August 2, 1974

Mr. Secretary:

Enclosed is the revise of the Detente-Nuclear Balance
statement. In addition to some re-writing, the following
are the main changes, made in accordance with your comments:

1) The lead section on detente and the requirements of stability is somewhat shorter and reflects comments you made.

2) There is a new and separate section on security and superiority. It has no heading, but begins on P. 11 and runs to the bottom of P. 15.

3) The organization has been simplified, with the elements concentrated. The section explaining the SALT I agreements is now ahead of the section on how to look at the strategic balance. The reverse was the case in the first draft, and I think that an argument can be made for either progression. It's the section on the balance that spells out our advantages.

4) I tried to make this less discursive by chopping and flattening some, in addition to simplifying the structure.

5) I recognize that there is a bit of repetition, affecting a couple of points, such as throw weight definition. In dealing with this subject, though, I think certain points bear repeating.

6) You said the MIRV stuff wandered around in the first draft. In this one it's concentrated; I did, however, cut out two paragraphs that couldn't be wedged into the section, because if they belong in the statement at all, it's at the back. They deal with the desirability of getting a MIRV agreement and are not really essential. I am attaching them as an insert you may or may not want to restore.

John Newhouse

8/2/74

Draft #2

John Newhouse

STATEMENT ON
DETENTE AND THE NUCLEAR BALANCE
BY
SECRETARY OF STATE HENRY A. KISSINGER
SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE

History's detached judgments mock the simplistic terms and jargon by which we tend to characterize our times. Rarely do events of a given time follow a common pattern. Early in the period known as the Cold War, for example, the Stalin era ended; toward the end of that period we had the limited nuclear test ban treaty. Equally, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and, more recently, a near confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in the Middle East occurred during a period that we call detente. The political environment can change abruptly; but underlying political forces change less and slowly at that -- so slowly as to become the continuities of a given moment in history. Use of the currently fashionable term detente reflects a modest change in the East-West political environment, much less a change in political forces.

Detente, according to a common dictionary definition, means a relaxation of tensions. Actually, the term has come to stand for more than that. Detente is the euphemism for better and somewhat more cooperative relations between rival great powers; it is shorthand for the web of bilateral and

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multilateral negotiations between NATO and Warsaw Pact governments. Prospects for continued progress toward better relations arising from successful negotiations are clouded with uncertainty. At issue is whether our detente-related policies and programs will vindicate the larger meaning of the term; whether the more workable relations that have emerged from a perception of our need, among other things, for a stable strategic balance will endure; or whether the will and the capacity of both sides to build on what has been achieved will prove as inadequate as the term "detente" itself, in which case relative stability could yield to relative instability.

The uncertain prospects for our negotiations and the ambiguities of detente trouble serious people and inevitably raise hard questions about our purposes -- more exactly whether these purposes are fully consistent with our interests, especially our security interests. Some thoughtful Americans wonder whether in negotiating in SALT on strategic arms, for example, we may be tricked into exchanging part of our power for a lull which the other side will exploit by gaining an advantage in nuclear weapons; do we risk, they ask, becoming trapped in the momentum of a negotiation which exists mainly for its own sake? Some people wonder why we don't simply

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use our resources to recapture the outright superiority in
nuclear weapons that we once had. Others are understandably
confused by the so-called nuclear balance, which reflects
not just the number of nuclear weapon systems on either
side, but also the number of warheads, the accuracy of
missile systems, the relative capabilities of strategic
bombers and submarines, the size of missile launchers and
their warheads (i.e. the usable weight of a missile system
and known in the jargon as "throw weight").

Because they sometimes hear conflicting views from
their leaders, people wonder which side, if either, this
balance presently favors, which side, if either, it will favor
in the years ahead. Because they also hear that either side's
forces can devastate the other's society, some people wonder whether
and if so why it is important to increase our forces in
order to maintain an even strategic balance. How much is enough?
And if our nuclear forces are designed to deter aggression, why
must we exceed our investment in these weapons, as we do, in
maintaining large general purpose, i.e. conventional, forces?

Language compounds the confusion. Nuclear parity is a rather
unfamiliar term, especially to a society that for many years
took for granted its nuclear superiority. Detente is a French
word and one with two quite different meanings. Much of the

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internal Washington debate, as well as the negotiation, is
focused on a weapon we call MIRV. Many people don't know
what exactly this acronym stands for, let alone how a
nuclear missile system equipped with MIRV's actually works,
or why we have them.

Larger questions arise. What exactly are the broad
U. S. interests that we seek to protect or promote by this
heavy investment in defense? And what of the Soviet Union's
strategic purposes? Are these purposes compatible with
our own?

No one can provide complete or fully reliable answers
to most of these questions. Yet the government, because it
has the obligation to promote public understanding of our
policies, must set such questions in some clear and coherent
perspective. The Department of State, guided by the President,
has the primary responsibility for the conduct of U. S.
foreign policy and, hence, I feel a special and continuing
obligation to respond to questions, which, because they reach
the heart of our security, trouble many citizens.

What is our stake in detente?

Any assessment of our stake in detente must begin with
our purposes; it must also take account of Soviet purposes

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East-West undertakings to be used against our priority interests -- either our relationships with our allies, to cite one example, or the clear sufficiency of our strategic arsenal, to cite another. We have no illusions that negotiations in and of themselves will alter fundamental Soviet purposes. We do intend that these negotiations will enhance stability and improve the political environment. Put differently, for the United States it becomes a question of trying to steer the Soviet interest in stability toward compatible and useful goals, while not losing sight of the more potentially disruptive Soviet purposes and, when necessary or appropriate, taking steps to discourage them. In this way, we seek to make detente a beneficial process and a transition to something better.

Years ago, we judged that a period of detente, if properly used, could eventually give way to a time that we might be able to characterize by a broader and more plausibly reassuring term. More recently, detente has taken on even wider dimension in our thinking. Perhaps we, too, can fit detente to a more dynamic purpose than stability for its own sake. Perhaps we, too, can use detente as a means to a precise goal -- in our case, using the period of diminished tension to repair or revise the international monetary system and to push inflation in the West back beneath some

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acceptable and stable upper limit. Failure to achieve these
objectives would harshly penalize the lives of people every-
where and hence create instabilities of a scope and character
that cannot now be precisely calculated. One consequence
of such a failure might well be a loosening of the joint
security structure that we and our allies have built together
and sharply reduced investment in defense. The net effect
would be diminished security and a possible restoration, by
one means or another, of a more tense and hazardous political
environment.

What are the requirements for stability?

Any new structure of peace must be based on a stable
political environment, together with strong security forces
and credible security policies. A sober oft repeated lesson
of history is that stability and security are joined together
indivisibly. Thus, our own security forces require much the
largest single commitment of our resources, a condition
unlikely to change. Just how large this commitment should
be is a question that is annually reviewed by the Congress
and debated both within and beyond the government. The same
may be said for narrower questions, some of them more divisive,
turning on how precisely to allocate this bloc of resources --
which forces merit priority attention, what programs should

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be enlarged or reduced, accelerated or terminated. And
so forth.

However complex these questions may be, an outline of
our security requirements is reasonably clear. We need
strong conventional forces, and we need strong strategic
forces. These two major components of our force structure
are mutually reinforcing. Our conventional forces, a large
portion of which are necessarily deployed in Europe, keep
the nuclear threshold high by helping to contain, discourage
or altogether prevent hostilities, especially those of the
kind that might lead to a confrontation with the Soviet
Union. Our conventional forces are thus an essential
complement to deterrence and to a diplomacy aimed at enhancing
stability. Our nuclear forces are designed to assure deterrence
by providing strategic sufficiency and to alert any potential adversary
that aggression waged on a scale that could not be contained
by our conventional forces could, unless terminated, carry
us all across the nuclear threshold. Thus both our diplomacy
and our conventional war fighting posture are strengthened
by our willingness to deploy balanced and essentially
invulnerable nuclear forces.

Political stability and nuclear sufficiency are relative,
not absolute, values. To achieve and sustain a relatively
high degree of stability is a dynamic process. Both
our policies and our force structure must be periodically

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adjusted to take account of a changing political environ-
ment and changing requirements. It is just as true that
certain aspects of our policies and programs do not change;
they are the continuities on which we partially rely for
maintaining stability. One such continuity is Western
unity, which finds expression in the North Atlantic
Alliance. Another is arms control, which as a serious
operational policy has increased in importance as arsenals
of nuclear weapons have increased.

Arms control has, indeed, become an essential element
of United States national security policy as we seek a
transition from confrontation to negotiation in the nuclear
age. And because it is one of the essential elements, arms
control must be related in our planning to other critical
elements of our national policy, including our defense
posture and our alliances. This requirement occasionally
makes the task of promoting and protecting the security
of the United States and its allies more complicated, but
we recognize that the links between these critical elements
of our policy are also mutually reinforcing; we further
recognize that a failure to take account of the inter-
relationship of our priority interests -- indeed to reconcile
them when necessary -- could be ultimately prejudicial to
our broad purposes. In the quest for stability, arms

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control and security are really sides of a coin. It was
the failure to understand this point -- a failure to relate
arms control measures to national security requirements --
that in large measure accounted for so many failures in
the past to contain the often destabilizing push for
increasingly lethal arms in increasing quantities.

The failure was at least partially traceable to a
misunderstanding of the nature of weaponry and its effect
on relations between states. More exactly, it was partly
a failure to recognize the limits on the usable political
power flowing from military power. History has been heavily
influenced by the miscalculations of societies that tried
to put their military strength and usable political power
on a one-to-one basis. At times, arms have been as much
a symptom as a cause of tension. At other times, however,
the deployment of expanded arsenals of weapons has deepened
tensions and created instabilities. Our own time, *par
excellence*, is one in which tensions and instabilities *will*
flow from unrestrained increases in the nuclear weapons
deployed by major powers. Indeed, at no time in history has
the need to avoid a miscalculation of the limits of power
been so great.

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The bi-polar nuclear age and the balance of terror, as Churchill put it, has fostered a number of historic ironies:

-- A great nuclear power needs not a few but a substantial force of nuclear weapons in order to minimize the possibility that they might be used.

-- Nuclear weapons give the United States and the Soviet Union great military power, but in a form that is so destructive as to make it even less usable politically than any earlier form of military power. This irony acquires a finer edge as we perceive that the political power implicit in nuclear weapons is even less usable against small states than against another nuclear power; at least, the activities of one nuclear power are necessarily influenced by the deployment of nuclear weapons by another.

-- Our relationship with the Soviet Union has undergone considerable change, mostly for the better, over the past 20 years; but the arms buildup has proceeded largely insensitive to changes in the political environment.

Although the strategic forces of the United States and the Soviet Union are roughly in balance, the two arsenals may

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in their different ways resume significant growth. We and
the Soviets may or may not be able to stop such growth at
some mutually acceptable level. A failure to stop it will
signify, among other things, that each side seeks some
greater measure of security, if not power, through strategic
advantage. To seek security in this way is to misread the
relationship of nuclear weapons to security. Continued
expansion of nuclear forces is no way for either side to
acquire greater security. At best, the two sides would be
maintaining much the same strategic balance with endlessly
growing arsenals of otherwise useless strategic power. The
question is whether they could also maintain the same degree
of security. Almost certainly, a misguided quest for
superiority would be prejudicial to the security of both sides,
if only because of the uncertainties and instabilities caused
by the buildup. Let me be more specific. I am deeply
troubled that another cycle in the buildup would lead to
deployment on both sides of something like 15,000 deliverable
nuclear weapons.

We must recognize that a nuclear arms buildup is different,
in kind as well as degree, from arms races of the past. It
has a different set of dynamics:

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-- There is technology, which three decades ago gave us a glimpse of the outer reaches of destruction and continues to provide weapons of steadily greater competence, versatility and destructive power.

-- There is the related dynamic of cost; it is on a rising curve. Sustaining a buildup of these weapons could penalize our other more productive -- in some cases urgent -- national purposes.

-- There is the cycle of reaction. Sustaining the buildup would mean exhorting our own people to accept it, partly by ascribing a hostile and threatening Soviet purpose to Soviet strategic weapons. This internal process would sharpen international tensions and feed the kinds of misunderstandings that would reinforce a similar process on the Soviet side. Thus, both our domestic and foreign policies might have to be redirected to take account of the corrosive effects of the competition.

In brief, a so-called nuclear arms race would not appreciably affect the strategic balance, although the inevitable

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progression of technological refinements could weaken it,
as one side's qualitative improvements generated anxieties
on the other side from which compensatory force increases
and improvements would spring. Neither side would extract
strategic advantage from the process. Neither would gain
usable power of any kind. But from the potentially heavy
cost to stability of sustaining such a process, both sides,
along with the rest of the world, could be heavy losers.

As a society, we must wrestle with an admittedly complex
question: How much is enough? Are we as a society ready
to face the implications of an arms race? How much are we
prepared to spend? How much resulting tension and hostility
in the political environment are we prepared to accept in
order to keep this process alive? Answering the question
means examining our strategic purposes. It means examining
the strategic balance to see which side, if either, has an
advantage and if so why. It means explaining what we have
achieved in SALT and why; what we hope to achieve in SALT
and why.

## Our Strategic Purposes

Our supreme strategic purpose is the prevention of nuclear
war through maintenance of sufficient political and strategic
power. There is no argument really on how best to avoid
nuclear war. Long ago, we decided that a sufficiency of

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balanced nuclear forces was the main protection, or assurance, against this remote possibility. On the other hand, judgments of what constitutes "sufficiency" -- what forces we need for the purpose -- have been subject to change. Our judgments have changed, for example, as our experience in deploying these weapons and thinking about them has altered our perceptions. And our judgments, of course, have changed as the Soviet Union began first deploying and then expanding its own nuclear forces. Briefly, the doctrinal underpinning of our strategic posture was in a process of almost constant change and adjustment until the late 1960's, when it became apparent that the Soviet Union, for practical purposes, had achieved a kind of rough parity with the United States in nuclear forces.

At that time, we determined that the strategic forces of both sides should not be vulnerable to attack, thus removing the incentive on either side to strike first. At the same time it became apparent that neither side could realistically expect to develop a credible disarming capability against the other. The term "disarming capability" means a force of nuclear weapons whose number, destructive power and accuracy could reliably destroy all or nearly all of the nuclear forces of the other side. To pin down this point and

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to avoid misunderstandings, we concluded, however, that neither
side should risk arousing suspicions and fears on the other
by creating forces that might even appear to be designed for
a disarming role.

In short, after more than two decades of possessing a
clear superiority in nuclear weapons, we reconciled ourselves
to a condition of strategic sufficiency based on invulnerable
second strike U.S. and Soviet nuclear forces, each of which,
if attacked, could inflict unacceptable retaliatory damage
on the other's society. For ourselves, we also determined
that in the unlikely event of some nuclear attack, the President
of the United States should have a wide range of options in
deciding at what level and against what targets to respond.
Thus, we built into our strategic forces a substantial measure
of flexibility, meaning that the United States response need
not include an attack on the aggressor's cities, thus inviting
the destruction of our own, but could instead avoid population
centers or heavy collateral damage to society and thus try
to avoid rapid escalation. Translating this capability of
our strategic forces into a coherent system of planning became
a novel, as yet uncompleted, task of great complexity; but
progress has been made. And more will be made.

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The foregoing are the main elements of a strategic
doctrine which we arrived at only after perceiving that
the time had passed when either great nuclear power would
permit the other to gain any significant or appreciable
advantage in nuclear weapons. SALT, as noted, became the
means by which we and the Soviet Union could enhance stability
by setting mutual constraints on our respective forces and
by gradually reaching an understanding on these doctrinal
considerations that underlie the deployment of nuclear
weapons.

The SALT Record

The logic of SALT is strategic and political. In one
sense, this process engages the world's greatest military
powers on the issues directly affecting the equilibrium on
which their strategic relationship rests. In another, it
formalizes and gives concrete expression to their identity
of interest in placing their political relationship on more
stable footing and thus reducing the chance of a nuclear
confrontation. We intended five years ago that SALT would
become a means of promoting stability, hence security --
that SALT might establish, or help to establish, an alternative
to the chimera of strategic superiority. And we feel that the
record on SALT, though still modest, is clearly positive,
enough so to reinforce our original judgment. Let me put it
another way. It is the policy of the United States that its

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strategic force acquisition policy will be based on what is achieved, or not achieved, in SALT.

There has developed some confusion about SALT and the utility of what has thus far been agreed to and why in the talks. This confusion is somewhat understandable. Few subjects contain so many abstractions. The concept of nuclear war itself is and must remain an abstraction.

The agreements already reached in SALT and our further goals must be judged in the light of our need for strategic sufficiency and a less volatile strategic environment. By formally restricting anti-ballistic missiles (ABM's) to very low levels of deployment, the United States and the Soviet Union have removed a potential source of instability; for one side to build an extensive defense of its cities against missile attack would inevitably be interpreted by the other as a step toward a disarming capability, since before moving in that direction a potential aggressor would want to protect his population centers from surviving nuclear weapons on the other side.

With the five-year SALT interim agreement freezing the numbers of offensive strategic missile launchers, the two governments took the essential first step toward setting longer term limits on these and other offensive weapons. Some

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have alleged that the interim agreement, which expires in
October, 1977, penalizes the United States by permitting
the Soviet Union to deploy more strategic missile launchers,
both land-based and sea-based. Such a view is narrow and
misleading. When the agreement was signed in May, 1972,
the Soviet Union already possessed more land-based inter-
continental ballistic missiles (ICBM's) than the United
States and, given the pace of its submarine construction
program, could have reached the point over the next few
years of having virtually twice as many nuclear submarines
with ballistic missiles. The effect of this interim agree-
ment was to halt the Soviet ICBM program at the then existing
level and to set an upper limit on the Soviet submarine-
launched ballistic missile (SLBM) program. Since the United
States was not in a position to add to its own arsenal of
offensive missile launchers during the five-year period of
the agreement, we were conceding nothing in terms of Soviet
advantages in numbers of missile launchers; that advantage
already existed and the agreement, if anything, has served
to contain it.

Other important distinctions between the offensive missile
forces of the two sides were not affected by the interim

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agreement. The most notable of these is our numerical
advantage in nuclear warheads. It is nearly 3 to 1. More-
over, our analysis suggests that this advantage will not be
appreciably altered during the life of the interim agree-
ment; by October, 1977, when the agreement expires, our lead
very likely will be somewhat less -- nearly twice as many
missile warheads as the Soviets, thus still appreciable.
And when bomber weapons are added to missile re-entry vehicles,
the immediate U.S. advantage in warheads and bombs over the
Soviet Union is considerably better than 3 to 1; our estimates
suggest that our overall advantage will remain close to this
ratio when the agreement expires. Put simply, if today we
stopped where we were and deployed no new systems, added
no new MIRV's (Multiple Independently-targeted Re-entry Vehicles)
to our inventory, by 1980 we would still be ahead of
the Soviet Union in the number of deliverable nuclear
weapons.

It is equally true that a Soviet advantage in the size
of warheads their land-based missile launchers can deliver --
the "throw-weight" advantage -- is also unaffected by the
interim agreement. In short, the Soviet Union has more and
larger ICBM's than the United States. The authorized numbers
are 1,618 on the Soviet side, 1,054 on the American -- fewer

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if the two sides wish to build up to authorized ceilings on
submarine missile launchers. These ceilings are 950 for
the Soviet Union and 710 for the United States, although we
on our side had no intention of increasing our present force
of 656 SLBM's to the authorized number within the five-year
life of the agreement. We are, however, designing a new and
larger submarine, the Trident. It will carry 24 MIRV'd
missiles, as compared with 16, the number presently deployed
on our submarines. These missiles will be of intercontinental
range, thus permitting the Trident submarines a vastly greater
area of operations as a hedge against possible breakthroughs
in anti-submarine warfare. We do not plan to begin deploying
Trident submarines much before the end of the decade.

In deploying ballistic missiles on submarines, the United
States has certain advantages. The sea for us is a more
natural strategic environment; our long coastlines afford
our boats swift access to the open seas, where they operate.
Such is not the case for the Soviet Union; its natural
strategic advantages derive from its huge land mass, whereas
its more limited coastal waters complicate submarine operations.
In 1972, our calculations showed that in the years directly
ahead the Soviet Union would require at least half again as
many modern ballistic missile submarines as the United States

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in order to keep about the same number on station. Even
now, the number of these Soviet submarines on station at
a given time is substantially less than our own.

An even more significant U.S. advantage lies in the
quality of our submarines. Thanks to a long head start in
deploying nuclear submarines, we enjoy a substantial
technological lead. Our submarines are quieter, hence harder
to detect, and can operate over longer periods of time. Most
of our SLBM's have MIRV's. The Soviets do not yet have such
a weapon. Thus, even if we stood still and cancelled our
plans for improving our sea-based missile force, the
impressive U.S. technological advantage would hold up for a
considerable period of time. Thus, in agreeing to a larger
aggregate Soviet submarine missile force within the period of
the five-year agreement, we set limits on an exuberant Soviet
expansion program while yielding nothing in the way of a
real, as distinct from cosmetic, advantage. Finally, the
simple numbers are themselves misleading. The agreement, as
I suggested, obliges the Soviet Union, if it decides to fill
its quota of 950 SLBM's, to retire 210 older land-based ICBM's,
in which case the size of that force, which is of greater
concern to us, would drop to about 1,400.

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## Measuring Sufficiency

With ABM's no longer a major concern, the focus of SALT, as well as public and Congressional interest, rests on offensive nuclear weapons. Knowing what to think, or even how to think, about these weapons is intellectually demanding. Nuclear war remains wholly theoretical. As a society, we knew for a long time only nuclear superiority; now we must grasp with sufficiency and what, as a practical matter, it does to our strategic position. If superiority could yield to sufficiency, then, as some people ask, will we allow sufficiency to become insufficiency? Is this where SALT may have, or may be, leading us?

In measuring sufficiency, the challenge lies partly in the dissimilar character of the American and Soviet arsenals. They are similar only in the sense that each side deploys what is called a triad of strategic arms -- what we call "central systems." This triad consists of heavy bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM's) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM's). Each side aims these weapons at targets in the other's territory. In addition, each side deploys a great many nuclear weapons of lesser range; these we call "non-central systems." The United States has, for example, nuclear capable aircraft based in

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Europe and on aircraft carriers some of which are capable
of attacking the Soviet Union, which in turn deploys more
such weapons, most of which have targets in Western Europe.

In the case of heavy bombers, the United States has an
advantage both in quality and in number. Our B-52's are
more modern; we have about 450 of them, compared to the
comparable Soviet aircraft, which number about 140. On the
other hand, the Soviet Union deploys more ICBM's than we
do. That ratio is about 3 to 2. Moreover, many of these
Soviet land-based missiles, as I said, are larger than ours,
and thus afford the Soviets a "throw-weight" advantage
in ICBM's.

This is the point, or one of them, at which the equation
becomes complicated. Although we have fewer ICBM's, ours are
more accurate; and accuracy is a more dominant quality than
yield. With time and testing experience, accuracies improve,
and each two-fold improvement is equivalent to an eight-fold
increase in yield.

Even more important, in my view, is our substantial lead
in missile warheads. We have, as I also said, nearly three
times as many missile warheads as does the Soviet Union. It
is difficult to overstate the importance of this kind of
advantage; missile warheads -- the actual weapons -- not

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missile launchers -- the means of delivery -- represent the
more critical measure of overall strategic power. This gap
in re-entry vehicles, as they are known, derives from a
substantial U.S. lead in the technology of multiple warheads.
A great many of our missile systems are equipped with MIRV's.
The Soviet Union is testing such systems, but probably will
not be able even to begin deploying them until next year. We
continue to deploy them.

Conceptually, our MIRV program dates to the late 1950's,
when defense planners began looking at various hedges against
deployment of ABM's on the other side. It appeared that
missiles equipped with multiple warheads could penetrate even
heavily defended urban-industrial centers simply by exhausting
"using up" -- the adversary's ABM's with a superior number
of re-entry vehicles.

MIRV technology is worth contemplating, if only because
even more exotic refinements lie within our grasp. The so-called
bus, or last stage of the missile, releases a number of
re-entry vehicles sequentially. The release of each is
pre-programmed to coincide with alterations in the bus's
course and velocity. These alterations establish the path
of the re-entry vehicle to its predetermined target, which,
among other things, could be a military installation or an
industrial complex.

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We no longer need MIRV's as a means of assuring the capability of our missiles to penetrate defenses. The ABM Treaty removed that need. Instead, we have come to regard our MIRV's as a more effective -- and less expensive -- means of offsetting the Soviet missile buildup -- as a means of protecting strategic stability and guaranteeing, at the least, equivalence.

Any discussion of MIRV'd weapons must take account of their heavy impact on verification. Let me remind the Committee that our SALT agreements with the Soviet Union, as well as our SALT proposals, do not rely on trust; each side verifies the other's programs by what we call national technical means. In short, we rely on technology for reliable verification. MIRV complicates such verification, but not necessarily to an unmanageable degree. The Soviet Union has no difficulty in verifying the capability of our MIRV'd missiles. By monitoring our tests of such systems, they know how many re-entry vehicles a given missile carries. By multiplying the number of these missiles by the number of re-entry vehicles, they have a reliable measure of our warhead inventory. Equally, we are monitoring their MIRV tests. When they begin deploying MIRV'd missiles, we will make the same

-28-

measurement. However, they are currently testing four
different missiles. They may not be intending to deploy all
of them. Or they may not be intending to deploy all of them
in a MIRV'd version. We don't know. We do know that unless
we achieve reasonably soon a new SALT agreement covering
MIRV's, the Soviet deployment program might develop enough
momentum to undermine the utility of such an agreement. Such
a situation would tend to force any agreed limits on MIRV's
to a high level -- so high possibly as to be virtually
meaningless or destabilizing or both.

Many years ago, we stopped adding to our inventory of
missile launchers; we chose instead to equip the major portion
of both our ICBM's and SLBM's with MIRV's. And this
absolute advantage in multiple warheads is the most critical
element in the present strategic balance. Anyone who doubts
this would be disabused by a serious discussion of the
balance with the Soviet leadership. Notwithstanding our
advantage in this crucial part of the balance, we are prepared
to negotiate on it -- to set a limit on our MIRV's in return
for a limit on future Soviet MIRV's that takes adequate account
of the Soviet advantage in numbers of missile launchers and
in throw weight.

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## Our Goals in SALT

Our major current goal in SALT is an agreement based on what we call essential equivalence in the three central strategic systems. Agreement on what constitutes equivalence depends to some extent on perceptions of what is important. Here judgment becomes subjective. Because U.S. and Soviet forces are different from each other, they are hard to compare. How, for example, does our advantage in MIRV's -- in numbers of warheads -- affect the Soviet advantage in overall numbers and size of missile launchers? And what happens to that balance if the U.S. advantage in the number of heavy bombers -- roughly 300 -- is thrown in?

In dealing with this troubling equation, we are obliged to measure present advantage against potential advantages, to compare existing disparities with future disparities. Viewed narrowly, we feel that the present strategic balance is weighted somewhat in our favor. This is a narrow view, because we also feel that any so-called advantage deriving from the present balance is not particularly meaningful, since the Soviet Union's retaliatory forces could destroy our society as effectively as our forces could destroy their's.

The 1972 SALT agreements bolstered the quantitative limits set on strategic weapons with certain qualitative

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controls. For example, the ABM Treaty limits the size and power of certain radar systems, as well as their number. And the interim agreement forbids the conversion of "light" ICBM's into "heavy" ones, while also banning any significant increase in the size of missile silos. These latter provisions reflect a long-standing U.S. concern with so-called "heavy" Soviet land-based missiles. The United States deploys few such missiles, which disturb defense planners because, once equipped with highly accurate MIRV's, they could threaten the survival of the other side's land-based missiles.

These constraints on heavy missiles were not only desirable in and of themselves; they also amount to useful precedents, since in the second phase of SALT we are engaged in the more difficult task of working out qualitative controls, along with additional quantitative limitations, of offensive strategic arms. In order to achieve the stability that we deem so essential, it will be necessary not only to limit numbers of strategic weapons but to restrain the process of increasing the destructive potential of these weapons. Thus, we are dealing not only with disparate levels of forces but with the kind of disparate capabilities that MIRV technology, to take the most conspicuous example, can supply.

-31-

As for the future, we recognize that if we were to add little or nothing to our own forces -- and if SALT failed to produce a comprehensive agreement -- the Soviet Union could alter the strategic balance in its favor. We would still retain retaliatory forces capable of inflicting unacceptable destruction, but the numbers by which overall strategic power is measured or perceived could change. In order for these numbers to change appreciably, certain things would have to happen, others fail to happen. First, the United States would have to stand by idly -- and that is most unlikely -- as the Soviet Union added to its forces by deploying in significant numbers some combination of the four new land-based missiles it is currently testing. Three of these missiles are heavier than our Minuteman ICBM, and one of them falls within the definition of a "heavy" missile. Second, the Soviet Union would have to put MIRV's on a large number of these new deployed missiles in order to maximize their potential. This would likely be done, since, as I indicated, some of the new missiles are undergoing a lively testing program in MIRV'd versions.

At this point, the Soviet Union might have erased our warhead advantage and even gone beyond; this they could theoretically accomplish by fully exploiting their advantage

-32-

in the size of land-based ICBM's and adding to their superior
numbers. It is also conceivable, if we choose to think in
the most pessimistic terms, that our technological advantages
in sea-based weapons might be overcome. For the balance
to shift so dramatically would, among other things, create
anxieties about our Minuteman missiles whose survivability
could by then be considered questionable. Much more important,
perceptions -- our own and the world's -- of America's
political and strategic power relationship with the Soviet
Union would be altered in a manner perhaps best described
as destabilizing.

Let me explain this point. Such a shift would be
destabilizing not so much because it would represent in
absolute terms a shift in usable military power. Rather it
would be destabilizing, because of the way in which people
would look upon it. They would look upon it as a weakening
of our ability to defend ourselves and our allies -- our
ability to deter aggression. Briefly, a significant decline
in our perceived strategic power vis-a-vis the Soviet Union --
a decline serious enough to alter the strategic balance --
would cause a decline in our perceived political power
vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. The decline might be characterized,
among other things, by a disintegration of our alliance

-33-

relationships and our ability to handle effectively crises of the kind that threaten stability. The other side might be irresistably drawn to relentless and destabilizing tests of our determination to protect vital interests.

For these and other reasons, we would never permit the balance to change in such a fashion. If and as the requirements are perceived to change, any government of the United States can be relied upon to revise and/or expand its strategic programs to meet them. With moderate efforts we will be able to do whatever is needed over the next few years to guarantee a secure balance. We should not do more. We can and we will maintain a balance based on equivalence, real and perceived. Indeed, because equivalence is subjective, reality derives from a collective perception of our strategic force requirements.

Reconciling divergent perceptions on our own side is part of the task. The second part is reconciling our perceptions with those of the Soviet leadership. Too many planners on either side tend to find reality in the other's ultimate capabilities, not in his rational purposes and interests. This tendency is neither useful nor realistic. The United States and the Soviet Union are deeply divided

-34-

with regard to values and purposes. But they share an incentive
to avoid nuclear war. It is well to be aware of an adversary
power's potential. But to argue strategy and doctrine solely
in worst case terms -- in terms reflecting essentially fanciful
estimates of a future strategic balance -- adds nothing to
constructive discourse on the subject and misleads thoughtful
people here and abroad.

Some say that we are falling behind. Specifically, I
hear talk these days of a Soviet advantage in MIRV'd throw
weight. There is no such advantage, because the Soviets
have not begun to deploy MIRV's. And it will be many years --
probably not until well into the 1980's -- before their MIRV's
have accuracies comparable to the current accuracies of our
MIRV's. Moreover, according to our best estimates, it would
take the Soviets another five years to catch up just in
numbers of MIRV's, even if we stood still and deployed no
additional MIRV's ourselves.

I also hear a good deal about the vulnerability of our
Minuteman missiles -- our ICBM force -- to a disarming Soviet
strike. The Soviets have no such disarming capability. In
theory, a potential Soviet advantage in MIRV'd throw weight
could eventually impart this capability. And, according to
the theory, the temptation in a crisis to exploit a disarming
capability might prove overwhelming. I cannot conceive of

-35-

any contingency that would lead a sane government, however
hostile to the United States, to contemplate a disarming
strike against our Minuteman missiles. Among other
inhibiting factors, the aggressor would have to reckon with
our remaining SLBM and bomber forces. I will concede that
this kind of supposed disarming capability is destabilizing,
again because of the way people perceive it. And the best
approach to the problem, in my judgment, is to concentrate
on finding ways to strengthen the strategic balance through
restraint, as distinct from over-reacting to a Soviet
ability
advantage
that may lie ahead but which we will always have the
means to offset.

A part of our problem is that planners on either side
find vindication for their gloomiest assessments in the
rhetoric of counterparts on the other side. Indeed, the
rhetoric that accompanies a major investment in new weapons
becomes a part of the rationale for reciprocal moves on the
other side. The tendency on either side to take the most
somber strategic rhetoric at face value and to draw from it
the gloomiest of conclusions contributes to assessments that
most often are more prudential than useful, or even analytical.
And this deadly combination of technology, politically

-36-

innocent rhetoric and the so-called action-reaction phenomenon,
unless suppressed, could take us and the Soviet Union to
steadily higher levels of nuclear weapons deployments.

The recent Summit conference caused some confusion by
failing to produce a new SALT agreement. Our expectations,
understandably, sometimes exceed feasibility. Not all summit
conferences will return major agreements. That, however, is
not a reason not to have such conferences on a reasonably
regular basis. Some conferences, as in the case of this one,
serve to lay or extend essential groundwork from which
subsequent agreements can emerge. We did reach agreement at
the recent summit conference on the desirability of replacing
the current five-year interim agreement with an agreement
covering the period to 1985.

Summary

Let me try to summarize our thinking about this complex
set of questions as well as our policy. The size and character
of our strategic forces will be determined by what can be
agreed to in SALT and by the deployment decisions taken by
the Soviet Union. Our sufficiency policy requires that we
maintain equivalence in the strategic balance, while seeking
in SALT to make the balance more stable. Sufficiency does
not imply that the United States would accept a margin of
inferiority, real or perceived. Sufficiency does require that

-37-

in maintaining equivalence we do not procure strategic forces
in excess of our perceived needs, or forces of a character
that would create anxieties or misunderstandings as to our
purposes. In short, our procurement decisions must fully
comply with the doctrinal rules of deterrence that we
ourselves have laid down.

We deplore the prospect of another cycle in the strategic
arms buildup. We do not suggest that a clear strategic
advantage would be politically meaningless. We know, however,
that in practical terms such an advantage is unattainable,
since neither side at this time in history could or would
allow it to develop. If we nevertheless fail to inhibit
movement in the wrong direction, we obviously have the
capability to more than hold our own in a so-called arms
race. As noted, we are building a new and larger submarine
as a platform for improved and longer range SLBM's. We are
also building an improved heavy bomber. At present, these
new systems are intended as replacements, not as additions
to our force structure. If SALT fails -- if mutual restraint
loses out to the mutual impulse to hedge through force
expansion -- then such systems will become additions.
Moreover, we have other potential strings to our strategic bow.
We are engaged in research and development on a nuclear

-38-

cruise missile that could be launched from the sea or the
air, although we have no plans to deploy such a system. We
also have seed money in this year's defense budget for a
new family of multiple warheads, some larger than any of
the MIRV's we currently deploy; more important, substantial
accuracy improvements would be built into all such new
warheads. We profoundly hope that we will not feel pressed
to deploy any of them; among other things, these new weapons
would make our task in SALT more complicated, hence more
difficult. We would prefer to reduce rather than to add to
our force structure. And we would prefer to hold nuclear
weapons within existing technological parameters rather than
to follow technology to a new qualitative plateau in response
to an unrestrained Soviet buildup of its land-based missiles.

Our age has fostered another and somewhat more comforting
irony: The inhibitions arising from nuclear arms have
probably discouraged conflicts which, in the absence of such
weapons, might have set off another world war. In any case,
it is too late to rid ourselves of these weapons. Instead
we must try to link them even more directly to a more secure
political environment and a more stable equilibrium. The
compelling mutual interest in avoiding the kind of confrontation
that could occur in an unstable environment cuts across the
ambiguities of detente.

-39-

Detente is admittedly a modest term and even a modest concept. It is far from representing a modern equivalent to the kind of stable peace that characterized most of the 19th century. Detente is, however, a long step in the right direction away from the bitter and aggressive spirit that has animated so much of 20th century experience. Moreover, when linked to such broad and unprecedented projects as SALT, detente takes on added meaning. The dividends from detente, as for example the first SALT agreements, should be seen as a step -- as links in a process that logically should lead to progressively greater stability. It is in that light that SALT and related projects will be judged by history.

As ever, history will judge that the processes of confrontation and negotiation were not in balance. The balance tilts in one direction or another. In the process of negotiation lies a means of keeping confrontation within stable limits. It is in that light, along with the other more measurable criteria, that SALT should be judged by us.

Possible insert to begin at top of page 36.

A good deal of concern is expressed about MIRV's. This
is understandable. MIRV's could prove to be destabilizing
partly because people perceive them in this way and partly
because, unless limited, they could become the multiplier
of endlessly growing strategic force on both sides. Thus,
the United States regards a limitation on MIRV's as urgent
business. Although agreement on MIRV's has so far eluded us,
exhaustive discussions on the subject have given each side a
much clearer understanding of the other's position. This
better understanding should provide a basis on which to
proceed toward agreement, possibly an agreement covering
MIRV's and other kinds of weaponry.

Both sides appear to have a stake in an agreement limiting
MIRV's. At best, such an agreement would discourage --
perhaps ultimately prevent -- this process by which both
sides at considerable cost to stability would feel obliged to
exploit their respective advantages in a way that would
stimulate a major buildup in offensive weapons. At the
least, an agreement that limited MIRV's would buy time in
which the parties could try to make further progress. As
the power now deploying MIRV's, the U.S. might appear to have
less incentive to bargain away its advantage by putting limits

on them. Yet, as noted, our projections indicate that within
the next decade, the Soviet Union could erase the U.S. numer-
ical advantage in MIRV's, unless, that is, we choose to expand
our own programs to a degree not presently contemplated.

Thus, the time to start heading off a dynamic but undesirable
competition in MIRV's at some future time would seem to be
now.

THE COUNSELOR
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
WASHINGTON

August 2, 1974

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY

FROM: Winston Lord/William Hyland/Helmut Sonnenfeldt
SUBJECT: Senate Foreign Relations Committee Testimony

Attached is our latest draft, incorporating your most recent comments on the previous one. We have completely reworked the start; the strategic/SALT portion has been shortened; global implications have been revised; moral dilemmas has been reworked and tightened; the conclusion is cast as a brief forward look; the whole draft has, hopefully, been made crisper.

Lord/Hyland/Sonnenfeldt

Draft #6

8/2/74

Over the past year serious questions have been raised about our policy toward the Soviet Union, about the advantages of SALT, about the link between Soviet trade and freer emigration, and about the very nature of the Soviet system and the morality of dealing with it.

I want to set forth this Administration's analysis of Soviet-American relations, the objectives we have pursued for the past five years, and what we believe has been accomplished and can be realized in the future.

* * * *

The Conduct of Soviet-American Relations

The aspiration for a positive relationship with the Soviet Union has been expressed by every President since World War II. Whether such a relationship could be achieved, and how best to achieve it, have been central questions confronting American policy through five Administrations.

The reason for our preoccupation with Soviet-American relations are obvious: the Soviet Union and the United States have the capacity to destroy humanity, and we are political ideological opponents with contrary values and military and political competitors with conflicting national interests.

- 2 -

For 25 years even the most routine international issues risked being transformed into a confrontation between the world's strongest powers, and each confrontation carried with it the danger of escalation into nuclear conflict.

The result was that the postwar period was characterized by an oscillation between protracted periods of extreme tensions and confrontation and briefer interludes of seeming relaxation.

The question is now raised whether the present period is not merely a lull, deliberately designed to suit Soviet purposes. This is not the issue: for whenever any American administration considers how to create conditions for a more peaceful and stable world order, it must inevitably return to the question of establishing a more normal relationship with the Soviet Union. There is no possibility of securing world peace without a peaceful relationship between the US and USSR, and there will be no international stability unless Soviet-American relations are characterized by restraint.

Thus, the central issues for American policy are not whether Soviet policy is malign or benign, or whether we more are/committed to reduce the dangers of nuclear confrontation than our critics. We cannot afford to become lost in endless speculation about what the USSR will or will not do. We need to define our own interests and purposes, to examine our alternatives, and to analyze which policy is most likely to achieve our aims.

* * *

- 3 -

When this Administration took office in 1969, we were once again in a period of tension. We were advised to hold an early summit meeting, to launch the SALT talks, and to concentrate on developing a new economic relationship with the Soviet Union as the surest means to a political relaxation.

Our view was that confrontation with the Soviet Union could not be relieved by changing the atmosphere surrounding out relations or establishing contact with the leaders in Moscow, or beginning negotiation in order to demonstrate our good will.

Our view was that however desirable it might seem to show an immediate change, that this would risk another disillusionment. Too often the burden of extreme and prolonged tension led us to make temporary relief the objective of our policy; in interludes of relaxation we mistakenly concluded that Soviet policy was undergoing some fundamental change; then when crisis inevitably followed, we adopted the other extreme and concluded that Soviet policy was, in fact, totally intransigent, and there could be no hope for more than tactical episodes of cooperation.

Soviet-American relations came to be conducted as a debate over Soviet intentions.

Our conclusion was that American policy could not be rooted in a particular interpretation of Soviet aims or purposes. Regardless of what one might conclude about Soviet

- 4 -

objectives, American policy had to be based on our positive
aims: on the one hand, we could hold out incentives and
rewards for restrained behavior; but, on the other hand,
we sould counter Soviet aggressiveness with absolute firm-
ness, without abandoning the effort to develop a more normal
relationship.

We have accepted the fact that we would remain adversaries,
and that our interests and commitments would lead to clashes.
But we determined that this reality should not be a case for
despair about the immutability of the Soviet Union, but
rather the prime reason for confronting the USSR with a
continuing choice between pursuing tension and conflict at
dangerous risks, or systematically improving relations.

Our analysis of Soviet policy led us to believe that
this was the correct strategy. Soviet policy is inherently
ambiguous, in that Russian State interests combine with
Soviet party requirements in the communist world. In 1969,
there were a number of factors in Soviet policy and in the
international arena which could have pushed the USSR toward
greater assertiveness and confrontation, or could have open
avenues for relaxation, and these factors are still
operational.

-- The changes in the Communist world in the 1960s
might force the USSR into an extremely aggressive onslaught
against the capitalist world, or they might suggest to the
Soviet leaders the prudence of at least a temporary lowering
of tension with the West.

- 5 -

-- The prospect of achieving a strategic position of near parity with the US offers a choice between conducting an even more strenuous effort for advantages, or agreeing to stabilize competition through negotiated restraints.

-- Economic problems in the USSR could lead to autarchic policies, closing off dependence on external resources, or might draw the Soviet Union increasingly into the world economy.

-- As the Soviet Union acquires the military and economic resources to extend its presence in the world, it will seek to extend its influence, but it could also acquire a greater sense of responsibility and an interest in regional stability.

-- Finally, when faced with the hopes of its own people for greater liberalization, the Soviet regime may return to the pressures, hostilities and suspicions of the Cold War to crush those hopes, or it may seek to placate them by pursuing a relaxation of tensions.

In the past five years, our policies have been designed to encourage the positive tendencies we perceive in the Soviet position. Our approach has emphasized the following points:

-- First, we have tried to resolve concrete issues that cause the tensions rather than change the climate for negotiations; it was not enough, for example, merely to begin the SALT talks, which was widely welcomed in 1969; we had to

- 6 -

define what limitations would be in our interests if com-
pared with no agreement, and to design an approach that
maximized the chances of continuous progress toward an
agreement.

-- Second, we have established a linkage among various issues; we made it clear in 1969 that a political relaxation would have to precede economic improvement, and that there could be no substantive change if the Soviet Union could pursue conciliation on one front and confrontation on another.

At the same time, we believed that progress in one issue would enhance the chances of progress in other questions, and the record suggests this has been the case.

-- Third, we made it clear by our conduct -- in Berlin, in Cuba, in the Middle East -- that we would not be deterred from opposing Soviet policy or confronting the USSR simply because we were seeking to improve relations through negotiations.

-- Finally, we established as the conceptual basis for
Soviet-American relations the principle of mutual restraint
in the pursuit of national interests. If either side sought
to gain a significant advantage, the other, inevitably,
would seek to redress the balance. Competition would be
encouraged, and progress already made would be jeopardized,
and new steps made far more difficult.

- 7 -

In the broadest sense, then, our aim was, has been, and is to work out with the Soviet Union certain modes of behavior, to put our relations on a more normal basis, and in this sense to coexist peacefully.

Before discussing the specifics of bilateral relations and SALT, let me touch on the question of the Soviet response to our approach.

We can safely assume that since the July summit the Soviet Politburo and the Central Committee are reflecting on our intentions and motives. From their own Leninist standpoint they will estimate the direction we will follow. And we can expect them to make cold-blooded decisions to pursue interests that may turn out to be quite inimical to our own.

We witnessed before a period -- in 1969 and 1970 -- in which Soviet policy sought to improve relations with our European allies while freezing relations with us. And we have experienced a period in which our resolve was repeatedly tested.

Since the spring of 1971, however, it has seemed to us that there has been an increasingly strong commitment to work out a better relationship with this country. Whatever their motives, there was progress in SALT thereafter, the settlement in Berlin, and the first summit, which took place in circumstances that suggested the USSR had decided to give priority to the relationship with the United States.

- 8 -

For the most part Soviet policy has reflected a greater
degree of restraint since then. Yet, the relationship with
Washington has no doubt come under an increasingly intense
scrutiny in Moscow. The benefits to the USSR of the so-called
detente may not be so clearly apparent in Moscow, as they seem
to be to many observers in this country. As the Soviet
leaders witness in this country what seems to be a growing
assault on every aspect of Soviet American relations, it is
not inconceivable that they will conclude that it is fruitless
to continue along this general line.

I do not raise this as a warning, or to say that our
policies must reflect an interpretation of what the Soviet
leaders may or may not do. But it is one factor that we
must bear in mind when advocating alternative American
policies and positions. It is particularly relevant to the
question of linking internal changes in the USSR to economic
relations and in advocating a new era of arms competition
to regain a position of "superiority".

If we are to return to policies that resemble the
doctrines of liberation and massive retaliation of the 1950s,
we have to recognize we will be doing so at a time when
Soviet physical power and influence in the world is infinitely
greater than they were a quarter a century ago when those
policies were devised. The criteria now advanced as the
tests of Soviet sincerity may, in the end, jeopardize the

- 9 -

entire relationship. We risk allowing a quest for a national
consensus to degenerate into a compilation of competing
catalogues of the desirable.

Our position is that we must design a foreign policy
geared to America's positive aspirations for a peaceful
world, one which will serve America's interests, whatever
Soviet intentions may be.

It must be a policy:

-- that is rooted in reality, rather than wishful
thinking either about our adversaries' benevolence or our
own infinite capabilities;

-- that our people will support and can sustain over a
substantial period of time without excessive swings from
one extreme to another;

-- that will contribute to progress toward our larger
hope for a more peaceful, cooperative world where it is
possible and reduce the dangers of conflict where it is not.

We believe that what has come to be called a policy of
"detente" fulfills these criteria, and should be pursued.
And we ask those who oppose this policy to state what their
alternative would be and what they would demand of the
American people.

We believe we have initiated a positive political
process in which the habits of self-restraint, mutual
accommodation, and deepening cooperation can become deeply

- 9a -

imbedded in the policies of both sides, so that the process
itself will not be subject to capricious reversal and can
be continued by future leaders in this country and in the
Soviet Union.

We believe that for the past five years we have
advanced this process in four areas: in our bilateral
relationships; in controlling the nuclear arms race; in
reinforcing world peace; and in promoting the conditions
which may permit the evolution of a more open Soviet
society.

- 10 -

Building a New Relationship

Our bilateral relations five years ago were largely
frozen: trade was negligible, contacts between various
institutions of our societies and between the nationals
of the two countries were at best sporadic, cooperation on
problems common to industrial societies was virtually non-
existent, cultural exchange was modest and, above all,
there was nothing that could be described as political
dialogue. The most recent setback that had affected such
superficial ties as existed was the invasion of Czechoslovakia
in August 1968 which had served once again to highlight
starkly the fundamentally antagonistic nature of East-West
relations.

This Administration at its inception did not find in the
country any coherent answer to the question of how superpower
relations might be structured in the period ahead. Some
felt that unrelenting confrontation was the only realistic
prospect and effective policy even though at that very
moment when the agony of Vietnam permeated our society
there was ample cause at least to question the country's
readiness to sustain such a policy.

Various theories were offered; in particular, many
believed that Soviet-American relations could be effectively
eased by promoting an expansion of economic relations.

It was our judgment that opportunities and incentives
for dialogue and cooperation indeed existed and that the

- 11 -

prospect of more normal relations should be injected into
the debates about the future which we felt were proceeding
in Moscow as they were here.

We proposed negotiations over Berlin; we agreed to begin
SALT, after we had worked out a conceptual approach that
offered a chance for progress; we proposed a conference on
reduction of arms in Central Europe; and we indicated a
summit meeting could be held after adequate progress had
been recorded on major issues.

Our overall strategy thus was to try to move forward
on a broad range of issues, so that cumulative success would
give each side a stake in preserving what had been achieved,
and an incentive to make further progress.

We take the view that the nature of Soviet-American
relations has been positively transformed over the past five
years. This transformation can be characterized as a process
of gradual movement away from the habit of confrontations and
competition toward a relationship that is characterized today
by increasing elements of restraint, while holding out some
promise that in the future the process will evolve toward
a relationship of cooperation.

Each of our three summit meetings with the Soviet
leaders has marked an important stage in the process of
developing a more stable and constructive Soviet-American
relationship.

-12-

In 1972 a breakthrough was achieved in the strategic arms talks and in the political agreement reflected in the Statement of Basic Principles. It was fundamentally important to confirm the principle that we would seek to avoid confrontation and exercise mutual restraint. This indicated a basic new direction, which we hoped would be extended to the broad range of relations.

In the second summit we were able to apply this principle in the agreement on the prevention of nuclear war. Relations had improved to a point that we could state that it was our mutual intention to give Soviet-American relations maximum stability and turn them into a permanent factor for world-wide peace.

This year we concluded an agreement to reduce ABM deployments and limit nuclear tests, though both governments were under pressures to retreat from holding a summit at all. The fact that the summit was considered "routine" is in itself testimony to how far we have come from the periodic oscillation of the past. In our dialogue on SALT alone we achieved a degree of openness unthinkable just a few years ago.

If we consider the scope and content of the bilateral cooperative effort already established, in this area alone the change in relations has been profound.

We have reached more cooperative agreements in the past three years than in any previous period. These agreements are not decisive to Soviet-American relations, nor are they

- 13 -

necessarily a permanent state of affairs.

What we have achieved is a number of commitments to cooperate that involve an increasingly broad spectrum of the institutions of both countries. These agreements greatly expand the area for discussion and active collaboration between our two governments, thus establishing a vested interest in a constructive relationship.

At the same time we recognize that the normalization of bilateral economic relations has become increasingly controversial and the subject of genuine concern.

Many responsible Americans ask why we should trade with the Soviet Union at all, or whether trade and economic credits subsidize their armament program, or permit the Soviet leaders to avoid the necessity of liberalizing their society. Questions of trade have also been linked to the moral issue of dealing with totalitarian regimes.

The Administration from the outset took the view -- which it has never abandoned -- that intensified trade should follow a generally improved relationship. We were often criticized for failing to move fast enough on trade, for linking trade to other international developments, and for depriving the US business community of lucrative opportunities. Not once, however, did anyone raise questions about the relationship of trade to the Soviet domestic system.

The Administration pursued this strategy until the 1972 summit demonstrated that both in tone and substance relations

- 14 -

undergone a significant change and a process of normalization
committing the top leaders on both sides had been initiated.
In this setting, the gradual transformation of trading
relationships was a logical step that could serve to provide
additional incentives for maintaining the course which both
sides had set for themselves.

This approach seemed to command the most widespread
understanding and approval. Certainly, the question of the
Soviet domestic structure was not cited as an obstacle to
the processes we had set in motion. Thus bringing the issue
to the fore now involves profound questions of whether we
negotiated in good faith.

Several points need to be clarified about economic
relations with the Soviet Union. Granting most-favored-
nation trading status to the USSR is not a privilege. It
is the removal of a discriminatory aspect of our policy
toward certain countries without which we cannot claim to
be moving toward more normal relations with these countries.

The major impact of the continued denial of this status
to the Soviet Union would be political, not economic. We
established most-favored-nation trading relations in 1933
when we recognized the USSR; we withdraw it in 1951 during
the Korean War, largely as a political act. If there are to
be penalties for confrontation there must also be incentives
for cooperation.

- 15 -

It has already blocked fulfillment of the Lend-Lease Accord -- which has been sought by every administration -- involving repayment of over $700 million to the United States.

It is quite true that in the course of expanding economic relations the Soviet Union could gain access to some of our technology; but it is also true that in the last ten years they have had, and will continue to have, access to much the same technology from other countries in the West and from Japan. Moreover, any one familiar with the Soviet military program would have to agree that in the past two decades the USSR, with no appreciable economic contact with the US, has developed highly sophisticated military technology.

In any case, we do not intend to relax restrictions on the export of technology that might have military applications.

Finally, let me relate the question of trade to our broader aims. This government's policy must go beyond narrow construction of whether each and every transaction is economically profitable, or whether one side obtained an advantage. We have a larger interest in seeing the Soviet economy become steadily associated with the economy of the world at large. It should be our goal, as indeed it is, to encourage the Soviet leaders to value the benefits of interdependence, of obligations running in both directions, of goods, services and funds flowing into as well as out of the Soviet Union. It is precisely this kind of mutuality

- 16 -

which strengthens the process of normalization and serves
to build deterrents to hostile and irresponsible political
and military conduct.

We are not so naive as to think that complex economic
and cooperative relationships in and of themselves serve
these ends. That is precisely why we did not begin to enter
into them until broad political relationships had begun to
evolve; and that is precisely why we seek to keep these
functional aspects of our relations in broad harmony with
political and security relationships. By the same token,
our policies would be unbalanced and incoherent were we to
pursue the goals of more stable political and security
relationships without reinforcing them by more normal
connections between our two societies.

## The Nuclear Relationship

If our basic objective is to enhance our security and
contribute to a safer world by relaxing tension with the
Soviet Union, then it becomes crucial to define what security
means in the nuclear age, and in an era when there is a rough
balance between the strategic forces of both sides.

We begin by recognizing that the nuclear arms competition
is an unprecedented phenomenon:

- The pace of technological change and ability to convert technology into weapons systems has no parallel in history.

- In less than 15 years we have moved from a few

- 17 -

relatively crude, inaccurate, liquid fueled intercontinental
missiles, to highly sophisticated, accurate ballistic missiles
with multiple warheads launched from nuclear powered
submarines.

-- We face the possibility in the next decade that both
the US and the USSR will possess literally tens of thousands
of missile warheads and bomber weapcns.

-- Yet, there is the paradox that each increment in
strategic power does not translate into increased political
power and influence or even as military advantage, but the
penalty of lagging behind may be to risk a country's
very survival.

-- Finally, there are the unparalleled economic and
psychological burdens of sustaining nuclear competition for
another decade at ever increasing costs and at the expense of
other military and civilian programs.

These factors alone would lead any American administration
into a SALT negotiation, for we cannot risk a situation in
which unconstrained military technology drives us into
decisions that we would not make for overall policy reasons.
I do not mean to imply that all technological advance is
dangerous or that we can contain it absolutely. Clearly,
technology can make military forces less prone to accidental
use and more susceptible to control.

The point is that political leaders must retain mastery
over the advance of weaponry instead of permitting technology
to diminish our choices and to dominate our decisions.

- 18 -

Thus, at this point in the nuclear era, we require new
and more sophisticated understanding of the nature of
security:

-- What is the meaning of strategic superiority or
inferiority?

-- Has the United States already accepted a position of
strategic inferiority?

-- Is it possible to pursue a relaxation of political
tensions if there is no limit to military competition?

Because these are so critical I will present a separate
statement on the nuclear relationship.

I want to emphasize certain points that must be con-
sidered.

If one talks about superiority or inferiority we need
to define what it means operationally.

-- Is it only the capacity to inflict a certain level
of industrial damage and destroy a certain percentage of
the population, under any conceivable circumstances?

-- Or is it the capacity to destroy a certain per-
centage of the other side's strategic forces in a first
strike?

For any conceivable level of nuclear forces over the
next decade, you also have to ask whether it has political
utility, and what do you do with it in a crisis?

- 18a -

There is probably some combination of numbers of
strategic weapons and qualitative characteristics that
would give one side a theoretical "superiority." But
that combination is not at all obvious1. And as the
numbers of

- 19 -

missile warheads increase into the thousands and analytical
definition of superiority becomes more and more elusive.

The basic situation is that in the foreseeable future
neither side can gain the capacity to destroy the nuclear
forces of the other. In this sense neither side will be
superior.

There could be a more limited definition of superiority
such as the ability to destroy the land-based ICBM force of
the other side. Such a vulnerability is politically destabilizing in a crisis situation. But it is almost impossible
to conceive of a political rationale that would cause a
political leader to order an attack against ICBMs alone,
even if such an attack could be accomplished with a small
percentage of one's own forces.

Even in this limited sense, then, it is highly unlikely
that one side or the other would allow what might be considered a major advantage. The real danger is that both
sides will pursue programs rationalized by fears of a
theoretical inferiority, and after another decade of competition, the result will still be a rough parity but
accomplished at staggering costs and accompanied by a return
to the tensions of the cold war.

Our policy, which I will explain in more detail to
this Committee, is to use the SALT negotiations as the
means to place a ceiling on the size of strategic forces,
to slow down the pace of destabilizing technological
change, to reduce the vulnerabilities of our strategic

- 20 -

systems, and to ensure a balance of capabilities in which
both sides will have confidence in the sufficiency of their
strategic forces.

Even though an objective analysis indicates our forces
are in no sense inferior, we recognize that political
action may be based on a perception of strategic advantage,
by either side, or by the world at large. The subjective
belief that one side did have a margin of superiority
would impact on our diplomacy, our will to react in crises,
and the confidence of our allies. Our arms procurement
policies, and our SALT position, therefore, must ensure that
our real as well as our perceived strategic capability does
not expose us to miscalculations.

Thus, in this discussion, I want to settle the question
of a so-called American inferiority arising from SALT lest a
false perception in this country lead to an unnecessary and
dangerous acceleration of certain strategic arms programs,
possibly to the detriment of military programs in other
areas where continued efforts are required.

I will deal with the present and future nuclear balance
at greater length, but permit me to make two factual points
about the SALT agreements:

- The Interim Agreement of 1972 stopped no US programs, but froze two major Soviet ballistic missile programs.

- In terms of missile warheads and bomber weapons the US lead since 1972 has widened from a 3-to-1 advantage to a current ratio of 4-to-1 and will be about 5-to-2 when the

- 21 -

agreement expires.

Thus, our advantage will continue to be overwhelming
for the entire period of the Interim Agreement.

Indeed, it is this fact, rather than our so-called
numerical disadvantage, that poses one of the major problems
in the SALT negotiations.

-- As long as the Soviets remain substantially behind in
the number of warheads and bomber weapons, which in their cal-
culation also includes forces we consider tactical rather than
strategic, we can only expect a determined Soviet effort
to close the gap.

-- The problem is that this effort has the potential
of creating a momentum and temptation in the USSR to acquire
a temporary advantage at some point in the next decade.

-- Thus, some of our planners foresee a theoretical
Soviet advantage in the future and urge that we either
abandon SALT or reduce it to a minimum and seek our security
in an accelerated rearmament program to recapture the out-
right superiority of the 1950s.

This is why the present is a critical juncture for the
strategic arms negotiations. If each side now relaxes the
effort to achieve mutual restraint, and relies solely on its
own capabilities, then we face a multiplication of weaponry
that will leave our political leaders with an ever de-
creasing freedom of choice. As the leaders of Europe in
1914, we will become the prisoners of our plans and strategies
that will dictate our actions in a crisis.

- 22 -

The Moscow talks in July were of profound importance
in this regard. For the first time each side seemed to
understand the longer term fears, concerns and perceptions
of the other. What at first seemed to us grossly exaggerated
Soviet statements about the military threat to them, proved
more plausible if it were assumed that the United States
would strike first. We are accustomed in our own analysis
to count what we would have left after a first strike by
the other side; the Soviets have done the same.

We realized that we could not come to an agreement in
Moscow because a truly permanent agreement would inevitably
face the many uncertainties of technology change, and thus
would have to have far too many hedges built into it. On
the other hand, perpetuating the five-year current agreement
for a year or two more would allow us to address only the
current cycle of weapons decisions. By 1978-79, just after
the end of the five-year Interim Agreement, the United States
and the USSR will both be potentially on the edge of a period
of vast increases in their strategic capabilities. Thus we
now believe a ten-year approach might be the most realistic
timeframe.

We think we now have a general framework within which,
over the next six to nine months, we should be able to tell
how serious the Soviets are in reaching an understanding.

Lord/Hyland/Sonnenfeldt

Draft #6 8/2/74

* * * *

-23-

## The Global Dimension

Our discussion extends beyond our bilateral relationship with Moscow, and its strategic component, to the implications for the global environment. The process of detente must be seen as part of the broad design of our foreign policy.

A quarter century ago this nation engaged in a great debate about the role it would play in the world. In the wake of a war we forged the consensus on which our policies were built for over two decades. Now, a generation later, the international environment which molded that consensus has been profoundly changed. Old antagonisms have been muted and become less rigid, old allies have gained new strength, and all nations are caught up in a technology that has compressed the planet and multiplied our mutual dependence.

The world is both less rigid and less manageable. The anxieties of transition and the potential for fresh creation mark our era. We must form a new agreement on our purposes and our possibilities, on our dangers and our opportunities.

The fundamental challenge before this nation, and before all nations, is to nourish the creativity of a pluralistic world while shaping a concept of international order without which power will be unrestrained and international conflict unavoidable.

-24-

The recognition of two fundamental facts has guided our search for a more stable and peaceful world.

First, other nations, such as Western Europe, Japan and the People's Republic of China, are essential components for global equilibrium. A new international order cannot be the effort of one or two nations alone.

Second, the failure to build a new relationship with the Soviet Union, the persistence of a Cold War, would continue to doom our efforts to reduce tensions and resolve specific problems across the globe. A new international order requires an amelioration of Soviet-American tensions.

Thus we have pursued the building of a new bilateral relationship with the USSR within a larger framework:

-- In an increasingly multipolar world, we have worked with Western Europe and Japan to reinvigorate our alliances and reflect the growing strength of our partners. The process of engaging our adversaries must be carried out in close concert with our friends; indeed, this process must rest on the foundations of our enduring ties.

-25-

-- After twenty years of mutual isolation and hostilities, we launched a new relationship with the People's Republic of China. Peace could not exclude a fourth of humanity.

-- In an age of relative strategic balance, we have pursued national security through intense arms control efforts as well as a sustained defense. The two are complementary.

-- On a planet grown smaller through man's technical genius and universal aspirations, we have begun to grapple with the realities of interdependence. Over the longer term, the challenges of fueling international growth, feeding burgeoning populations, regulating the use of the oceans, preserving the environment can only be met in collaboration with all countries, whatever their ideology.

In approaching these tasks, we have no illusions that the necessity for international cooperation will override Soviet national interests. There will be inevitable frictions and clashes as we deal with a large and dynamic superpower that increasingly defines its interest in global, and not just continental, terms.

Therefore, our policy includes firmness against pressures as well as conciliation for progress. We look to our friends -- both in terms of our security ties and our shared values -- as the central pillars of our foreign

-26-

policy. We have maintained a strong military balance and
a flexible defense posture to buttress stability. And we
have acted decisively whenever Soviet actions have
threatened the peace.

These principles guide us:

- We will oppose the attempt by any country to achieve a position of predominance either globally or regionally.

- We will resist any attempt to exploit a policy of detente to weaken our alliances.

- We will react if relaxation of tensions is used as a cover to exacerbate conflicts in international trouble spots.

The Soviet Union cannot ignore these principles without jeopardizing its entire relationship with the United States. As it increases its influence, it also acquires added responsibilities and hopefully a stake in stability.

We are realistic about the global dimensions of our relations with the Soviet Union. We are not attempting quixotically to bridge an ideological divide; or arrogantly to shape a superpower condominium; or imperially to carve up the globe into spheres of influence.

At the same time, we are convinced that it is in our mutual interest and in the world interest to strive for a relationship on global issues where we:

-27-

-- hold frank discussions and realistic negotiations to
accommodate conflicting views,

-- exercise mutual restraint in areas of existing or
potential tension,

-- respect one another's legitimate interests.

Given our competitive relationship, the international
record of recent years inevitably has been mixed. But the
overall trend has been positive. We have seen substantial
improvement in both the lessening of the risks of direct
confrontation and the insulation of crises when they occur.

-- Berlin's perennial potential as Europe's flash
point has been eased through negotiations. We and our
allies are launched on major negotiations with the Warsaw
Pact on European security, including a reduction of our
opposing forces in Central Europe.

-- In the Middle East, both the prospects for peace and
our relations with the nations of the region have brightened.
To be sure, there have been some difficult passages with
Moscow which show that our interests do not always coincide.
But our overall relationship has helped to avoid a major
crisis and facilitated the negotiating process.

-- The honorable termination of America's direct
military involvement in Indochina and the substantial
lowering of regional conflict was due to many factors.
But this progress would have been much more difficult --

-28-

if not impossible -- in an era of hostility with Moscow and Peking.

In sum, when we weigh the global implications of detente policy, we must ask ourselves the following questions:

-- Has the world been freer of tensions and conflict in recent years than during the 1950's and 1960's?

-- Where has the balance of power shifted against the United States? In the Middle East? In Europe? In the triangular relationship between the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, and the United States?

-- What would be the impact on our allies and friends of an American retreat from the path of negotiation and cooperation?

-- Is there a rational alternative to detente in an increasingly interdependent world?

-- Can we sustain a more hopeful international climate if the two superpowers return to a posture of hostility?

We do not claim to have completely erased tension or buried confrontation around the globe. We have been generally more successful in containing crises than removing their root causes. But more constructive relationships with Moscow -- and Peking as well -- have helped to make the international environment more stable and peaceful. And no other course holds out better hopes as we build for the long term.

- 29 -

Moral Choices and Policy Dilemmas

The final issue, and one that has run throughout the postwar period, is the relationship between our foreign policy objectives and the "liberalization" of the internal policies of the USSR. The issue has now been joined, specifically in the matter of making our economic relationship dependent on a policy of free emigration.

The morality of conducting relationships with totalitarian governments or more broadly with governments of which we disapprove is an old one in our foreign policy. It was established even in Washington's administration that we could not define our national interests in terms of our ideological preferences alone. In the modern period, each President has followed the doctrine that while our preferences are clear, we will not impose our own set of values on foreign governments.

Yet, the problem of dealing with Communist governments has always troubled the American people and the Congress. There is the implication that by dealing with a regime that pursues internal policies so sharply in conflict with our own values, that we are in some manner condoning these policies or encouraging their continuation. It is believed by some that until there is a genuine "liberalization" or some sign of serious progress in this direction, all other

- 30 -

elements of relaxation or conciliation in Soviet policy
must be regarded as temporary and tactical. Thus, they
would make demands for internal changes the condition for
our own pursuit of a relaxation of tensions with the Soviet
Union.

Our position has been clearly set forth on many occasions.
We cannot condone the repression of fundamental liberties
in any country. We must always urge humane principles
and use our influence to promote justice. But there are two
questions: first, are there limits to such efforts, and
second, can we make internal changes in any country a pre-
condition to constructive diplomacy.

How hard can we press without provoking Soviet leader-
ship into a return to those practices in its foreign policy
that increase international tensions? Would a new Cold War
encourage the Soviet Union to change its emigration policies?
Would it nourish the hope of liberalization in Eastern Europe
and within the Soviet Union? Has detente increased re-
pression or has it helped generate the pressures and demand
for openness we are now witnessing?

Our position is that there are sharp limits to what we
can insist upon as part of an improved relationship with the
USSR. We have a right to demand responsible international
behavior by the Soviet Union. But with respect to basic
changes within the Soviet Union the issue is not whether
we condone what the USSR does internally; it is the extent

--31--

to which we subordinate our foreign policy objectives to
domestic change.

We believe we have accomplished much over the past five
years. The attitude of the American people has been made
clear on countless occasions, in ways that have produced
effective results:

-- The exit tax on emigration is not being collected.
We have been assured that it will not be reapplied.

-- Hardship cases submitted to the Soviet Government
have been given increased attention.

-- The volume of Jewish emigration increased from a
trickle to the tens of thousands.

But there are those who say this is not enough. They
argue that the Soviets must massively reshape their policies.
What they seek is in fact a sudden reversal of five decades
of Soviet history and of centuries of Russian history.

The goal may be a noble one, but they have chosen to
seek it through the wrong vehicle at the wrong time.
Changes in Soviet society have already occurred, especially
since 1956, and more will come. But if they come it is
most likely to be through an evolutionary process that can
only take place in an environment of decreasing inter-
national tensions.

As political pressures in this country have cast doubt
on our willingness to live up to the agreements of October
1972, Soviet emigration rates have slowed, and even

- 32 -

slipped backward. Now we must acknowledge that if our
ability to affect emigration is real, it is also limited.

It may be that we have allowed a debate over tactics to
obscure agreement about objectives. If a consensus emerges
from this debate, then I am confident we will see a resolution
that ensures both increased trade and increased emigration.

If, on the other hand, the debate is over the principle
of making internal change a pre-condition to the pursuit
of our foreign policies, and, indeed, subordinating other
aspects of policy to its achievement, then we have a major
issue that involves a fundamental reorientation of American
foreign policy.

## Conclusion

In concluding my statement I want to turn to the prospects
for the future: it is obvious that the international environ-
ment has changed radically since the early post-war period when
we first defined out general policy toward the Soviet Union.
At that time the closest we came to a great State paper was
the brillian analysis of Ambassador Kennan about the nature
of Soviet society and the policy which came to be called
containment.

In his famous Mr. X article of July 1947, he made the
following points:

- 33 -

"It is clear that the main elements of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies. ... It is clear that the United States cannot expect in the foreseeable future to enjoy political intimacy with the Soviet regime. It must continue to regard the Soviet Union as a rival not a partner, in the political arena."

In 1947, the US had no choice but to pursue the general directions of policy outlined by George Kennan. It may be that historians will find that the unfolding of the cold war was not as clear as it seemed to that generation. But the point I want to make is that at present there seems to be an inclination to return to the view that our relations with the Soviet Union are basically intractable, and to resign ourselves again to a long period of struggle.

The United States faces a moment of historic choice. It exists for us as a people, not as partisans of any particular cause. The consequences of our choice will be borne not by this Administration, but by its successors in the decades to come, not by our contemporaries but by future generations.

Our view is that we face a vital opportunity that was not possible 25 years ago, but one that will not soon return:

- 34 -

-- First, to ensure that a history in which brief moments of improved Soviet-American relations gave way to prolonged periods of confrontation is replaced by an irreversible process of growing contact and restraint.

-- Second, to place limits on the acquisition and deployment of arms so that military technology is not the sole determinant of policy.

-- Third, to create an international environment in which problems ranging from energy to peace can be addressed outside the rigidities of stark confrontation.

-- Fourth, to build a network of East-West cooperation that by reducing international tensions may gradually ameliorate conditions in the East.

Foreign policy must not become an alibi or a distraction from domestic ills. But equally, domestic problems must not be used as an excuse for abandoning the bipartisan consensus which has supported our foreign policy for over a quarter century.

We have profound differences with the Soviet Union -- in our values, our methods, our vision of the future. But it is these very differences which compel any responsible administration to make a major effort to create a more decent relationship. In the nuclear era there is no rational alternative to a peaceful relationship between the two powers which have the capacity to destroy mankind.

August 5, 1974

9:30 PM

Mr. Secretary:

Here are two rewritten sections of
your SFRC testimony.

The first follows the two parts you
are working on yourself and deals essentially
with the record of US-Soviet relations. This
is followed by the strategic/SALT section which
you are also working on.

The second section follows your section
on SALT and deals with criticisms in the form
of the questions we discussed in our meeting
today. The end of this section also includes
a revised conclusion for the whole testimony.

HSonnenfeldt
WHyland
WLord

- 5 -

-- change in Soviet-American relations has had an impact on the international stability.

We have not eliminated conflicts, but we have created a political framework in which each side, in a crisis, can have certain expectations over the behavior of the other.

-- Berlin's perennial potential as Europe's flash point has been eased.

-- We and our allies are engaged in major negotiations on European security and on the reduction of forces in Central Europe.

-- In the Middle East, both the prospects for peace and our relations with the nations of the region have brightened. To be sure, there have been some difficult passages with Moscow which show that our interests do not always coincide. But the improvement in our overall relationship has contributed to avoiding a major crisis and facilitated the negotiating process. Moreover, the earlier situation in which we and the USSR were inevitably lined up on opposing sides in the Middle East has been substantially transformed as our relations with Arab states have improved and the Soviet Union no longer possesses a monopoly of influence in those states.

-- The honorable termination of America's direct military involvement in Indochina and the substantial lowering of regional conflict was due to many factors. But this progress would have been much more difficult -- if not impossible -- in an era of hostility with Moscow and Peking.

- 6 -

In sum, when we weigh the global implications of our
policy toward the Soviet Union, we must ask ourselves:

-- Has the world been freer of tensions and conflict
in recent years than during the 1950s and 1960s?

-- Where have US interests been adversely affected?
In the Middle East? In Europe? In the triangular rela-
tionship between the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of
China, and the United States?

We do not claim to have completely erased tension or
buried confrontation around the globe. We have been gener-
ally more successful in containing crises than removing
their root causes. And we have no illusions that the neces-
sity for international cooperation, as we view it, will
automatically override Soviet national interests.

But as we begin to grapple with the realities of global
interdependence, as we confront the challenges of fueling
international growth, feeding burgeoning populations, regu-
lating the use of the oceans, and preserving the environment,
can we expect to address this global agenda if the two super-
powers return to a posture of hostility?

Can there be a rational alternative to detente in an
increasingly interdependent world?

- 10 -

The basic decisions we made, and the principles we have followed for the past five years have been: first, to define a coherent approach toward the USSR that is valid because it reflects our own positive aspirations and can be pursued whatever Soviet intentions might be; second, to design a strategy to encourage any positive tendencies in Soviet policy by holding out incentive⁵ for cooperation and posing penalties for aggressive behavior.

Specifically, our approach has been to focus the conduct of relations on removing concrete sources of tension -- the confrontation in Berlin, the conflict over European security, the military embalances in Central Europe, strategic arms competition and arms control -- so that if some agreements were reached, progress would be grounded in a substantive change, and because such agreements could not be reached unless each saw its interests served, each side would have a stake in preserving what had been achieved regardless of changes in personalities or shifts in the atmospherics.

Moreover, we believed we could create a basis for a permanent change in relations if we established an inter-relationship among issues, so that an agreement on a key issue such as SALT would not stand as an isolated accomplishment vulnerable to the next crisis. Progress, if achieved at all, would have to be across a broad front, and in this manner, progress in one area would also provide an incentive for progress in other areas.

- 11 -

Under this approach, which geared our policy to re-
solving the substance of our differences, we accepted that
for the foreseeable future Soviet-American relations would
be composed of elements of both competition and cooperation,
of ideological conflict and the necessity of coexistence.
Profound ambiguities would persist at every stage in the
relationship, because we were not seeking a tactical shift,
or a better climate, but a major transformation of relations
involving a reorientation of foreign policy.

Our aim thus is not to reconcile every aspect of
competition, or to end all rivalry, but to emphasize common
interests, to develop them whenever possible, and to accept
without despair the fact that progress will be uneven, subject
to setbacks, and even punctuated by crises.

Our aim has been to launch a coherent process of
improvement [in the process itself] and establish a sense of
momentum so that at any point both sides would have to
weigh seriously whether the process could be abandoned
without paying an increasingly high price.

We are not so naive as to believe that anything in
international politics is truly irreversible. But we believe
that we are creating a matrix of agreements and commitments
that will insulate Soviet-American relations from capricious
reversals and guarantee to the maximum extent possible that
the policies of cooperation and moderation will be continued
by the next generation of Soviet leaders.

Finally, the policy we have adopted toward the USSR is not

- 12 -

an isolated effort, but part of a larger policy of creating
a new international structure.

It was clear in 1969, as it is today, that a new inter-
national system is being formed, that the system that was
created in the fifties is in fundamental flux, and that the
seventies will be seen in retrospect as a period of an
emerging new relationship among most of the power centers.
Our view has been that for a new structure to be viable
it must engage all the major powers in its creation, and
it will have to be founded on self-restraint in the pursuit
of power. If international relations are to rest on the
principles of moderation and restraint, then the conduct of
relations between the world's strongest nuclear powers above
all must also reflect restraint.

Thus, in the broadest sense, our policy must be judged
by whether we have, in fact, brought about a degree of
restraint in superpower relations, and whether the world is
safer as a result.

## II. Progress Achieved

What have these policies achieved?

We take the position that on the basis of the principles
and strategy I have outlined, that we have already achieved
a positive change in Soviet American relations, a change
that is not mere atmospherics but one that promises a more
fundamental transformation if we have the courage to pursue
our goals in the coming period.

- 13 -

We have witnessed three periods since 1969.

1. In the early years of this Administration, we were confronted with an effort to freeze Soviet-American relations, while improving relations with our allies; that is why this Administration has emphasized the necessity for harmonizing bilateral and multilateral diplomacy in the Alliance and elevating consultations to a major principle of relations; obviously, selective detente, as this period was called, could not be sustained.

Simultaneously, we faced a series of crises that tested our resolve -- in the Middle East, in Central Europe, in Cuba, in South Asia, and in the various negotiations that were in process. In each instance we left no doubt that we would respond to pressures with absolute firmness.

2. The second period witnessed a breakthrough on several fronts -- in the Berlin settlement, in the SALT talks, the agreements on reducing the danger of accidental war and seabed arms control -- which we believe validated our approach of focusing on substance even in periods when Soviet conduct raised doubts over their intentions.

By the time of the summit in May 1972 it was possible to examine some fundamental aspects of Soviet-American relations and to determine their future course; an agreement to avoid confrontation and exercise mutual restraint was confirmed in the Basic Principles of relations signed at that summit.

- 14 -

3. The third period has witnessed the application of this principle to our conduct of bilateral relations and in dealing with international crises. We applied the general principles to specific issues of reducing the dangers of nuclear war in the agreement of June 22, 1973, we have broadened the area of arms control discussion to include further limits on nuclear testing, control on environmental warfare, and a further reduction in anti-ballistic missile systems.

Indeed, relations have reached the point that it was possible to dismiss the last summit as "routine", even though the fact that the summit was held at all was a testimony to the validity of the course we have pursued, and even though the discussions on strategic arms were perhaps the most open ever held between two major adversaries.

Thus, we believe there has already been a major transformation in Soviet-American relations, and one that promises to be more than an episode. In the three areas we have made basic progress: in our bilateral relationship, in arms control, and in international conduct.

## Bilateral Relations

- 15 -

non-existent, cultural exchange was modest and, above all, there was nothing that could be described as political dialogue. The most recent setback that had affected such superficial ties as existed was the Czech crisis in August 1968 which had served once again to highlight starkly the fundamentally antagonistic nature of East-West relations.

If we consider the scope and content of the bilateral cooperative effort established over the past five years, in this area alone the change in relations has been profound.

We have reached cooperative agreements in a great number of diverse fields of mutual interest. They reflect the fact that as major industrial societies we face many common problems that transcend ideology. These agreements are not decisive to Soviet-American relations, nor are they necessarily a permanent state of affairs.

What we achieved is a number of commitments to cooperate that involve an increasingly broad spectrum of the institutions of both countries. These agreements greatly expand the area for discussion and active collaboration between our two governments, thus establishing a vested interest in a constructive relationship.

We have also established a political dialogue at the highest level and an ease and intimacy of communications not only at the summit but in general. We did not oppose summit meetings in 1969, but we took the position that to be effective they had to be adequately prepared by progress in negotiations, so that the summit could be used to resolve remaining issues

- 16 -

and to define the future course of relations. The summits have thus been the occasion to give impetus to negotiations that might otherwise consume years if conducted only at lower levels. The three meetings have also led to a personal relationship that enables each side to understand what the position of the other is, especially in a crisis. The two leaders who command the capacity to destroy humanity should meet regularly to review the whole range of the relationship and possible areas of tensions as well as possible areas of cooperation.

## Arms Control

Progress in arms control has been the most dramatic: we have had a treaty to prohibit the installation of nuclear weapons on the seabed, an agreement on measures to reduce the danger of nuclear war by accident, the SALT agreements and treaty of 1972, the agreement on the prevention of nuclear war in 1973, the treaty to limit nuclear testing to weapons under 150 kilotons, and agreements to pursue in the coming phase limitation on the use of the environment for military purposes and limitations on chemical warfare.

Each of these agreements can be justified on their own merits, but I will address the question of limitations on strategic weapons separately. What is important to consider is not only the individual agreements but the process of creating a broad base for restraint in military programs.

- 17 -

Taken together these agreements will become an increasingly
important element in our own military planning. They
should offer some relief from the burdens of defense expenditures
and provide an incentive for progress in new areas of
limitations.

## International Aspects

In dealing with the Soviet Union in the international
arena we have stressed two principles: first, that our
conduct had to reflect an element of moderation and restraint,
lest the pursuit of unilateral advantage lead to confrontation
and disaster; and second, that we will not be deterred from
defending our interests when challenged.

-- We will oppose the attempt by any country to achieve
a position of predominance either globally or regionally.

-- We will resist any attempt to exploit a policy of
detente to weaken our alliances.

-- We will react if relaxation of tensions is used as
a cover to exacerbate conflicts in international trouble
spots.

Given our competitive relationship, the international
record of recent years inevitably has been mixed. But
the overall trend has been positive. We have seen sub-
stantial improvement in both the lessening of the risks of
direct confrontation and the insulation of crises when they
occur.

- 18 -

-- Berlin's perennial potential as Europe's flash
point has been eased through negotiations. We and our allies
are launched on major negotiations with the Warsaw Pact
on European security and on the reduction of our opposing
forces in Central Europe.

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-- Is there a rational alternative to the relaxation of tensions in an increasingly interdependent world?

We do not claim to have completely erased tension of buried confrontation around the globe. We have been generally more successful in containing crises than removing their root causes. But more constructive relationships with Moscow -- and Peking as well -- have helped to make the international environment more stable and peaceful. And no other course holds out better hopes for the long term.

### III. Issues for the Future

There are three criticisms to our policy that I want to deal with specifically.

First, the argument is made that we should exclude from the normalization of relations any economic dimension, lest the Soviet Union gain a one-sided advantage;

Second, that we should either abandon the SALT talks or reduce their content to a minimum and rely on our own programs to match the Soviet Union in every area of strategic power.

Third, that detente should no longer be pursued unless fundamental changes with the Soviet Union are made a pre-condition for any further progress or until such changes in the Soviet system are realized.

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Before dealing with each of these issues, let me make
a general point about the alternative policy that seems to
be taking shape: in a broad sense the advocacy of these
points will have the effect of returning this country
to the doctrines of liberation and massive retaliation of
the 1950s. But we must recognize that we will be doing so
at a time when Soviet physical power and influence in the
world is infinitely greater than they were a quarter century
ago when those policies were devised.

We believe for the most part Soviet policy has reflected
a greater degree of restraint in the last two years. Yet,
the relationship with Washington has no doubt come under an
increasingly intense scrutiny in Moscow. The benefits to the
USSR of the so-called detente may not be so clearly apparent
in Moscow, as they seem to be to many observers in this
country. As the Soviet leaders witness in this country what
seems to be a growing assault on every aspect of Soviet-American
relations, it is not inconceivable that they will conclude
that it is fruitless to continue along this general line.

I do not raise this as a warning, or to say that our
policies must reflect an interpretation of what the Soviet
leaders may or may not do. But it is one factor that we
must bear in mind when advocating alternative American
policies and positions. It is particularly relevant to the
question of linking internal changes in the USSR to economic
relations and in advocating a new era of arms competition
to retain a position of "superiority".