CRITIQUE 01 PM 11 FEB LETTER leer On 11 February the Prise Minister sent a letter to the President on her views on how we should react to Gorbachev's 15 January arms control proposals The letter is disturbing to us because of what sons of us read between the lines in the flow of the argument on arms control zero nuclear weapons as a goal and SDI The PM devotes the majority of the letter to making the following argument Gorbachev's overriding purpose at the next summit will be to st0p SDI because he fears unilateral US advantage would prefer to avoid costs to counter and wants to use this issue to split the alliance Gorbachev does not want to walk away negotiations because this cuts his leverage with western publics However he recognizes the President's ccnmihnent to SDI so he may decide to sit the President out on this issue to the elections if necessary by prunising progress at the price of SDI Gorbachev has picked up on the President's vision of a nuclear free world announced when SDI was launched He has offered a plan which is dangerous Unless key conditions are met reduction of Soviet conventional advantage control of nuclear proliferation a nuclear free world favors the East However the real risk in Gorbachev's picking up on this there Therefore to counter Gorbachev we need to response away the goal of a nuclear free world to reductions This logically leads to the next point - t since we need to shift the focus to reductions vice elimination we must deal with SDI as a block to reductions in stra 'c nuclear veapons This sudden narrowing of course allows her not to discuss the potential block that UK and French forces pose to reductions Based on this logic the PM offers two options roughly the current US position and an alternative which would extend and strengthen the Treaty regime in return for offensive force reductions while tecrmically He descri- ion of this is The PM ends her line of argument on this subject by expressmg support for this second option which she believes does not make SDI as such nego able would not restrict essential research and offers no Soviet veto F - v '1 - I 3fF fl a sis-seer f U 31 n7 SEGREF 2 Following this the PM turns to other subjects hicluding the treatment of British and French systems W'th respect to these she argues that we not give the Soviets The problem we have with all of the above is that while sounding very consistent with the basic US third-ting in many respects it very well may not be consistent in its fundamentals The key point lies in the first few elements of the argument The PM proceeds from the view that a zero nuclear world is risky for the West and that the priority must be on not undercutting public support for current strategy therefore the Western must be on reductions vice zero and therefore to the extent that SDI is perceived as a blockage to this we must find a way to not let it block reductions The priority is on protecting public support for current strategy and for the UK Trident progmn by emphasizing reductions vice the end goal and by avoiding having SDI perceived as a block to reductions by linking restrictions on SDI to research in return for reductions In this context SDI research increases leverage for reductions and serves as a prudent hedge against Soviet breakout However the linkage of restrictions on SDI to reductions in offensive forces places a priority on negotiated reductions vice novment to defenses as soon as our research criteria can be met This is a key point Our position is that SDI not just the msearch but hopefully the future deployments offer the best hope for our long-teen national security and that of our allies It is essential due to the trends in Soviet offense and defense It is needed whether reductions are negotiated or not Our priority therefore is protecting the SDI research program and US options once the research yields results that'meet the criteria we have set When all the sinoke clears we may ultimately have to make some move in the general direction suggested by the PM We have internally considered this same option In fact it is a bit worrisome that this is very close to the position Paul Nitze has been unsuccessfully pushing for scme tine now linking ABM extension to reductions However the key question is whether you can sustain an SDI program under such conditions So far our answer has been no And therefore since our priority is on SDI we have not made such a move When you put all this into the full context of the letter what the letter effectively says is that the British appreciate US willingness to focus reductions which they feel essential only on US and Soviet system protecting UK systems adc p1 ing their suggestions on MBFR against our om best judgement am our move in the chemical weapons area I'm-lever noting further motion on verification as originally suggested by the UK is still needed eases However after offering this thanks the Ed advises that the Soviets are trying to undercut the solidarity of the Alliance via both SDI and the IIK Erentm forces issue therefore we can't let SDI undercut support for our current strategy since we can't be sure that the nuclear free world will ever be in the West s interest and it also adversely affects the UK Trident program 1 we still need to work mt differences on verification of chemicals and we rust continue with our current policy of interim restraint with respect to SALT Note On this count it is interesting to note the the majority of our problems with Soviet couplianoe and certainly the most visible ones are associated with the am Treaty which the PM would have us extend We would also underline the fact that this letter is in response to a specific request made by Secretary Shultz for her views on how to handle SDI at the next summit Also as mentioned earlier there is a disturbing correlation between views offered by elements within our governnent and repeatedly rejected and the option now being proposed by the PM The PM's position is very understandable from the UK point of View The bottom line however is that the option suggested by the PM does put the priority on achieving reductions in strat1_eg _ic forces and protecting the public support for current strategy both elements related to the UK Trident issue It does not maximize protection for achieving the promise of SDI but rather protects the SDI research program as a lever for ensuring reductions and a hedge against Soviet breakout The President s policy however does not share these priorities it places the pursuit of the premise of SDI as a fundamental element of our long tenn strategy and essential to future national security and we fear that even a viable SDI research program could not long survive in the context that would be provided by the m' 5 alternative This fundamental difference in view about the role of SDI is a problem within the Administration also