LETTER TO HENRY A. KISSINGER FROM W. E. COLBY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: Library of Congress
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): LOC-HAK-53-3-1-8
• Release Decision: RIPLIM
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: January 11, 2017
• Document Release Date: April 20, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: October 18, 1974
• Content Type: LETTER

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~LURt S W
THE DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
WASHINGTON, D. C. 20505
18 October 1974
The Honorable Henry A. Kissinger
Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20220
Dear Henry:
As I proposed to you last month, we have given
some thought to the kinds of arguments which might
be useful, if directed to and discussed among Soviet
leaders, in nudging them into action on the SALT
question. Enclosed is a short background a er on 6
the Soviet political factors a ecting this matter.
It is followed by a presentation, cast in the form
of an intelligence assessment, of the broad gains 7r
available to the USSR in a SALT ....1.1 agreement, as well
tfe losses which the USSR is likely to suffer in
the absence of an agreement. It is for your possible
use or even passage to a Soviet coIunterpart,f you
think that desirable..
Enclosures
SECRET
ON-FILE NSC RELEASE
INSTRUCTIONS APPLY
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 "v-llrtt r
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THE RELATIONSHIP OF SALT AND DETENTE
SECRET
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The Relationship of SALT and Detente
Brezhnev and other Soviet spokesmen have said
more than once that political detente must be
accompanied by military detente. Where SALT is con-
cerned, the question is whether the Soviets see the
need to translate this principle into specific
decisions and actions, rather than merely covering
up political, strategic, and economic contradictions
under generalities.
Opinion in the Soviet leadership no doubt
strongly favors preserving SALT as a process.
--How interested the Soviet leaders are
in obtaining significant new agreements
in the next stage of SALT is another
matter.
Most probably, there are uncertainties within the
Politburo as to what suitable terms would be. To
complicate matters, much of the expert advice on
which they base their assessment of the present and
future strategic balance is slanted toward a worst-
case analysis.
There are also questions of timing.
--An appreciation of Soviet technological
inferiority can be used either as an
argument for holding off until something
has been done to repair it, or for moving
to agreement before the lag becomes wider.
SFUFT
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--Similarly, uncertainty over the policy
direction the new US administration will
take can be seen as a reason for delay
and caution, or for trying to achieve an
agreement that will help to sustain US
interest in detente.
--And the slow pace of movement in other
areas of US-Soviet relations may prompt
some to urge a tough stand at SALT and
others to look at progress in SALT as a
means of developing momentum in these
other areas.
Which way Brezhnev leans will have a good deal to
do with the Soviet position. He cannot simply impose
his own views on his colleagues. The-evidence available
suggests that, for all the growth in his authority in
recent years, he works to a very large extent through
consensus. Senior leaders such as Kosygin and Suslov--
and Grechko--cannot be easily bypassed. Moreover, un-
certainty generated by the change in administrations
in Washington. may on balance make Brezhnev somewhat
more cautious than in the recent past about taking a
forward position concerning US-Soviet relations. But
Brezhnev is the pivotal influence; unless he pushes,
Soviet SALT policy is unlikely to budge.
Brezhnev's interest in further agreements on the
limitation or reduction of strategic arms is probably
genuine. In speaking of detente'and the need to make
it "irreversible," he has argued that, though there
are risks in limiting or reducing arms, there are
greater risks in continuing the arms' race. But his
attitude toward arms limitation also derives in good
part from his commitment to detente in general. This
policy has become a big ingredient in his political
strength over the past four years. It is also the
basis for many domestic programs and plans with which
he is identified. The consumer programs, the large-
scale development projects, the attempt to promote
economic growth with Western technology, and the efforts
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at long-range planning all assume to varying degrees
that international relations and the arms burden will
remain manageable and that commerce with the West will
expand.
A serious setback to detente need not be politically
fatal for Brezhnev. But it would mean, at least, a
diminution of his authority and require him to search
for new political alliances and new policies in many
areas. He can be expected to go a long way to avoid
that, particularly at this advanced stage in his prob-
able political tenure. His eagerness for arms agree-
ments will depend, among other things, on how much damage
he believes an impasse on this question would do to the
overall US-Soviet relationship.
The following paper is cast in the form of an
intelligence assessment. Without taking up the specifics
of a possible SAL agreement, it analyses the broad
consequences of success or its absence in the broad SALT
undertaking. It is meant to organize a set of arguments
which, accompanied by personal elaborations, could im-
press Brezhnev and his colleagues with the value of a
success in this enterprise and, conversely, the ramified
costs to Soviet interests of a continued stalemate.
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The Consequences of Success or
Stalemate in the Strategic
Arms Limitation Talks
A large number of analyses have addressed the
precise question of what particular negotiated
limitations on strategic arms would promote the
security interests of both the US and the USSR.
This intelligence assessment deals with a different
aspect of the matter. It considers the broad con-
sequences, for both countries and for their mutual
relations, of an early SALT II agreement and, con-
versely, the consequences for these relations of a
continued inability to reach a final agreement.
I. The Strategic Military Factors
A. Mutual Deterrence
Today a relatively stable deterrent
balance exists between the USSR and the US.
Their forces are of such a character and size
that either one could inflict massive damage
in any circumstances on the other. Unless
they had lost their senses, political leaders
on either side would not deliberately choose
to start a general war, and they are careful
about taking actions that could risk such a
war. This is an historically unprecedented
situation for both the USSR and the US.
But it is important to realize how this
has happened. It has resulted fundamentally
from the advent of.nuclear weapons and the de-
velopment of systems capable of delivering
them over great distances. Yet the changes
which have brought about this revolution in
military affairs are part of a dynamic process.
Because of this, we may not be able in future
to manage our military forces so as to guarantee
the continuation of the present situation of
mutual deterrence,
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The deterrent balance is especially
sensitive to changes in technology. Let us
take one illustration. The ABM Treaty has
barred the construction of meaningful de-
.fenses against ballistic missile attack--
thus assuring that even small offensive forces
can inflict massive damage. In this way the
deterrent balance has been reinforced. Yet
we are faced with a proliferation in the
number of missile warheads no longer justified
by the need to overcome ABM defenses. New and
improved technologies are on the horizon that
could upset this balance. Many Soviet and
American strategists will suppose that, by
developing these technologies an opponent
could acquire the potential for attacking
offensive weapons swiftly and decisively at
their places. of deployment, allowing him to
count on sharply reducing the possibility of
retaliation. Furthermore, the growth in numbers
and accuracy of nuclear delivery systems and
advances in the means of their control will give
either side the option for selective uses of
many weapons while the two sides retain huge re-
..serves for a massive nuclear exchange. And if
weapons technology is pressed ahead under the
stimulus of the fears of each side, other
dramatic possibilities are sure to appear.
B. The Political-Military Balance
It should be observed that the strategic
relationship between the USSR and US has effects
not only for their bilateral relationship but
also for their international standing generally,
Most of the world now views the strategic forces
of the two as being roughly equal, and believes
that neither side can deal with the other from a
position of strategic superiority. This is so
despite certain asymmetries in the present size
and composition of US and Soviet forces. Con-
ceivably, this image of rough equality could be
altered, to the political disadvantage of one
side, by increases in the forces of the other,
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but it is clear that changes qualitatively or
quantitatively big enough to have this effect
would also be destabilizing on the military
plane and would call forth strategic reactions.
At the same time that further prosecution
of the competition in strategic weapons in cir-
cumstances of rapid technological change is
potentially destabilizing, it is almost certainly
futile. One important but insufficiently acknowl-
edged aspect of debates on both sides over "how
much is enough" is that, in strictly technological
terms--never mind political sufficiency--as
technology progresses the standards by which
strategic power is measured are subject to change.
Thus, if one side concentrates its efforts in
trying to catch up in one of those elements in
which it thinks the other side has an advantage,
it may find this measure has lost significance
by the time it succeeds. Given the likely counter-
measures one side will take in reaction to initiatives
of the other, the odds are good that neither side
can appreciably improve its security through further
military efforts, nor tangibly improve its political
or diplomatic position by further additions to its
strategic arsenal.
C.
Strategic Implications for the US
Despite these truths, Soviet programs and
plans with respect to strategic weapons nevertheless
have created doubts on the American side. There are
fears in the US that Soviet weapons deployment
programs now getting under way, and programs for
new weapons now under development, could materially
upset the present rough equality. In its view, the
USSR presently has, in addition to a numerical ad-
vantage in central systems, the prospect of being
able in the next few years to cancel out the US
qualitative advantage. The US also believes that
the disproportion in the throwweights of land-based
missiles in the USSR's favor is a destabilizing
factor, since potentially this would allow the Soviets
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to launch a first strike against US ICBMs while
retaining a huge reserve of missile warheads
for use against other targets.
The US recognizes the USSRtconcern about
strategic threats from China. But the US does
not accept this as justification for substantial
margins of Soviet advantage in the US-Soviet
balance. It believes that the geographic position
of the USSR permits it to deploy forces against
China that do not simultaneously threaten the US.
Moreover, the modest present and likely future
military capabilities of China can be more than
matched by small fractions of Soviet forces within
the limits of new SALT agreements satisfactorily
to the US.
The Soviet Union may consider that it would
be more advantageous for the USSR `to delay serious
negotiations until a later date, when the Interim
Agreement is nearer to expiration and when the
new deployment programs of the USSR are highly
visible and the US is still short of deploying
several new weapon systems. In this view, such
conditions could be construed to give the USSR a
certain unique bargaining power.
However, the US, as a practical political
matter, cannot allow the appearance of a bargaining
situation highly favorable to the USSR to develop.
It cannot delay the arms decisions it would hope
to avoid through a satisfactory SALT agreement
until the expiration of the Interim Agreement.
And once those decisions are made, experience shows
that they are very hard to reverse.
The US is prepared to live with a situation
of mutual deterrence, and it is prepared to accept
overall equality in the central, long-range strategic
forces of both sides. The US is seriously interested
in avoiding the political and economic costs that
would attend failure to achieve further limits on
strategic offensive forces. At the same time, the
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US is able and prepared to compete at any level
of nuclear arms effort required by its security
interests. This means that improvements to Soviet
forces that the US sees as a threat to this bal-
ance will be matched, at a minimum.
II. Economic Considerations
The burden of the arms race is obvious to both
sides. Indeed, given the cfantities of weapons we
have piled up, and the benefits we have sacrificed in
the process, an outside observer might wonder whether
we were not competing in an effort to exhaust the other
side first. This is not the sort of economic competition
which either side wants. The tragedy is that, without
either side wishing it, just such a competition has
started.
Enormous expenditures lie ahead for both sides.
The political leaders can be sure that the funds which
their military advisors now say are necessary to spend
over the next ten years are only the beginning. In the
future, when each side perceives progress which the
other is making, there will be more requests--and they
will have their logic.
The evolution of military technology and the
accompanying rise in costs are ever-present potential
threats to Soviet domestic programs. For the USSR, the
advantages to be derived from SALT do not lie mainly in
curbing deployments of weapons already developed. Faced
with failure in SALT, any US administration would be
under great pressure to develop and deploy new weapons
systems, no matter how expensive they might be. The
USSR could therefore be forced into a substantial in-
crease in military spending, as well as intensified
competition in research and development. In this arena
the US has decided advantages, and the USSR could well
be left far behind.
The outbreak of unconstrained arms competition
would certainly narrow if not block US-Soviet economic
relations, especially the transfer of technology. It
cannot be expected that economic and technological
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exchange can be sustained and increased in the face
of an arms competition based on fear and suspicion.
One would expect a loss of momentum in government-to-
government exchanges, and in the activity between
Soviet agencies and US firms which these have stimulated.
There would also be moves in the US to tighten export
controls on high-technology products and licenses. It
is no less likely that, in an atmosphere of generally
declining bilateral confidence, the question would
arise of reducing US export credits, a step which would
in turn discourage US manufacturers from supplying
technology not subject to export controls.
On the other hand, success in SALT II almost
certainly would lead to a growing volume of trade be-
tween the USSR and the US. Most of the desired technol-
ogy would be for sale on favorable terms. The US
attitude--positive or negative--would to a good extent
influence the attitude of other Western, nations.
The same conditions that would curb the flow of
Western technology to the USSR would dampen the prospects
for expanding other economic ties. Large-scale partici-
pation by the US and other Western nations in the
development of Siberian petroleum deposits and other
Soviet natural resources is not likely to go ahead in
an atmosphere of declining mutual confidence.
Finally, should both sides continue a crushing
arms competition, the rest of the world, and particularly
those in poor nations where hunger and starvation will
increase, will judge them harshly--and jointly.
III. The Consequences for Detente
The climate of distrust that has surrounded
Soviet-American relations in the past has not been
entirely dissipated, and attitudes favoring a further
deepening of detente need continuing encouragement if
they are to become firm and durable. Without perceptible
progress in SALT, the question of national security--and
with it the rationale for detente--could, for example,
become a contentious issue in the 1976 US election.
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It would be wrong to suppose that doubts being
expressed in the US about the future development of
Soviet-American relations are merely the outcry of
inveterate anti-Soviet elements. There are those,
of course, who cling to the belief that US strategic
"superiority" is attainable and desirable, those who
are opposed to the widening of economic and scientific-
technological exchange between the US and the USSR, and
those who believe that US interests would be better
served by accommodation with the Chinese People's Re-
public than with the USSR.
But there are others who, though in no way
hostile to the USSR, wonder whether the present US
course is the correct one. There are various sources
for their concerns. They fear that US relations with
its traditional allies are being prejudiced by detente.
They question whether an expanded flow of capital and
technology between the US and the USSR will bring a
commensurate political return. But their most basic
concerns are with regard to the state of the Soviet-US
political-military balance. They believe, in a word,
that military detente is a prerequisite to the develop-
ment of a lasting political detente. Should the two
sides fail to agree soon, the logic and, unfortunately,
the force of this position is likely to increase.
It has been more than two years since the signing
of the SALT agreements of 1972. In that time almost
no progress has been made in defining a means of
further controlling strategic offensive forces. Also
in that time the USSR has extensively flight-tested
four new ICBMs of great size capable of deployment
with MIRVs, and has also taken major additional steps
which alter the strategic relationship prevailing at
the time the 1973 agreements were signed.
The problem facing the US and the USSR now is to
discover where mutual interests with respect to strategic
weapons lie. Neither government need extract advantages
from the other in this area nor concede any. But un-
restrained competition will produce in the future what
it has produced in the past, at best mounting anxiety
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and a mounting waste of resources. At worst, it
could produce nuclear confrontation through mis-
calculation and,the greatest penalty of all, a
nuclear war.
The conclusion is plain that the long-run
course of Soviet-US relations will depend to an extra-
ordinary degree on the results, over the next year or
so, of the negotiations on limiting strategic arms.
These negotiations are extremely complex and sensitive.
d
Not only must each side be satisfied with the agree
limits, but ways must be found to reconcile the need
for secrecy, on the one hand, with the necessity for
confident verification that these limits are being
observed. But the consequences of success or of con-
tinuing stalemate are farreaching, extending beyond
the strategic balance to determine whether the entire
Soviet-US relationship is to develop into increased
detente, with its benefits, or to revert to contest
and waste.
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