Date

May 16, 1969

Description

Ivan Selin, a leading systems analyst at the Pentagon, sent Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard a memorandum to sign, which he summarized as follows: “a major U.S. damage limiting program is not feasible, in view of likely Soviet reactions.” In effect, Selin was suggesting that the U.S. had reached the situation that McNamara had discussed six years earlier: counterforce and damage limitation would not be feasible because of the great costs.

Packard, one of the founders of Hewlett-Packard, had joined the Nixon administration earlier in the year, serving as deputy to Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird. Nixon’s national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, had sent the national security establishment a series of requests for studies, in large part to keep the agencies busy. One of them was National Security Study Memorandum 3 which was to result in a study of the “security and foreign policy implications of a wide range of alternative budget levels and strategies for strategic and general purpose forces.”

The NSSM 3 study identified several damage limiting force levels involving greater expenditures on ICBMs and ABM systems that, if used in conflict, could greatly reduce U.S. casualties in the event of a U.S. first strike or even if the Soviets struck first, according to the models used. If, however, the Soviets built up their forces in response to U.S. damage limiting programs, then they could kill many more Americans through a first strike or through retaliation. Responding to the Soviet buildup by increasing ABM and air defenses would cost between $1-6 billion (current dollars), resulting in annual budgets in the $20 billion range.

One of the NSSM 3 working groups had estimated that if the U.S. went ahead to build up damage limiting forces, the Soviet leadership would view that as “representing a U.S. determination to threaten their strategic position and possibly to gain a first-strike capability.” The Soviets had the wherewithal to “offset” such a U.S. capability, but “it is highly likely that they would in fact react to what they would undoubtedly view as a severe threat to their deterrent.” Thus, the U.S. could face not only an arms race but the possibility of “increased East-West political tensions.”

Source

Declassification release by Defense Department; Digital National Security Archive.

Document published in following posting(s):

Overkill, Assured Destruction, and the Search for Nuclear Alternatives: U.S. Nuclear Forces During the Cold War

May 22, 2020

Memorandum from Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard to Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, “National Security Study Memorandum 3 (Strategic Part),” 16 May 1969, Top Secret, with cover memo to Packard from Ivan Selin. 15 May 1969