- - U-'1 r tN I IiVt THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE WASHINGTON D C 20301 • I MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT SUBJECT IVORY ITEM and Surprise Attack Response Procedures Our meeting of 28 November on scenarios for and responses to a surprise missile attack was very fruitful from the Department of Defense's point of view I hope you also found it so Several guestions and issues arose for which I can now provide answers or further background others will require additional research Communications Procedures currently exist for conducting communications checks with the White House Communications Agency WHCA These checks could easily be extended to you and conducted on a no-notice and noninterference basis We have developed procedures and are ready to check communications both ways -- from you to me via the NMCC or from me to you I will work out final details with your military office Regarding more responsive communications to the Vice President and better White House evacuation procedure Charles Duncan has met with the Vice President's staff on this matter I believe that as a result action is well underway within tht White House Communications Agen y Hardening As you are aware our fixed command centers and communications facilities are relatively soft to nuclear attack We therefore now employ redundancy of communications and airborne command posts to accommodate this problem We have investigated several alternatives for hardening facilities at the command center at Ft Ritchie ANMCC ranging in depth from access level to several thousand feet deep Costs for the deeper levels are high An depth capsule costing about 167 million dollars is currently under examination To date we have not found an appealing solution With respect to hardening silos a different matter a hardening program has been completed for all 550 MINUTEMAN I I I silos and 180 of the 450 MINUTEMAN I I silos The entire program will be complete in September SANITIZED I 0 12958 Sec 3 6 E ML C - f 6 -- i7 f N --IIAR S J D ATE I 1 Q '' 1n_ p Cr- -- r • ·_ · l -i - i f ' ' · r l V L i tJua'ilvft L 7 ·i ·• I l 365 c· l l __ i I _ OP SECR f-- - 2 - ff 1979 the hardness level is estimated to bE Olf • uncertainties abo t hardness levels are substantial at that level IVORY ITEM Your request to observe an IVORY ITEM exercise from the NMCC is most welcome I believe it will provide a useful insight into the procedures and processes that support SIOP decisionmaking and execution of our nuclear forces We are working to develop the necessary computer-driven scenarios I will make arrangements for the exercise as soon as the scenarios are ready based on your schedule Bomber Recall Bombers can be recalled after a positive control launch and before execution After a SfOP Emergency Response has been executed There are bomber weapons B-52 and FB-111 on alert day-to-day In the case of a response if these weapons were terminated before release on target estimated Soviet fatalities would be educed by a out 0 ' d i termination of impact reducing Soviet OJ t-j rt D _ · _'- l ' • C ' • t-j t-i f-'· tJ' I would 1 ike to emphasize that the alternatives listed are designed to respond to a worst-case massive surprise attack They are limited in number corresponding to the limited time and information that would be available A broad range of lesser responses would of course be available to you in a mounting crisis situation during which we would have placed more strategic forces on alert I believe we all have learned a great deal from the recent exercises about our Surprise Attack Response Procedures In future discussions we may want to focus more on crisis oriented generated force scenarios cc Vice President Dr Brzezinski t-j OJ t-j i Memorandum from Secretary of Defense Harold Brown to President Carter regarding the IVORY ITEM and surprise attack response procedures Topics include communications checks hardening facilities to sustain nuclear attack IVORY ITEM exercise bomber recall Department Of Defense 19 Dec 1977 U S Declassified Documents Online link gale com apps doc CK2349128196 USDD u wash74137 sid bookmark-U Accessed 29 Mar 2024