lie-m UNITED STATES ARMS CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT AGENCY Washington DC 20451 January 29 1986 OFHCEOF THE DIRECTOR MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT SUBJECT Responding to Gorbachev's January Proposal Gorbachev's plan is largely propaganda using your vision of a nuclear-free world as bait to stop SDI It contains no movement on START and Defense and Space but does move a bit on INF It has gathered little steam here or abroad Our Allies in par ticular see that it is largely empty How should we respond Not by standing pat Option m which adds Up to not negotiating at all and not by making major moves where the Soviets have made none Option which is essentially negotiating with ourselves Rather I favor Option to move where the Soviets have moved namely to seek to pocket those parts of Gorbachev's statement that move at least in word toward goals you have espoused to not change our November 1 START and D58 proposals but press the Soviets to respond to them and to follow up on Gorbachev's nice words about verification to see if they are willing to deal seriously on it and there is no better way than tabling our own INF verification elements this round We would also make clear that eliminating nuclear weapons requires other conditions like correcting conventional force imbalances moving to non nuclear defenses and resolving regional conflicts in a way that allows freedom of choice This is similar to what you described as the real report card on Geneva The changes proposed in our position in Option #3 are most troublesome for me If they would not affect SDI they would not be seen as real movement If they would constrict SDI as I suspect they would politically then we certainly should not do them Moreover Option #3 appears to concede the Soviet point that SDI and arms reductions are incompatible In contrast our point has been that SDI and reductions are complementary and mutually reinforcing SDI has in fact been the catalyst that brought the Soviets back to the table If we ever need to move in this area it is surely not HOW Kenneth L Adelman aw megs g