COMMENTS ON YOUR MX PAPER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86R00893R000100050031-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 5, 2008
• Sequence Number: 31
• Publication Date: January 13, 1981
• Content Type: MEMO

Approved For Release 2008/09/16: CIA-RDP86R00893R000100050031-2
SP - 8/81
13 January 1981
Copy 2
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
FROM: National Intelligence Officer for Strategic Programs
SUBJECT: Comments on Your MX Paper
In general I agree with your thesis. I would prefer your solution vice
MX, and I would prefer MX vice nothing. My biggest concern is that MX will
get tied up in legal battles with environmentalists, and that the country
will wind up with nothing. Detailed comments on your paper are given below,
keyed to the page numbers of your text.
Page 2. "...one other possible objective which we should keep in
mind. That is changing the general perception that we are falling
behind." I agree with this, but I think it needs greater stress. The
world has seen too many examples of important US defense programs like
the B-1 bomber aborted by budget cutting pressures and divisions within
the Administration. The image of the US as a country which has lost
its sense of direction and is unable to act decisively is all too
pervasive. Whether we go for MX or an alternative may in fact not be
as important as the idea itself that the US is finally going to make
a serious commitment to improved strategic forces.
Page 3. Your statement that the Soviets would be able to match MX
shelters with warheads is valid, but might be challenged by an argument
that the Soviets' resources are not inexhaustible, and they wouldn't be
able to keep up in a "shelter vs. warhead" race. I think the way to
preempt such an argument is to elaborate on something you touched on
briefly on page 5. That is, that technology is going to make it
possible to build thousands of super-accurate, relatively low-yield war-
heads capable of taking out the MX shelters, and that attack systems
will be less costly than the shelters they are targeted on. In the
long run, fixed facilities are going to lose no matter how hard they are
made.
Approved For Release 2008/09/16: CIA-RDP86R00893R000100050031-2
 Approved For Release 2008/09/16: CIA-RDP86R00893R000100050031-2
SP - 8/81
SUBJECT: Comments on Your MX Paper
Page 3 (bottom). The sentence which says "...a dangerous cycle of
competition would have been generated...." gives the impression that the
US would start the arms race by building MX. I believe the Soviets
have kept the competition alive by their force programs and their decision
to go for something beyond parity. The point you need to makes not
that MX starts a competition, but that it does nothing to dampen the race.
Page 4 (top). You make the point about launch-on-tactical-warning
being a contributor to instability. Perhaps a little more emphasis
might be useful. The argument might be made that the greater the doubts
a country has about the survivability of its ICBMs, the more it gets
driven to buy LOTW, and the more this contributes to instability.
Page 4 (bottom). I think you need to make more of an argument for
ICBMs on road mobile launchers. In your text it appears almost as an
afterthought. Whether or not the TRIAD concept is still valid, you have
a psychological barrier to overcome in the form of powerful people who
are illogically emotional about ICBMs. If you don't give them a new
ICBM to replace Minuteman and/or MX, they will tune you out. And anyway,
why not a good small, truly road-mobile ICBM? Why can't we develop
something along the lines of the SS-20? If we deployed it in Alaska,
it wouldn't need much more range than the SS-20, and it would probably
be an order of magnitude cheaper than MX.
David S. Brandwein
Approved For Release 2008/09/16: CIA-RDP86R00893R000100050031-2
 Approved For Release 2008/09/16: CIA-RDP86R00893R000100050031-2
SP - 8/81
SUBJECT: Comments on Your MX Paper
Distribution:
Cy 1 - DCI
2 - NIO/SP
NIO/SPI I(13Jan81)
Approved For Release 2008/09/16: CIA-RDP86R00893R000100050031-2