REFRUDUGED THE mun-Na assumes whereas v THE FOREIGN SERVICE OF THE I I UNITED HATES OF AMERICA APO New York 09123 OFFICIAL-INFORMAL January 5 1973 Honorable Ronald I Spiers 73 gg Director Bureau of Politico- 1 mil - 151 Military Affairs 7315 Department of State Washington D C 20520 I Dear Ron The purpsse of this letter is to addre th su stantive aspects of next steps in the matter of ADM cooperation With certain NATO Allies First in order to put the problem in proper context it is useful to recall the basic policy decisions In summer fall 1970 the White House acting o an inter-agency agreed recommendation approved in principle ADM programs of cooperation with NATO Allies including Italy Greece and Turkey w In implementing this ec1s1on it was decided that We would first approach the Germans with regard to possible programs involving German forces and subsequently forces of other allies stationed in the ERG No steps were to be taken with respect to the southern vfj flanks until the German situation clarified Wt 534 ED The State Department supported the recommendation -lg that resulted in the above mentioned White House approval 1 based on the policy principle which I think you and I discussed several times that within the limits of undiluted and exclusive presidential release authority US custody of nuclear weapons and limitations on access to technology our NATO Allies accorded equal treatment to US forces when it comes to theater nuclear weapons I strongly hope that PM has not deviated from that principle i ran - UL i I I Rspnosuch AT THE HAqu moms - ED we_ LM_ 3 NOFORN 2 econd to recent developments A It is now clear that the PEG does not want ADM program of cooperation Presumably the PEG attitude applies also to other non-US forces on German territory To put it in another way around they prefer to leave matters as they are any ADM support necessary in an emergency is to be provided entirely by US teams The reelection of the government just about assures that the Germans will not change their minds B SACEUR continues to support ADMs for the southern region This is a long standing position C Altough there has been some discussion of ABMs between some senior US military officers on one hand and Greek and Turkish officers on the other this has been in general terms and not in terms of a US offer of a program of cooperation Therefore such discussion is not inappropriate It is as appropriate as ADM play 4 which normally takes place in certain NATO exercises such as Deep Furrow D As far as Turkey is concerned the Turkish position has not yet changed This was recently made clear at SHAPE However the Turks have also stated their interest in a thorough review of their position and in order to accomplish this have stated a need for technological information through NATO channels - E The Turkish interest in reviewing their ADM position is fundamentaly a part of the overall Turkish reassessment of their future defense requirements which has been under way for some months and which among other things has re sulted in such major decisions as the F-4 buy the proposed development of a Turkish aircraft industry and the most recently announced decision to buy $95 million worth of field army air defense hardware from the Swiss Assertions to the contrary notwithstanding the Turkish desire to re- assess their ADM position is not something that is just artificially stimulated from without Third with the German position now very clear we face the question of where to go next This is all the more neces- sary because the Turks have opened the question through CIRCSOUTH and to SACEUR SECRET - NOFORN REPRODUCED ATTHE NATIONAL ARCHIVES museums - bm lsos ssah s herons -3- I believe we should now carry out the decision which I stress again the President has already approved in principle over two years ago We should offer programs of cooperation to all three southern allies Italy Greece and Turkey 323 as semething that we are urging them to do but rather as something we are prepared to undertake with them if they desire and I might add if someone else but the US pays such costs as may be involved in additional storage sites if needed heli- pads etc I want to stress the fact that we should offer programs of cooperation but not press them on anybody Thereforef the assertion which has been made in the case of Italy that we will be placing another burden on our relation- ship already loaded down with other military plans La Maddalena is not relevant If the Italians or any- one else prefer to leave matters as they are then we I should not fight the problem HoweVer they should be 4 given the opportunity to make their own decision in face of a US offer to provide ADM cooperation on the same basis as other NATO nuclear weapons programs It is obviously unthinkable that we offer an ADM program of cooperation to Turkey but not to Greece This fact raises the problem of possible congressional difficulties because of distaste for the Greek regime based on the mistaken belief that until 1967 the history of Greece since Pericles has been one of uninterrupted democracy Without wishing to gainsay the problem of dealing with these difficulties I would like to note that a the situation was the same and in some respect worse at the time we formulated our original position in 1970 b we managed to overcome more serious difficulties on other questions such as resumption of military grant aid deliveries to Greece and c an ADM program of cooperation would be only a very modest addition to our existing nuclear weapons cooperation programs with Greece In fact since grant aid to Greece will probably be eithef severely re- ur duced or eliminated entirely in FY 74 we need something that indicates our continuing interest in cooperation with the Greeks in southern region defense SECRET - NOFORN i REPRODUCED AT1HE NATIONAL ARCHIVES mesons - misseswfa ENOFORN 4 n summary I strongly hope that we will proceed on the basis which has already been approved by the White House and not be deflected by either the numerous theological arguments which have surrounded both sides of the ADM issue for many years nor by narrow bureaucratic concerns With best regards Sincerely cc Emb Athens Mr Brandin Rome Mr Devine Ankara Mr Boehm SECRET - NOFORN This document is from the holdings of The National Security Archive Suite 701 Gelman Library The George Washington University 2130 H Street NW Washington D C 20037 Phone 202 994-7000 Fax 202 994-7005 nsarchiv@gwu edu