I told General Brown — and this was in my authority as a member of the JCS — that I wanted a meeting of the chiefs to review this proposal and to develop a formal position for the JCS, with all of the members participating. Brown agreed to call a meeting of the chiefs to get a JCS position on the cruise missile before the proposal went to the NSC for a final decision.
However, before that meeting could occur, both General Brown and Secretary Rumsfeld left Washington to attend a NATO ministerial meeting in Oslo, Norway. It was at that juncture that the president called a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) to formally review Kissinger’s proposed agreement. In the absence of the secretary of defense and the chairman of the JCS, Deputy Secretary of Defense Bill Clements and I, as acting chairman, attended.
The announcement of the NSC meeting came on very short notice, and I had less than an hour to prepare myself before going to the White House. I immediately tried to call all the chiefs, but I could locate only Gen. Lou Wilson, the commandant of the Marine Corps. He felt we should not agree to treaty without a formal review by the Joint Staff and a meeting of the JCS. Armed with this backing, I went off to represent the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a NSC meeting chaired by the president.
President Ford first spoke to the council very much in favor of the proposal, remarking on the fortunate political timing of the agreement. Then the president went around the table, asking each representative for his position. I was under tremendous pressure. All of the other members of the National Security Council, as they were queried, were voting in favor of the Kissinger agreement. I was one of the last members the president called on, and he probably expected me to echo General Brown’s position. But George Brown had not brought the matter before the Joint Chiefs of Staff, so by initialing the proposal, he was only expressing his personal position, not that of the chiefs. I replied that I was aware of the president’s desire for a SALT agreement, and how important it was to the nation that we have one. But in representing the chiefs, I had to say that our responsibility was to secure the SALT agreement that was best for the security of the nation, both now and in the future, and that I was persuaded that this was an unbalanced agreement in that we were giving up a tremendous military capability in the cruise missile for a transient reduction in throw-weight on the part of the Soviets. I was convinced that the potential for the cruise missile in the U.S. Navy was virtually unlimited. We saw it as the principal weapon of the future for our cruisers, destroyers, and submarines and were considering an airborne version for use by carrier aircraft. I added that, given an opportunity to review the treaty, the JCS would not recommend it be accepted.
The president was obviously upset. But he was honest and in his reply said, “Admiral, I asked for your view and you gave it to me, but I want you to think about it very carefully, because this is a vitally important decision we are making today.” I replied that there was no question in my mind that the chiefs would not be in favor of it, but I pointed out that he, the president, had to weigh the considerations from all aspects, including domestic politics, the views of our allies, and the reaction of the USSR. “You can certainly make the decision to go with this agreement with the chiefs registering their disagreement,” I said. “It is a presidential decision. If you say it will be done, the treaty will be approved by the NSC. But in the ratification of the treaty in Congress, the chiefs will be called upon for their views. It is the responsibility of each member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to give his personal opinion, and the chiefs will have to say we disagree, and that we advised the president of our disagreement.”
The president then said, “We have everybody in the room voting for it, except for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But I have to say, I will not go against the judgment of the JCS in matters such as this. Jim, will you go back and meet with your colleagues and discuss this with them again, and make sure you are accurately representing their position. We will reconvene the NSC meeting at four o’clock this afternoon.”
When I arrived at the Pentagon, the other chiefs were standing on the front steps of the River Entrance to meet me, and we immediately went into executive session in the tank. The chiefs, to a man, were very positive in their position that we should not give up the cruise missile for the tradeoff that was offered in the proposal. I also believe that they were equally glad that they were not the messenger who had to convey this position personally to the president of the United States and his assembled National Security Council.
At the 1600 White House NSC meeting, I reiterated the fact that the chiefs were unanimous in recommending in the strongest terms that the president not agree to this proposal. So the NSC meeting was adjourned and the NSC staff was directed to send a message to Secretary Kissinger that the Joint Chiefs of Staff were opposed to the agreement, and that the president had decided he could not agree to the proposal without JCS support.
As you can imagine, I was not very popular at that time. The only people who told me that I did the right thing were Fred Ikle, who was the head of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and his deputy, John Lehman, who was eventually to become the secretary of the navy. Lehman discusses this incident in some detail in his book, Command of the Sea.
As a sequel to this story, many years later, in 1988, I was a member of the Commission for a Long Term Integrated Strategy, along with Henry Kissinger, among others. During one of our meetings, Kissinger said to me privately, “Admiral, at one time I was very mad at you.” And I knew he was referring to the cruise missile incident. I said, “Mr. Secretary, I know you were, but we all have to do what we have to do.” He chuckled and said, “Well I’m not sure the decision wasn’t the right one.”
The Tomahawk cruise missile has become the most important weapon in the arsenal of the U.S. Navy’s surface combatants, destroyers, and cruisers as well as in all attack submarines. Ballistic missile submarines are being modified to remove their Trident missiles and replace them with Tomahawks. It is effective against ship and land targets. Modern warships carry up to eighty of these missiles in vertical launchers. During the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan, the submarines, destroyers, and cruisers of the Fifth Fleet, operating off the coast of Pakistan in the Arabian Sea, fired 176 Tomahawks in the first hour of the war against targets in Afghanistan with 90 percent effectiveness, paving the way for the carrier strikes and the airborne assault. In the “shock and awe” phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom, 250 cruise missiles were fired into Iraq from the Fifth Fleet submarines and surface warships.
PRESIDENT CARTER AND NUKES
In 1976 Jimmy Carter won a closely contested election for the presidency, defeating Gerald Ford for reelection. After the election but before the inauguration, President-elect Carter came to Washington and stayed in Blair House, the guest house for the White House, for briefings preparatory to taking over. From the moment of swearing the oath of office, a new president is immediately responsible for the most important national security authority the president holds, the release authority for nuclear weapons. Jimmy Carter had not served in the federal government prior to this election and was not entirely familiar with the national security structure and the details of the lines of authority. Further, although many considered him knowledgeable in military matters because of his graduation from the Naval Academy and his service on active duty, his assignments had been at such a low echelon that Carter was limited in his knowledge of how the military command and control functioned — or even the Navy beyond the hull of a submarine.