we should be able to carry out a foreign policy capable of preventing war, while also pressing forward politically in the endless quest for the vindication of decency.

"If, on the other hand, we allow ourselves to be deceived by the myth of detente, reduce our military strength, and permit our alliances to erode, we may well suffer irreversible defeats, which could imperil the safety of democracy in America."

The course of events since last summer has fully confirmed this judgment. Soviet policy and economic disequilibrium continue to press Western Europe, Japan, China, and the United States together, as they grope for programs that could assure their security and prosperity.

But the foundation of American and allied foreign policy is still weak, because public opinion -- its source -- remains uncertain. In our first statement, we said that President Nixon had abused the standard of ethical responsibility which could govern the discourse between the President and the American people by claiming "too much in explaining the state of Soviet-American relations." President Ford has not yet liberated himself or his administration from the soothing and ambiguous vocabulary President Nixon used in talking about this subject. This is less characteristic of the Administration's statements on our defense posture than is the case in its treatment of other foreign policy problems; it remains true, however, that the full gravity of our defense problems, and the full magnitude of our defense needs, have not been adequately presented to the American people.

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The triumph and the agony of Watergate will have been in vain unless the President and his associates trust the people, and explain the situation to them exactly as it is. The Ford Administration has not yet taken this indispensable first step into the post-Nixon era.

## II

The nation is in great danger. Our danger is increasing every day. The Soviet Union continues to pursue a policy of expansion that threatens our vital interests in Europe, the Middle East, and other parts of the world. It pursues its goals directly and through proxies, by exploiting and exacerbating local tensions and situations of conflict. This is the essence of the tragic situation in the Middle East, where for twenty years, the Soviet Union has played on Arab hostility to the existence of Israel, and on other conflicts and rivalries in the area, to stir up and to prolong an endless cycle of war and other violence, which can be sustained only by Soviet arms and political influence.

The strategic goal of Soviet policy in the Middle East is to outflank NATO from the South. This perception of the Middle Eastern conflict is not yet fully understood by American public opinion. Our alliance with Western Europe is absolutely essential to the balance of power on which the primordial safety of the United States rests. On this proposition, there is nearly complete unanimity in the United States. But the larger part of public opinion is not yet fully conscious of the fact that Middle Eastern conflicts are not isolated regional problems, but are integral to the defense of NATO. The Middle East is of fundamental geo-political importance to the security of Europe.

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For twenty years, the Soviets have pursued a strategy of enveloping NATO. They have exploited Arab hostility to the existence of Israel as an important weapon of that strategy. The Arab-Israeli conflict is not, of course, the only arrow in their quiver. As the Soviets say, they "push at every open door." They have tried to take advantage of every political and military opportunity that served their purposes, if it did not involve excessive risk or cost. Thus they have probed in Iceland and Norway, and participated in many conflicts among Arab states. They are now moving on a large scale in Portugal. They have a naval base in Conakry, and have explored possibilities in many other places on the marches of Europe.

By playing on the Arab-Israeli conflict, and other issues, the Soviets have made considerable progress in the Middle East, from Iraq and Aden to Algeria. And their investment in that effort is by now considerable. They have supplied Arab states with billions of dollars worth of arms and economic aid. And their technical assistance, especially in the military sphere, has often become participatory. If the Soviet Union were to achieve domination of the Mediterranean, North Africa and the Middle East, it would outflank the NATO defenses in Central Europe, and threaten Europe from its soft under-belly, as President Pompidou once remarked. It has been painfully obvious since October, 1973, that hegemonial control of the oil, the space, and the mass of the region by the Soviet Union would carry with it dominion over Western Europe as well. NATO would be dismantled. The United States would have to leave Europe and the Mediterranean. Europe would be reduced to the status of Finland, at best -- a major supplier of technology and consumer goods to the Soviet Union, and a political eunuch.

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The Soviets are well advanced in their campaign to control
the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin. The achievement of this
goal would decisively tip the worldwide military balance in favor of the
Soviet Union and its allies, and would leave us isolated in a bitter,
hostile, and disillusioned world. In such a world, we, the Europeans,
and the Japanese would be "allowed" to supply the Soviet Union -- on
favorable credit terms -- with the technology and consumer goods needed
to assure her military domination, and to keep her people quiet.

The Soviet Union's expansionist foreign policy is backed by a
military building program which has no peacetime parallel in world affairs.

Thus far, however, -- in public, at least -- our government
continues to talk about "detente". There have been increases in the
Japanese and in some European defense budgets during the last few years.
Our own military budget has been swollen by inflation, and by the pay
increases needed to produce a volunteer military service. Manpower costs,
including those for pay and benefits, have taken an ever-increasing share
of available funds, leaving less and less for weapons procurement and
deployment, particularly in the non-strategic sector, i.e., that of general
purpose forces. As a result, our defense budget measured in constant
dollars has been declining steadily. In terms of real defense capability,
the United States is in many respects pursuing a course of unilateral
disarmament, especially with regard to the Navy and other conventional forces.
We are now spending a smaller fraction of our GNP on defense than has been
the case for more than twenty years. Defense spending now takes only
26 cents of every federal tax dollar, compared to 45 cents in 1964 and
57 cents in 1956. In the face of the Soviet military build-up, and Soviet
foreign policy, our defense budget is an invitation to disaster.

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The best diplomatic signal the United States could give the world now would be a sharp increase in our defense programs, going beyond the programs recommended in Secretary Schlesinger's recent message to the Congress. It is the first responsibility of the Ninety-Fourth Congress, controlled by large Democratic majorities, to provide for the common defense.

The Democratic Party is called by special traditions and responsibilities to take national leadership in meeting these momentous challenges. Democratic leaders -- Truman, Marshall, and Acheson -- established the policy of international alliances and military capability which have prevented a general war for more than two decades. Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson built on that foundation, and sustained the policy on which it rests. More recently, in the aftermath of our painful experience in Vietnam, strong voices, particularly in the Democratic Party, have spoken out against this policy, which the state of the world since 1945 has required of us in order to protect our purely national interests in world politics. The current mood, which some have called neo-isolationist, has become so prevalent that a poll of newly-elected Democratic congressmen suggests that some thirty to forty of them may favor further reductions in our military capabilities -- enough to affect the outcome of many important Congressional votes related to defense.

We are confident that these views will fade when our party leaders confront the reality of our international and military situation. We are convinced that when they face the facts, conscious of their responsibility, they will reaffirm our nation's interest in maintaining the balance of world military power as the indispensable predicate of our national safety. If we fail to uphold this balance, we Democrats could not escape

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our share of the responsibility for greatly increasing the prospects of political despotism and eventual war.

### III

Why have we reached the painful conclusion that the nation's safety requires an increase in our defense capabilities, both nuclear and especially conventional?

The basic reason has already been stated in general terms: Soviet foreign policy is still expansionist. It seeks to take advantage of every opportunity which does not involve unacceptable risks. Moreover, Soviet policy is fuelled by a military build-up which is growing at a rate of over 5% each year, in real terms, while our real expenditure for defense is declining, and has already fallen to the lowest point since the period just before the Korean war.

It follows, we believe, that we should build up our military capabilities in order to deter further aggression and preserve the possibility of peace. We shall now examine this proposition in detail. Our purpose here is to offer a cold look at the relative military capacities of the United States and the Soviet Union, and to suggest some programs and policies which should avert a catastrophic military imbalance. In the nature of Soviet policy, such an imbalance might invite the Soviets to risk disasterous military or quasi-military adventures, like that of the Middle Eastern war of October, 1973, but on an even larger scale.

We should start by making two positions unmistakably clear:

First, we favor continuing the patient quest for conditions of true and reciprocal detente with the Soviet Union -- the quest which has been a central purpose of American foreign policy since the time of President

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Franklin Roosevelt. The hope for a true detente with the Soviet Union -- based on an end of the arms race, respect for human rights, and mutual obedience to the rules of the United Nations Charter -- must not be allowed to die.

Secondly, we favor -- and we strongly favor -- any and all kinds of disarmament negotiations with the Soviet Union, and any other negotiations that might lead to the mutual limitation and, more importantly, the eventual reduction of armaments. Our delegates to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) and to the negotiations on Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR) should patiently and persistently advance the most sweeping proposals for cuts in military spending, weaponry, and the number of men under arms. But our negotiators should insist on truly balanced and clearly enforceable steps, which would give no advantage to either side. Arms limitation agreements must not involve one-sided concessions on our part, whether made in the sincere but naive hope that the Soviets would follow our example, or to prolong false hopes that we have entered a "new generation of peace."

In thinking about military capacities, we should distinguish the problems of the so-called "strategic forces," a term which is now used to identify our capacity to meet nuclear threats to ourselves or to our allies, from those of "conventional" -- or general purpose -- forces, which include the full range of forces from ground troops to tactical nuclear weapons.

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Strategic forces -- an uncertain equation

It has been the goal of our nuclear policy to prevent the use
or the threatened use of nuclear weapons in world politics. The first
objective of the American strategic forces is to deter a Soviet nuclear
attack, either on this country or on its allies. To deter attack, our
weapons must be sufficiently strong, numerous, and well-placed to "ride
out" any attack by the Soviet Union, and then to retaliate with such force
that the Soviets could not hope to gain by initiating a first strike, no
matter how great the stakes that might tempt them to consider it. Our
"second strike capability" must be clear beyond the faintest shadow of a
doubt. The cruel logic of nuclear deterrence requires us to maintain a
strategic capability so great that if deterrence should fail, despite all
our efforts, we would still have the capacity for an appropriate response.

In a world of changing technology, the tactics and the arithmetic
of second strike capability keep changing. But the underlying concept is
simple. Second-strike capability is not only a matter of throw-weight
and the numbers of ground-based, air-based, and submarine-based launchers
on each side. The key issue is and will remain whether the Soviets can
have any reasonable expectation of being able to destroy so large a number
of our weapons by a first strike as to create doubt about our second strike
capacity or our willingness to respond to a nuclear attack as necessary.

The basic flaw of the Ford-Brezhnev "agreement in principle,"
or "agreement to make an agreement," announced at Vladivostok, is in
precisely this area. Quite apart from its other weaknesses, which we
discuss in context below, it gives no assurance on the key question:
will our second strike capability be maintained? The answer to that question

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does not depend on the number of launchers, or on the number of missiles that can be "MIRVed," -- the two issues dealt with at Vladivostok -- but on the number, yield, capacity, accuracy, and range of the warheads themselves, however launched. The Soviet missiles that can be equipped with MIRVs have 3 to 6 times the payload of American missiles that can be so equipped. The result could be an ominous Soviet advantage in strategic warheads, and therefore uncertainty about the American second strike capability.

Soviet strategic forces have been growing dramatically during the past decade, and this growth has continued unabated since the SALT I agreements of May, 1972. The agreements foreseen at Vladivostok show little or no promise of slowing down this cancerous rate of growth.

In the Interim Agreement of Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, the United States accepted numerical inferiority in ICBMs and SLBMs on the basis of two principal arguments:

(1) We then retained technical superiority and a very respectable number of warheads -- many on missiles armed with Multiple Independently Targeted Re-entry Vehicles (MIRVs), which permit one missile to carry multiple payloads. We also had an advantage in bomber payloads not covered by the agreements. These advantages offset the Soviet advantage in missile launchers and "throw-weight."

(2) The Interim SALT Agreement halted the upward momentum of the Soviet programs at a time when we were not expanding our own programs, partly because we would not get the consent of the Congress to do so.

But in the two-and-a-half years since SALT I, the Soviets have surged into the development of four new missile systems and have repeatedly tested new multiple warheads and MIRVs. As a result, they now threaten to overcome the American technological lead and re-entry vehicle (RV) advantage. The new Soviet missiles, described below, have considerably greater pay-

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loads than those they appear destined to replace, so that the U.S.
superiority in numbers of warheads could become a gross inferiority in
a few years. Moreover, the Soviets have started production of a new
bomber, the BACKFIRE, with a refueling capability and other characteristics
that give it a potential for offsetting our current advantage in strategic
bombers. Finally, there are persistent public reports that the Soviets
are building new missile silos in excess of the numbers permitted in the
Interim SALT Agreement; that they are testing new radar of a kind used in
ABM systems (prohibited in the 1972 ABM Treaty); that they are using
concealment ("interfering with national means of verification" -- prohibited
in the 1972 Agreements); and that they are continuing the development of
mobile ICBMs. (The U.S. stated unilaterally in 1972 that deployment of
mobile land-based ICBMs would be considered a violation of the spirit of
the Interim SALT Agreement).

An early view of the requirements of deterrence held that we
must have adequate forces to wreak "Assured Destruction" on the Soviet Union
after its worst possible "out-of-the-blue" attack on our strategic forces,
i.e., we needed a retaliatory capacity capable of destroying so large a
proportion of the population and industrial plants in their cities that no
prize could be worth the punishment they would take in return for striking
first. If both sides have this capacity, we thought neither would ever
dare to attack. The balance of terror would become stable -- the "two
scorpions in the bottle" would both live, because neither could survive
if it attacked the other.

This doctrine of "Mutual Assured Destruction" has been called
by its acronym, MAD, because it leaves no alternative to Armageddon if
either side miscalculates and deterrence fails. But recent advances in

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the accuracy and numbers of strategic weapons have made it clear that this
doctrine, dubious even in its heyday, is now obsolete. The Soviets will
soon be able to launch a first strike that spares our cities but destroys
a substantial portion of our strategic and conventional military forces.
After such an attack, it would be repugnant -- and of doubtful utility --
to respond by wiping out Soviet population centers. Moreover, if the
Soviets should use only a portion of their growing strategic forces in
such a first strike against military targets, they would retain the capacity
to wreak havoc on our people should we respond with a retaliatory attack
on their cities. Soviet leaders might be willing in some circumstances to
gamble with the lives of their people by launching a first strike against
our military, but would we respond to such an attack by massacring the
Soviet population -- especially when our own people were in effect hostages
to the possibility of a second Soviet nuclear attack? We would surely be
reluctant to launch a spasm of nuclear bombs on Soviet cities if the Soviets
were to attack our military forces in a selective, probing fashion. And
we would be at least as reluctant to respond with an attack on the Soviet
population if the Soviets were to launch their first strike against our
allies, since to do so would insure the destruction of our own cities without
doing anything to rescue those of our allies. Besides, as other nations
acquire the bomb, there are not just two scorpions in the proverbial
bottle, but several.

In response to this grisly predicament, the Secretary of Defense
now proposes to give our forces a greater range of options for meeting the
variety of offensive possibilities the Soviets are now developing. We
need not only the capability for a massive counterattack on enemy cities,

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but also the capability selectively to counterattack enemy military
targets. This must include the capacity to destroy "hard" targets,
such as hardened missile silos, without expending all our forces. And
we must be able to do this with a minimum of damage to nearby civilian
populations. These developments are indispensable both to strengthen
deterrence, and to provide more rational alternatives if deterrence fails.

The increasingly limited support provided for our strategic
forces makes it most difficult for us to mount such a program of flexible
deterrence in the face of rapidly improving and expanding Soviet forces.
What is needed to restore the balance, and, paradoxically, to reduce the
possibility of Mutual Assured Destruction?

Let us start with missiles. As we have already noted, the
Soviets have four new ICBM systems in the testing stage, while we have
none. They have developed the SS-X-18, which is even bigger than the
giant SS-9; the SS-X-17 and SS-X-19, medium sized liquid-fueled missiles,
which have three to five times the throw weight of the deployed SS-11s; and
the SS-16, which is in the light solid-fueled SS-13 class. If these systems
replace the 1610 Soviet ICBMs permitted under the Interim SALT Agreement,
they will increase total Soviet throw weight by 67 to 100 percent. All
but the SS-X-16 have already been tested with multiple or MIRVed payloads.
They could carry an estimated 7,000 one-to-two megaton warheads -- many
times the yield of our MIRV warheads.

It would only take 300 of the SS-X-18 missiles, which could
legitimately replace SS-9s under the Interim Agreement, to pose a formidable
threat to our 1054 ICBM force, even, the Secretary of Defense says, after
the projected program for upgrading the hardness of our missile silos is

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completed. There would then remain 1,310 Soviet ICBMs with more than 5,000 reentry vehicles to threaten other U.S. targets, including other hard targets. And if the SS-X-16 is deployed in the mobile version believed to be under development, we could not even rely on verification of the permitted numbers.

When we turn to nuclear-missile-launching submarines, we find that the Interim Agreement permits the Soviets up to 62 submarines with 950 launchers, against 44 and 710, respectively, for the United States. The Soviets had argued that because they had shorter-range missiles than the U.S., and lacked the forward submarine bases that we have in Scotland and Spain, they required greater numbers to maintain comparable on-station forces. (We also regarded our multiple-warheaded Polaris and MIRVed Poseidon missiles as an offsetting technological advantage.) But since SALT I the Soviets have tested versions of their SS-N-6 submarine-launched missiles with multiple warheads and have tested also the SS-N-8 at ranges in excess of 4500 miles (considerably more than the Poseidon range and in the class of our future TRIDENT I missile, still far from flight testing). A 4500-mile Soviet missile could reach any U.S. target when launched from a submarine still in or near the ports of Murmansk and Petropavlovsk. Clearly, the imbalance of the Interim Agreement is becoming greater at sea as well as on land. The Soviet submarines provide a force which the Soviets could readily hold in reserve to deter any response we might consider in the event of an attack on our military forces. And our problems of locating and observing submarines will be increasingly complicated by the existence of nuclear submarines in the hands of other nations.

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In the air, the Soviets are deploying a supersonic medium bomber, the BACKFIRE, which they could adapt to strategic missions and deploy in much greater numbers. These bombers are not included in the Vladivostok Summit guidelines, and strategic bombers are not yet included in any SALT agreement. Pending such an agreement, and in view of the Soviet superiority in missiles permitted under the present Interim Agreement, we should not permit them to overtake us in bombers.

The B-1 bomber, the projected replacement for the aging B-52, is designed, among other things, to have a greater capacity to survive a Soviet SLBM attack. It would play an important role in diversifying our strategic forces, greatly complicating any Soviet plans for attaining first strike capability, and improving our ability to achieve a resilient and flexible deterrent force. It would force the Soviets to continue to maintain their expensive air defenses. Pending an agreement that equitably and verifiably limits bombers, the B-1 is indispensable to help maintain the balance of strategic forces through the eighties. Research and development for the B-1 should not be further delayed.

While the Soviets build toward superiority in strategic forces, spending annually about twice as much on them as we do, we have unilaterally frozen the level of our strategic forces. Moreover, we have denied ourselves qualitative improvements that are within reach and are needed to implement our developing strategic doctrine. Our strategic budget has been declining, both in constant dollars and as a percent of the total defense budget. We must be willing to spend enough to keep up the momentum of the B-1 and TRIDENT programs until equitable and verifiable SALT agreements are reached. We need to accelerate research and development for

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increased missile accuracy, so that our missiles -- small targets -- can acquire the capability of destroying hard targets. This is essential if we are to continue to be able to counterattack selected military targets -- a necessity under the new strategic doctrine. We should also step up research and development on larger and more versatile missiles, as permitted under the Interim Agreement. These are needed to match the strong Soviet missile development program. Research and development must go forward on both ABM and ways of penetrating ABM, and must be stepped up to find ways of protecting our vulnerable satellites. We should devote much more effort to development of the NARWAHL, a new strategic submarine that is potentially much cheaper, albeit smaller and of lower performance, than the TRIDENT. (The NARWAHL currently receives only $16 million for design studies.) We urge as well the careful study of more radical solutions, such as the important proposal that we place more emphasis on ballistic missile submarines as our principal deterrent. Obviously, we cannot and should not stop doing research on successor systems. If the SALT talks fail to produce fair agreements, we shall need them.

All of these steps, and probably others, will be needed if, in the face of the Soviet capabilities, we are to insure, as we say we will, that no American President should ever have to choose between capitulating to threats to vital American interests or destroying the Soviet -- and American -- people. The steps proposed above are modest by comparison to the massive Soviet effort to win strategic superiority. They go substantially beyond the proposals of President Ford and Secretary Schlesinger which, in our judgment, are insufficient for dealing with the threats posed by Soviet advances in strategic weaponry.

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Unfortunately, the Vladivostok understanding reached last year between President Ford and Secretary Brezhnev offers no promise of lessening the burden of strategic defense. On the contrary, it could well accelerate the arms race and further complicate the negotiating problem of maintaining second strike capability. It provides a poor and unproductive basis for further negotiations, precisely because it represents a wrong and unnecessary concession to Soviet demands for higher levels of strategic arms, rather than requiring much needed arms cut-backs on both sides.

By allowing each side 2400 strategic vehicles, regardless of size, the Vladivostok Agreement freezes the great missile throw-weight advantage of the Soviets. Thus it gives the illusion but not the substance of equality. If the final agreement attempts to ameliorate this by permitting the replacement of missiles and silos with larger ones, it will invite an arms race of unprecedented, and world-threatening proportions. Moreover, the limit of 1320 for the number of missiles that may be "MIRVed" will further spur an arms race, given the Soviet throw-weight advantage and their catch-up in MIRV technology.

These high numbers of MIRVed missiles will also present especially difficult verification problems. It is particularly unsettling that they carry a real threat of a first-strike capability against fixed ICBMs -- a capability that would not necessarily be reached at the same time by each country. The Soviet advantage in throw-weights and yields might well offset the eroding U.S. lead in MIRV and accuracy technology, so that the Soviets might reach a high fixed-ICBM kill capability first.

[LC]

- 19 -

In short, the Vladivostok formula could well spur, not cap, the arms race, and its codification in a treaty or ten-year interim agreement would make subsequent arms reduction agreements less, not more, likely.

While SALT and the MBFR negotiations continue, and Congress reviews the Ford-Brezhnev guidelines, we must take the hard and costly measures to insure that, should they fail, we will be adequately prepared to meet the mounting military threats to ourselves and our allies. Action of this kind can only encourage the success of these negotiations.

The Secretary of State has asked rhetorically, "What in the name of God is superiority? What do you do with it? How do you use it?"

The Soviets can answer this question. They are squeezing their economy and their people for the sake of military superiority because they are convinced that it has meaning today. It offers them the credible possibility of being able to make or to threaten selected strategic attacks against our military and our allies. Even more important in their eyes, it provides them with a great psychological and political advantage in the coercive diplomacy of blackmail they have practiced for more than thirty years, and continue to practice unabated, despite their indulgence in the political rhetoric of "detente". We should not rest peace and liberty on the possibility that Mr. Kissinger -- talented as he is -- can talk the Soviet leaders out of their convictions, or out of acting on them in a disastrous experiment to discover whether or not they are valid.

- 20 -

IV

Conventional Forces

While the problems of nuclear balance are difficult, maintaining
an adequate U.S. military potential in the non-nuclear field is our
greatest immediate challenge. Thus far, nuclear stalemate has given the
Soviets the opportunity to inspire conventional wars and proxy wars --
an opportunity which has become nearly a license with the decline since
Korea of the will of the Western allies to insist on the enforcement of
the United Nations Charter. The policy of deterrence must apply at the
conventional as well as the nuclear level. The experiences of the Arab-
Israeli war of October, 1973, and subsequent hostilities, and the prospects
that conventional war may again break out in the Middle East, in Europe,
or in Asia -- all should cause us grave concern about the adequacy and
morale of our general purpose forces.

The Soviets provided their Arab allies with vast quantities of
highly sophisticated conventional equipment before the Yom Kippur war.
These included effective anti-tank and SAM anti-aircraft missiles, new
model tanks and other armored vehicles, and SCUD ground-to-ground missiles.
Much of this equipment remains in Arab hands, and the Soviets have massively
re-armed the Syrians during the past year -- bringing the quantity and
quality of Syrian arms well above the levels of 1973. It is widely
predicted that Soviet-Egyptian rapport -- if it was ever really frayed --
will soon revive, and that the vast Soviet arsenal will again pour out
conventional weapons, parts and ammunition for the Egyptian armies, which
have in any event received some Soviet supplies throughout the period since
October, 1973.

[LC]

- 21 -

We cannot provide our Israeli allies with the arms to counteract this Soviet supply without either denuding our forces in Europe and at home or substantially increasing our manufacture of conventional arms. Our predicament is not caused only by the Middle East conflict. Both military and political trends are undercutting our capacity to defend Europe. Without new efforts by the U.S. and its NATO allies, NATO forces may deteriorate before long into a mere skirmish line -- a "military museum," as General Steinhoff remarked -- in comparison with the Warsaw pact armies, which are mounting an ominous potential for a blitzkrieg attack across Germany to the English Channel.

Security plans in relation to the Soviet Union necessarily depend on capabilities, not on misty and uncertain estimates of intention. Whether such an attack ever occurs will depend in large part not only on political and strategic developments throughout the world, but on NATO's steady capacity to resist. What can be said now, with certainty, is that the Soviet posture with respect to Europe goes far beyond the conceivable limits of "defense".

A comparison of American and Soviet conventional military potential is a somber exercise. The Soviet Union has half-again as many men under arms as the United States: 3.4 million to 2.2 million. Some military analysts believe the ratio is more like two-to-one, if one allows for the large numbers of paramilitary personnel in border guard, internal security and other units not officially included in the Soviet armed forces, and the high ratio of support to combat troops in all American formations. Direct comparisons are here even more difficult than in the strategic case, and there are great uncertainties about equipment, logistics,

- 22 -

training, and readiness. But we know that the Soviet and Warsaw pact armies are heavily equipped with tanks and artillery. The Soviet Union alone is estimated to have four times as many tanks as the United States (and five times the annual production rate, even after the projected U.S. step-up in 1975), three times as many artillery tubes and twice as many heavy mortars. While total numbers of Soviet tactical aircraft exceed those of the U.S. by about 40 percent, they are believed to be producing such aircraft at double the U.S. rate. And their air defenses are not only far greater in their home (strategic) deployment but also in mobile or transportable systems (both missiles and artillery).

At sea, the Soviets have moved rapidly from a coastal defense to a "blue water" navy, with almost as many surface combat ships as the United States, and over three times as many submarines (other than ballistic missile submarines). Here again, their building programs are far, far greater than our own. Their surface ships tend to be smaller, but emphasize speed and intense firepower, and they have been dramatically increasing their at-sea activity rates. They are ahead of the U.S. in surface-to-surface antiship missiles, and have nuclear antiship missiles, which we do not. In a direct conflict, these weapons could take a heavy toll of our fleet at the outset. The Soviets are behind us in endurance and in their ability to resupply their navy while it is under way. In aircraft carriers, with fifteen in service, the U.S. still enjoys a virtual monopoly, but the Soviets now have a program under way which has already produced one carrier and soon will produce another. They possess a formidable attack submarine fleet, although the U.S. currently has far greater antisubmarine resources and capabilities.

[Lc]

- 23 -

Clearly, our conventional military resources are in many
important respects inferior to those of our principal potential adversary.
And our programs for revitalizing and restoring these resources are so
modest that we are falling further and further behind, rather than
catching up. Are we, then, maintaining a prudent deterrent against
aggression? Are we taking undue risks? Can we handle likely contingencies?

Let us ask these questions first about the defense of Western
Europe itself. Obviously, the strategic position of the United States
would change profoundly -- and nearly fatally -- if Western Europe should
come under Soviet control. The Warsaw Pact and NATO have substantially
equal manpower -- roughly 900,000 troops -- in central Europe, a front
of primary concern. But the Pact has almost twice as many divisions and
a much higher "teeth-to-tail" ratio -- more tanks and firepower, less
logistical support. The Soviet forces and doctrine appear to be designed
for massed attack on a narrow front -- blitzkrieg "shock" tactics against
a sector of the NATO defenses, which are thinly spread over the whole front.
They aim at quick breakthrough and a short war. The NATO forces are
geared to a long-sustained defensive effort, with some quick reinforcements
airlifted from the U.S., but the bulk coming by sealift. (This would
require first the winning of a protracted battle for the Atlantic sealanes,
against the growing Soviet submarine and surface fleet.) Political and
moral strictures preclude an offensive military strategy on our part, a
limitation that offers the Soviets some important advantages. The air forces
at the front are roughly equal, but if the Soviets achieve surprise and knock
out many airfields at the outset, NATO might have great difficulty in
providing an adequate air defense. We have one program underway to redress

- 24 -

this risk: building concrete aircraft shelters, which the Soviets did
in response to lessons of the Six-Day War in 1967, and which NATO
should have done much more quickly.

There are, of course, claims that NATO could mount an impressive
defense. To us, such claims appear dubious. Prudence dictates much more
vigorous action to correct the deficiences both of hardware and of
strategic doctrine. There is considerable feeling, particularly in
Europe, that the risks are not great: that the Soviets are inhibited by
fear of a second front in the East; by the "nuclear umbrella"; by their
interest in winning control of an intact European industrial base by
political means; by the unreliability of their satellites in Eastern
Europe; and so on. But the Soviets are steadily building up their forces
facing Europe. They have shown no real interest in negotiating MBFR --
Mutual Balanced Force Reductions -- and they keep up the pressures on
Europe in many ways. They have suppressed dissension within the Warsaw
Pact. And they continue to pursue their Middle Eastern policy, which,
as we have remarked, has always been directed not against Israel alone,
but first and primarily against Europe and NATO. Indeed, the Chinese now
say that the United States has successfully deterred a Soviet attack on
China, and that the threat of a Soviet attack in Western Europe is great,
and is growing.

Today, the Europeans must look to American tactical nuclear
weapons to deter a conventional Soviet attack. We currently have seven
thousand tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, but we must remember that
the Soviets have 3500 nuclear weapons of their own. Theirs are believed
to be larger than ours, on the average. If NATO's conventional defenses

[Lc]

- 25 -

did not contain a Soviet attack, the Soviets would be able to overrun
at least a portion of the American weapons. NATO field commanders might
not get the Presidential release to use them in time. The Soviets would
have the initiative, which could well prove decisive: they might, for
example, start with a nuclear attack on our nuclear weapons, airfields,
and other military installations. American "victory" then, if achievable
at all, would at best save a devastated Europe.

Yet we cannot unilaterally withdraw the tactical nuclear weapons
from Europe, and leave the Europeans feeling completely vulnerable to the
Soviets, lacking the assurance these weapons provide of our seriousness
about European defense. Nor is there any present prospect for a verifiable
bilateral withdrawal of Soviet and U.S. tactical nuclear arms from Europe.
The only realistic option is to redress and maintain a genuine balance of
conventional forces in the European theatre. Nor can we look at Europe
in isolation. The great risk is not of an "out-of-the-blue" Soviet attack
on Europe, but rather that the Soviets might attack Europe during a deep
crisis involving conflict in the Mideast or elsewhere. When there is no
deep crisis, there are always less risky ways for the Soviets to attempt
to obtain their objectives; it is when we are engaged elsewhere, or when
they are frustrated and under pressure, perhaps both internally and abroad,
that attack may appear to be the only way to secure their interests, and
the risks may look acceptable, or at least unavoidable.

This brings up the question of what depth of conventional force
levels we should seek to maintain. During most of the sixties, it was
assumed by policymakers that major wars were conceivable, and not wholly
improbable, in both Europe and the Far East, and lesser contingencies were
possible virtually everywhere else. In planning jargon, the General Purpose

- 26 -

[LC]

Forces were to be adequate for "two and one-half wars." Since China's rapprochement with us, our planners have shifted from a "two and one-half war" strategy to a "one and one-half war" strategy. While there is some justification for this shift -- the Soviets may well fear a two-front war involving both NATO and the Chinese -- we should guard against the facile assumption that China has become a reliable ally. She is still a potentially dangerous totalitarian state, subject to the drastic shifts in policy which characterize the governments of narrow elites. The Soviets are surely making great efforts to reverse the American orientation of Mao's policy, and will intensify these efforts when he dies. Therefore we must carefully scrutinize the adequacy of our deterrent (and readiness) for the "one and one-half war" contingency, and the adequacy of the concept itself.

But one need not make a final judgment on such complex problems of strategy to realize that our conventional forces are at present spread very thin. The Secretary of Defense has said that we faced an empirical test of our conventional preparedness in the Middle East conflict of October, 1973, and that we met the test "smartly and efficiently." Our impressions are less sanguine. We seriously depleted our stocks of modern weapons in Germany to supply the Israelis; our airlift depended on a single staging base in the Azores, which Portugal may now deny us; and the only credible deterrent we could pose to the prospect that Soviet troops would intervene on behalf of the Arabs was our worldwide nuclear alert. This, remember, was only "one-half" of a war, not "one-and-a half" wars. To say that our performance does not inspire confidence is to be generous indeed.

- 27 -

It is apparent that we and our allies must increase our conventional defense capabilities in order to counter the rising pressure of Soviet policy, felt in many areas of the world vital to our security. Soviet general purposes forces are increasing steadily in strength and mobility, backed by formidable sea power and air-lift capacity. The Soviets continue to arm and supply client states, and to foment proxy wars which have proved extremely difficult to contain. We need to increase our research and development on antitank, antiaircraft, and antiship weapons; on battlefield surveillance and targetting capabilities, especially for night and bad weather conditions; and on more flexible and rapid command control capabilities. We need to build up our stocks of vehicles, weapons, and ammunition, both for deterrence, and to make certain that our War Material Reserve will not be dangerously depleted by crisis requirements like the October, 1973, airlift and sealift which helped save Israel. We need to build and arm ships to revitalize our dwindling Navy before it can be successfully challenged by the growing power of the Soviet fleet. We need to increase our capabilities for both tactical and strategic mobility and air resupply. Above all, we need larger well-trained mobile ready forces.

None of these needs is met by the programs recently proposed by the Ford Administration.

These conventional requirements, plus the strategic needs we have already noted, could cost eight to ten billion dollars in the Fiscal Year 1976, at present prices, beyond the amounts requested by the Ford Administration. Exactly how much more these additional capabilities would cost will depend not only on the calculations of experts, but on how much could be saved by potential economies in other parts of the budget. The

[LC]

- 28 -

struggle to eliminate waste in the defense budget is and should always
be a prime concern of good management. Of course we favor such efforts.
Our thesis here simply is that the needs must be met, at the lowest
possible overall cost.

The Ford Administration has proposed an $8 billion increase
in defense spending for the Fiscal Year 1976: -- less than a 10% increase
in a year in which it forecasts a 10% increase in the price of defense
goods and services. In short, the Administration proposes what could be
a static or constant level of defense effort on the most optimistic
possible assumptions -- if everything proceeds according to plan, and
prices do not rise more than 10%.

This is simply not good enough as the framework for an adequate
defense program. We cannot afford to fall behind in efforts essential
to the stability of the balance of power, and therefore to the safety of
the nation.

Current defense spending takes the lowest proportion of our
current output, the lowest percentage of our GNP, since the days before
Korea. Even more significant, we have over eight percent unemployment,
and vast unused plant capacity. If we should spend an additional $10 billion
for defense -- two-thirds of one percent of our current GNP -- we would
still have ample unused resources which could be devoted to producing
additional output for new social programs, and to stimulate private capital
formation and consumption through tax cuts. In the present state of the
economy we do not face a "guns or butter" choice. If it is well-managed,
the American economy can provide the defense we need _and_ much more "butter"
as well -- more education, medical research, pollution control, new energy
capacities, and more of the other things we urgently need.

- 29 -

Of course, as a matter of principle, defense efforts should never be based on what we can "afford." They are not luxuries, optional programs to be dropped in times of difficulty. We can never afford not to do what has to be done to assure the safety of our people, our national interests, and our democratic institutions.

## Conclusion

In our Statement last July on "The Quest for Detente," we commented that "the Soviet Union does not even pretend that it is carrying out its obligations under the Indochina accords of 1973." The significance of that judgment, which the Administration did not challenge in its response to our statement, is now more obvious than it was eight months ago, with the bleak news of intense combat in South Vietnam and Cambodia.

The news is bleak also in the other main theatre of active conflict, the Middle East. The Soviets continue to arm the Arab states for offensive war, and to support the Palestinian terrorist and political groups which are desperately seeking to prevent a political settlement between Israel and her neighbors.

When John F. Kennedy was a student in London, during the middle 'thirties, he wrote a book, "While England Slept." We and our allies are in a mood of somnabulism similar to that which paralyzed France, Britain, and the United States during that strange period. If we and our allies had been able to wake up then, World War II, and all that flowed from it, could easily have been prevented. We and our allies have the capacity to prevent an even more terrible war today. To do so requires us to face the world as it is, and to act calmly, responsibly, and effectively in order to protect our interests in its evolution.

- 30 -

Some contend that we cannot afford a larger defense budget, and that the present budget is full of fat, luxury, and expenditure for obsolete weapons. We have been careful here not to propose specific figures for the cost of the programs recommended in this statement, beyond indicating the order of magnitude they imply. Perhaps all that the Secretary of Defense wishes to do, and all that we propose to add to his program, can be obtained for less than the budget he has proposed. We are sure that there are economies that can be discovered. And we support research and modernization that might reduce the vast cost of the defense establishment.

But long experience has made us skeptical of easy promises to eliminate spending "fat", worthy as that goal is. The effort should continue to be made, of course. Our thesis is simply that our strength should be enhanced, through the programs suggested here, at the lowest possible cost.

We are also convinced that we can afford both the programs essential to our defense, and those essential to our domestic well-being, if we adopt sound policies for ending the recession and reviving economic growth, and if scarce resources, such as energy, are widely used. A progressive economic policy should make it possible for us to do whatever the national defense requires, in an economic environment which restores both full employment and price stability.

We shall not pursue these issues in this paper. (They are thoroughly discussed in the Statement of the Economic Policy Task Force of CDM which was recently issued.) We have prepared this document on the assumption, which we believe to be absolutely sound, that Americans will

[lc]

- 31 -

spend, and do, whatever is needed to assure the safety and prosperity
of the nation. The problems we have sought to address are the kind of
international challenges the nation faces, and the kind of defense
program the national safety requires to deal with them.

Our answer is sober, but not pessimistic. We believe that
we must stop drifting, and stop distracting ourselves with sentimental,
guilty, or foolhardy excuses for neglecting our responsibility to provide
for the common defense. That responsibility is shared by every official
of the Executive branch, every member of Congress, and every citizen.
We appeal to them all, from the President and the Secretary of State to
the proverbial man and woman on the street, to look at the evidence
directly and soberly. We face choices like those the nation faced in the
heroic administration of Harry Truman, whose achievements are generally
applauded today.

The nation -- and the world -- owe an immense debt of gratitude
to the two generations of leaders of both parties who confronted, and met,
the troubles of their times. The nation must come together once again,
to deal with the challenges now before us.

The will of the people cannot be mobilized unless the President
and the Secretary of State address these issues with words and deeds
adequate to their gravity. Nor can a broad and bipartisan consensus emerge
unless the Democratic Party faces the facts with equal discipline and equal
responsibility.

The United States should be the master, not the victim, of its
fate. The dangers before us demand a great and concerted national effort --

[LC]

- 32 -

a sharp and dramatic turn in the direction of policy. That turn will
require earnest political debate. But it will require something more --
a resolve to undertake that discussion and debate.

Thus far, that resolve has been the missing factor in the
politics of national defense. It is the key factor. We appeal for its
revival -- a revival of will and of responsibility.

The nation can no longer afford the luxury of political
evasion and party politics on the life-and-death issues of foreign policy
and national defense.

###

YALE UNIVERSITY
LAW SCHOOL
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT

EUGENE V. ROSTOW

September 4, 1975

The Honorable Henry A. Kissinger
The Secretary of State
Washington, D.C. 20520

Dear Henry,

You asked particularly for Karl Mommer's views on the German-E.E.C.-
Iceland fishing dispute. They have just come in, and I enclose a xeroxed
copy. I shall respond, as best I can, once I digest the letter. Mean-
while, I am glad to forward it.

EVR/dm

Encs.

DR. KARL MOMMER

53 BONN-BAD GODESBERG
ROTDORNWEG 6, den 22.8.1975

An den
Präsidenten der Atlantic Treaty Association
Prof. Eugene V. Rostow
Yale University
New Haven / Conn.

Mr. President and dear friend,

as I know how polyglott and able to read German you are, I apologize for writing
this difficult letter in my language.

Ich bedaure sehr, Ihren Brief zum Fischereistreit zwischen Island und den in der
Hochseefischerei tätigen Staaten, darunter die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, aus
verschiedenen Gründen erst jetzt beantworten zu können. Aufgrund meiner Erkundi-
gungen möchte ich folgendes sagen:

1. Der Streit hat für die Bundesregierung mehrere Aspekte. Der wichtigste für sie ist nicht das Interesse der Hochseefischerei, in den alten Fischereigebieten weiter fischen zu können. In unserer Gesamtwirtschaft wiegt dieser Wirtschaftszweig nicht schwer, dagegen übersieht hier niemand, dass der Fischfang für Island eine Existenzfrage ist. Diese Erkenntnis drückt sich in Stellungnahmen aus. So haben sich zwei Abgeordnete der SPD-Fraktion im Deutschen Bundestag nach Gesprächen in Reykjavik für die Aufhebung des Anlandeverbotes von Fisch von islandischen Trawlern und für die Annahme der 200-Meilen-Grenze in Verhandlungen ausgesprochen. Die Haltung der Bundesregierung ist damit in gewisser Weise präjudiziert, ist doch diese Fraktion im Bundestag die Hauptstütze unserer Koalitionsregierung. Ich lege eine Presseerklärung der genannten Abgeordneten und einen Ausschnitt aus der Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung bei.

2. Die Bundesregierung sieht den Streit auch nicht in erster Linie unter dem Gesichtspunkt der besonderen Rolle Islands im westlichen Verteidigungsbündnis. Auch wenn Island nicht Mitglied der NATO wäre, würde sie dem durch einseitigen Akt der Regierung in Reykjavik entstandenen Streit durch Verhandlungsbereitschaft begegnen. Da aber Island Mitglied der NATO und dazu in einer an Bedeutung wachsenden Position ist, ist die Bundesregierung umso mehr bereit, entgegenkommend zu verhandeln. Sie hat entsprechende Schritte getan. Nach Ausdehnung der Schutzgrenze auf 50 Meilen war von den Verhandlungsdelegationen der beiden S iten ein Übereinkommen erzielt worden, das aber im Auswärtigen Ausschuss des islandischen Parlaments zu Fall gebracht wurde. Im Mai d.Js. hat die Bundesregierung einen neuen Abkommensentwurf in Reykjavik übergeben, über den noch nicht verhandelt wurde. Nach der am 15. Juli angekündigten weiteren Ausdehnung der Wirtschaftsgrenze auf 200 Meilen zum 15. Oktober hat die Bundesregierung durch ihren Botschafter in Reykjavik ein Memorandum überreichen lassen, in dem der neue einseitige Akt bedauert, die Bereitschaft zu Verhandlungen aber erneut bekräftigt wurde. Hier ist man der Meinung, dass es Sache der islandischen Regierung sei, Verhandlungen anzunehmen. Das islandische Argument, man könne nicht unter dem Druch des Anlandeverbots verhandeln, wird hier mit dem Hinweis beantwortet, Island habe einseitig Fakten gesetzt und in den traditionellen Fanggebieten Gewalt gegen deutsche Fischfänger angewandt.

- 2 -

- 2 -

3. Die Einseitigkeit des Vorgehens, das Hinweggehen über bestehendes Völkerrecht, ohne Fühlungnahme mit den Geschädigten, wird hier - auch wegen möglicher präjudizierender Wirkungen in anderen Fällen - als der schwierigste Aspekt des Streites angesehen. Die einfache Anerkennung des einseitigen Aktes als neues Völkerrecht wird in der für die Verhandlungen federführenden Völkerrechtsabteilung des Auswärtigen Amtes ausgeschlossen. Auch die Beseitigung der deutschen Gegenmaßnahme in Form des Anlandeverbotes muss als Teil des Verhandlungsgegenstandes angesehen werden (und wird - so ist mein Eindruck - sicher erfolgen, wenn die Verhandlungen in Gang kommen).

4. Die politische Führung in Bonn, Bundeskanzler Schmidt, Verteidigungsminister Lemberg und Aussenminister Genscher, sind sehr bündnisbewusste und bündnisverbundene Männer, die wohl wissen, welchen Rang die verschiedenen Aspekte dieses Streites haben. Ich kenne sie perönlich gut genug, um zu wissen, dass sie wegen der deutschen Fischereiinteressen Island nicht aus der NATO hinausmanövrieren würden. Im Bundestag hat Bundeskanzler Schmidt am 25.7.1975 auf die Notwendigkeit eines Kompromisses mit Island hingewiesen. Andererseits wird Verständnis dafür nötig sein, dass man ein "Diktat", auch wenn es das eines kleinen Landes ist, aus grundsätzlichen Erwägungen nicht anzunehmen bereit ist.

5. Für die Mitglieder der Deutschen Atlantischen Gesellschaft steht die Priorität der Bündnisinteressen ausser Frage. Ihre Mitglieder werden im Bundestag wachsam sein und, wenn nötig, die Regierung beeinflussen. Ich habe mit Herrn Dr. Jäger darüber gesprochen; Frau Fischbach berichtet mir, im September werde Herr Peter Corterier, Mitglied des Bundestages, Mitglied des Europäischen Parlaments und des Vorstandes unserer Gesellschaft und aktiv er Mitstreiter der Young Political Leaders, nach Reykjavik reisen und dort zu unßerem Thema Gespräche führen. Bei der Tagung der ATA in Paris sollten, so schlage ich vor, die deutschen (und die britischen) Delegierten zu einem freundschaftlichen Gespräch/zusammenkommen.

mit den islandischen Delegierten

6. Ich habe leider keine Gelegenheit gehabt, mit Herrn Birrenbach Kontakt aufzunehmen, bin aber sicher, dass er wie auch sein Fraktionsvorsitzender, Prof. Carstens, in die gleiche Richtung drängen werden. Glücklicherweise gibt es, in der Frage der ERhaltung und der Stärke der NATO keine wesentlichen Meinungsunterschiede unter unseren Parteien. Das spricht für eine Lösung, die Islands Mitgliedschaft nicht gefährden könnte.

Ich freue mich auf unsere Arbeit in Paris und verbleibe

mit herzlichen Grüssen

Ihr

Karl-Heinz Saxowski
Horst Grunenberg

Mitglied des Deutschen Bundestages

53 Bonn 8. Juli 1975

Bundeshaus

Fernruf 16

Die Wahl dieser Rätummer vermittelt den gewünschten Haushalts
Kommt ein Anschluß nicht zustande, bitte
Nr. 161 (Bundeshaus - Vermittlung) anrufen.

Notiz für die Presse

Die Sozialdemokratischen Bundestagsabgeordneten Karl-Heinz Saxowski und Horst Grunenberg führten im Auftrag

der SPD-Bundestagsfraktion
fischereipolitische Gespräche in Island. Sie trafen u.a. zu
einem zweistündigen Gespräch mit Ministerpräsident Geir Hallgrim-
san sowie dem Außenminister und Parlamentariern und Gewerkschaf-
tern zusammen.

Die angespannten fischereipolitischen Beziehungen, die in der
Aufbringung der Arkturus gipfelten, sowie die ernste Sorge
vor einer Überfischung des Nordatlantik waren Anlaß dieser
Informationsfahrt.

Nach Ansicht der Abgeordneten werden die Isländer noch in die-
sem Jahr eine 200-SM-Wirtschaftszone für Island festlegen.

Die Abgeordneten fordern daher die Bundesregierung auf, den
Anlandestopp für islandische Fische aufzuheben, um ein posi-
tives Verhandlungsklima zu schaffen, da der Anlandestopp von
islandischer Seite aus als Diskriminierung angesehen wird.

Ferner wird die Bundesregierung dringend ersucht, Verhandlungen
mit der islandischen Regierung aufzunehmen, um bilaterale Ver-
träge abzuschließen, um so die zu erwartende 200-SM-Wirtschafts-
zone auch für deutsche Interessen nutzen zu können.

Eine Nutzung der bisherigen 50-SM-Zone durch Vollfroster kann
jedoch nicht in Betracht kommen, da dadurch existenzielle Fragen

Festzustellen bleibt,

- daß Island ein sehr hohes Handelsbilanzdefizit ausweisen muß und somit der Fischfang eine lebensnotwendige Frage ist,

- daß ein formal-juristischer Standpunkt nicht von sehr großen Interesse ist ( Motto: Ihr behaltet Recht - wir unsere Fische )

- daß eine Festlegung der 200-SM-Wirtschaftszone zwangsläufig kommen wird,

- daß die Bundesregierung daher unverzüglich handeln sollte, um auf der einen Seite Island nicht weiter in die Isolation zu treiben und auf der anderen Seite durch bilaterale Verträge die Wirtschaftszone auch für deutsche Wirtschaftsinteressen nutzen zu können,

- daß durch Verhandlungen günstige Quoten für die deutsche Fischerei erreicht werden können.

Dr.h.c. Kurt Birrenbach

53 Bonn

Bundeshaus

Fernruf 16

Die Wahl dieser Rufnummer vermittelt den gewünschten Hausanschluß.

Kommt ein Anschluß nicht zustande, bitte
Nr. 161 (Bundeshaus-Vermittlung) anrufen.

4 Düsseldorf, August 27, 1975

Berliner Allee 33

Professor Eugene V. Rostow
Yale University
Law School
New Haven, Connecticut /USA

Dear Eugene:

I had answered your letter of July 11 regarding the problem of Iceland on July 23. The Minister of Foreign Affairs has given me some days ago (I returned from my vacations yesterday) a further statement about the German foreign policy regarding Iceland and particularly the position of the Federal Government regarding article 2 of the protocol no. 6 of the Free Trade Agreement between the European Community and Iceland. Since the Federal Government was notified in 1971 that Iceland had the intention to extend the territorial waters from 12 miles to 50 miles, the Federal Government has tried again and again to arrive at a compromise solution between the fishing interests of Iceland and the German ones recognized by a sentence of the International Court. The access to the fishing waters around Iceland is of vital importance for the German deep-sea fishing and for the supply of fishes for the population of the Federal Republic of Germany. In any case it was the opinion of the Federal Government that it should be possible to agree on a reasonable modus vivendi which would end the daily incidents caused

- 2 -

[LC]

- 2 -

by the Icelandic coast-fleet. After negotiations which took
more than three years both countries arrived at an agree-
ment in October 1974. The draft of the agreement which was
based on a 50 miles zone was, however, rejected by the
Foreign Affairs Committee of the Icelandic Althing. The
Federal Government has tried to re-initiate the negotiations
with the Icelandic Government last May when it became known
that the Icelandic Government intended to extend this zone
to 200 miles. The Federal Government has then submitted
proposals to the Icelandic Government on the basis of this
extension. Even after the final decision by the Icelandic
Government to extend the territorial waters to 200 sea miles,
the Federal Government has declared several times to be ready
to discuss this subject with the Icelandic Government. The
Icelandic Government, however, has not accepted until now
to enter into concrete negotiations. I should like to stress
that the Federal Government had in mind in all talks with
Iceland the importance of good relations between the Federal
Republic and Iceland on one side and between Iceland and
NATO on the other side. Our Government tried to avoid a
collision with the interests of the United States and NATO
in Iceland. Exactly for this reason we have shown a high
degree of flexibility and readiness to a compromise in all
opportunities when German official representatives met members
of the Icelandic Government. The Federal Chancellor and the
Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs have several times, the
last time on the opportunity of the NATO summit in Brussels
at the end of May, tried to solve the problem by personal
contacts. The Federal Republic of Germany has never exercised
any kind of pressure on the Icelandic Government or envisaged
any kind of threat. If we have not yet arrived at an agree-
ment - what we deeply regret - so this fact is due exclusive-
ly to the inflexible attitude of the Icelandic Government
which sticks to its maximum positions.

- 3 -

- 3 -

It may be of interest to you to know that Iceland is the
only Scandinavian country which has not yet arrived at an
agreement with the Federal Republic on the question of the
mutual fishing interests. We arrived at an agreement with
Denmark regarding the Faroe Islands and also with Norway
by contractual agreements about certain fishing zones out-
side the 12 miles sea-water limits. According to the proto-
col no. 6 of the Free Trade Agreement between the European
Community and Iceland referred to in the first paragraph
of my letter the Federal Republic of Germany can begin with
the customs facilities for certain Icelandic fishing products
only after a satisfactory solution of the dispute over the
fishing zone. It is, however, not decisive whether and when
a satisfactory settlement of the fishing problems will be
reached in the third UN Sea Law Conference. If we would give
up our rights according to protocol no. 6, this would be
a unilateral concession which would not be advisable as long
as Iceland does not show any kind of flexibility or readiness
to arrive at a compromise. Furthermore the decision regarding
the release of the protocol can be taken only by all members
of the European Community. Great Britain will accept such
a proposal only under the condition that Iceland accepts
a change of certain articles in the expiring British-
Icelandic interim agreement.

This is the attitude of the Federal Government, and it
seems to me logical and fair.

With my best regards,