pd15_0l A i -- J: gfifigg) TOP SECRET January 26, 1963 W- 2 MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION (umonegneny SUBJECT: State-Defense Meeting on Group I, I1 and Iv Papers Particigants Defense: Secretary Hcnamara State: Secretary Rusk General Taylor Mr, B311 Mr. Merchant nr. Eitze HEJ Ty1er HE: I-Iaughton _I?fr Scha etge 1 Admirfl 1 Lea Mr . lfitchen Mr. Smith white House: *Mr. Eundy Mr, owe" Hr. Burdett AEC I - PB lfref . Pgpper Mr- flame?>> Mr. Weiss 1. In the absence of Secretar Rusk who was meeting privately with Secretarv Moflfimara, fir. E511 opened the meeting, He referred to EEG overaII agreement expressing the View that am i such an agreement could help to clarify the guities in the Nassau terminology. In this connection, he referred to his statement in which he attempted to differentiate between the NATO Nuclear Force, the multilateral component. the national components, etc. Er; Gil atria stated that he hoped that we could return to thI5 aufijeot when Secretary McNamara joined the meeting since he knew that Mr; Hchamara felt strongly that negotiating an overall agreement would be counterproductive. In this connection, he referred to the recently received letter from Thorneycroft in which the British resistance to such a proposal was reiterated. He also pointed out that Mr. Ball's approach to clarification of the terminology through his state- ment to the NAG was consistent with the DOD thinking as to how the objectives sought within the overall agreement might be accomplished in a manner other than through negoqiation of a formal document. 2. Mr. Ball offered the view that perhaps we need not formally tabie the agreement but could hand it to the British as a statement of US views. Hr. Gil attic said that they did not feel that it would he profitahfe to Ery to reach a formal accord with the British, but had no objection to attempting to reach general agreement on concepts. Hr. Hitze stated that Mr. Mcfiemera felt it would be a waste~o? time Eo actenbt to negotiate an agreement. However, if we could put forth the TOP SECRET 1 5_01.htm 2:15 PM Page 1 of 2 pd15_02 l2f16;"U8 2:non cast' a I .. TOP 5 26. General Tailor questioned whether the proposed dele- gation to SKCEUK was politically acceptable. Hr. Owen responded that it was consistent with the previous commT?EEfi?--fi?de by the US. Mr. McNamara stated that this subject needed a tremendous amount of additional work. He stated that in his view our objective ought to be to participate in all decisions to fire. In response to a question he agreed that this amounted to no advance delegation. Mr. Smith pointed out that we had moved in the direction of advanced delegation at Athens and that we could not appear to be backing away from that position without serious political harm to our position. Mr. McNamara said that he would strongly oppose the delegation of authorization to SACEUR to fire. Mr. Owen pointed out that the language in question was taken from the paper approved by the President prior to the Athens commitment. Mr. McNamara stated that he was perfectly willing to discuss the matter at length but that offhand he could not see the wisdom of such a delegation. He said he would like to explain the basis for his views. rn?. McNamara went on to describe the possibilities which existed for an accidental launch of a missile against the USSR. He pointed out that we were spending millions of dollars to reduce this problem to a minimum, but that we could not assure ourselves completely against such a contingency. Moreover he suggested that it was unlikely that the Soviets were spending as much as we were in ttempting to narrow the limits of possible accidental launch.{.. Ego went on to describe crashes of us aircraft one in North arnlina and one in Texas, where, by the slightest margin of chance, literally the failure of two wires to cross, a nuclear explosion was avorted:} He concluded that despite our best efforts, the possibility of an accidental nuclear explosion still existod.safihore?ore, he did not believe that anyone other than the President should decide to launch in response to an apparent nuclear attack. He stated that it was his personal belief that we should not even recommend such action to the President until wc know the details about a given detonation or not it was Soviet launched, how large, where it occurred, etc. He said he realized that this view was not fully shared but that it accounted for his thinking that advance delegation to fire nuclear weapons was not in the US interest. General Tevlor asked whether the rest of NATO forces woo. tied"to such an advance delegation to fire. Mr. Smith replied that it was his belief that other US weapons would have gone off before the SLCEUR delegation could have been acted upon. He went on to state that unless there was sows movement in the direction of delegation, in his view we Page 1 of 2 pd15_03 2:..--.4- may as well give up on the possibility of the concept. He said we should not delude ourselves into believing that we could temporize on the issue of control, that the Germans, the Italians and others will want to know whether the force will be subject to U.3. veto. The Secretarg stated that he shared secretary McNamsra's concern accidental firing and had himself been thinking about the need for a special procedure, such as an immediate appeal to the UN to all Nations to cease any military activity in the face of a nuclear detonation until a determination as to its exact nature had hevn made, to cover the possibility of accidental detondtigns. Moreover, he said that we must be sure "_tHst n?EIEfi5I"governmenEs cannot send messages directly to Commanders of their own nationality to permit them to utilise the authority of the advance delegation. He pointed out that, for example, at some point there might be a German Commander of the NATO Nuclear Force and we must avoid any possibility of his getting word to fire from the German Government, circumventing the established channels and procedures. General Tavlor referred to the permissive link. The Secretarg asked who would hold the control over the Permissive Link. General Taylor answered that this would be SACEUH and that if we cannot Lepend upon him then, of course, everything would be gone. ggoretary McNamara stated that it was his view that only the President should decide that the conditions specified in the guidelines had been met. Mr. Eundg said that the heads of government would want to retain this decision for themselves and would not want to delegate the firing authority, Mr. McNamara agreed. The Secretary pointed out that it would not he Pcfiflihle to proceed with our proposals without having a solid legislative base. he noted that we had previously stated that we would look at European proposals dealing with the control issue and he questioned whether we needed to go further at this time. Mr. Smith said that he would be happy to see us stand with what we had previously committed ourselves to. He said that Sub- Group IV only attempted to spell out in somewhat greater detail how the control problem might be handled because the Secretary and Mr. Monomers had wanted to see the issue set forth in greater detail. He said he would personally prefer to see the matter left rather general, but that on the other hand we cannot "walk the cat back" in terms of our previous commitments on the veto question for if we do the multilateral force will be a non- starter. Secretary Mchamara said that there were two separate problems which needed to he"cons1dered_ First, there was a question of greater participation by foreign governments in the 'go? page 1 of 2 pdl5_04 12/16/08 2:18 PM r.1?nEcLns'smED l' .numun'ry - lo,-1-11? ?U&1Bate .. . is - control issue, the second had to do with advance delegation. He thought these two matters should be treated separately. Mr. Bandy said he thought that the President can reaffirm our willingness to act in Europe's defense but that on nuclear matters we cannot remove ourselves from participation "at the moment of truth." Mr. Smith said the question was can we go as far 33 WE have? MP. McNamara repeated that he was against advanze delegation. Mr. Smith said that he wished to make it clear that he was too, except that there was no other way to get the hundreds of millions of dollars for a multilateral force which we were proposing. Hr, Mofiamara stated that he was not aware that the Europeans had node advance delegation as a condition of their participation in the force. Hr. Smith said that they had not. Mr. Bundv pointed out that the force must, of course, be creditable and we must assure the Europeans that it will go off under certain specified circumstances, including a wide scale attack on NATO. Mr. McNamara said that our rep- resentatives should do nothing to encourage the idea of advance delegation and that moreover it his opinion the heads of States will not wish to delegate this authority. It was agreed that a redraft of the paragraph on control would be required. 29. The Secretary then shifted the discussion to the problem of design data. /it this point General ?ay1or left for another Secretary pointed out that this might be only one of several issues which would require an amendment to existing legislation. Mr. Falfrev of the ARC said that Sub--Group IV had concluded that it would make no sense to try to get around the legislative problem through the use of gimmicks. Such an attempt would inevitably be seen through and any support which might otherwise be generated would be lost. Mr. McNamara said that there was a feeling of some on the Commission as well as in the Navy that the release of design data to the MLF would eventually result in its getting back to the Soviets. He said that even if the information did get back to the Soviets, and we presumably had to go on the assumption that this was likely, he did not believe that th1s'wou1d be a serious loss given the state of Soviet technology. 30. The discussion then turned to the question of surface vessels vs. submarines. Mr. McNamara said that Admiral nnderson had stated categorically that it was his belief that the surviv- ability of submarines Far exceeded that of surface vessels. The Secretary stated that he'wou1d accept this judgment as a fact but twat it was only one of several matters which bore on the issue of whether it was desirable to opt for surface vessels or submarines. Mr. Mcwawera agreed. pointed out, in a agg_ij Previous Main gag. 9 Page 1 of 2