Page:Ford, Kissinger - August 28, 1974(Gerald Ford Library)(1552768).pdf/6

Rh SALT I. It was during Vietnam. Every budget was cut by the Hill. Defense made no proposals for increasing the size of our forces. We had no program even on the drawing board. The Soviets had a big building program going on. What we did is to freeze the force at the '72 level. New missiles could come only by using the old holes. SALT didn't create the numbers gap -- it was there, and SALT put a lid on it.

For sea forces. I talked to the JCS individually and collectively, and they said they didn't want a crash program on submarines immediately in order not to jeopardize Trident.

SALT I was a plus for us and all the talk is politicking. The numbers gap exists only if bombers are not counted.

The foreign assessment of SALT I is that it put a ceiling on Soviet programs. We also used it to accelerate Trident and get improvements in accuracy, etc. At most SALT I ratified a situation -- it did not create it.

SALT I came at the outset of the Minuteman program. Our warhead advantage was two to one. Now it is four to one.

What the numbers are we should put before you carefully and with all your advisers present.

My conflict with Schlesinger is this: Defense puts the emphasis on throw weight because it could be turned into warheads and threaten Minuteman. They are right, but politically they are wrong. Before they got that far we could build a bigger Minuteman, and get mobiles, etc. The Soviets told me in March that if we extend agreement three years, they would give us 1100-1000. We rejected it. We are all agreed on this. We would shortly reach 1100 and then have to stand still while they went on. The only difference was on the differential. Jim then proposed 350. I didn't object but I thought they wouldn't buy it. I proposed 700, which is 30% below their program. Nixon proposed it and Brezhnev toyed with the idea. They rejected it, I think partly because of the time frame. The agreement would break out just when deployment programs got underway. So we went for a 10-year time frame. I floated with Dobrynin the idea that they get 2500 to 2300 and we get 1300 warheads to their 1000.