Signed by President Jimmy Carter on July 25, , the directive titled "Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy" aimed to give presidents more flexibility in planning for and executing a nuclear war — that is, options beyond a massive strike. Perhaps even more remarkable than this guidance is the fact that, although the Obama administration is conducting a review of U. The National Security Archive obtained the virtually unexpurgated document in response to a mandatory declassification review request to the Jimmy Carter Library.
Highly classified for years, PD was signed during a period of heightened Cold War tensions owing to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, greater instability in the Middle East, and earlier strains over China policy, human rights, the Horn of Africa, and Euromissiles.
Press coverage at the time elicited debate inside and outside the government, with some arguing that the directive would aggravate Cold War tensions by increasing Soviet fears about vulnerability and raising pressures for launch-on-warning in a crisis.
A key element of PD was to use high-tech intelligence to find nuclear weapons targets in battlefield situations, strike the targets, and then assess the damage — a "look-shoot-look" capability.
A memorandum from NSC military aide William Odom depicted Secretary of Defense Harold Brown doing exactly that in a recent military exercise where he was "chasing [enemy] general purpose forces in East Europe and Korea with strategic weapons. Drafters of PD like Odom did not believe that deploying weapons in this way would necessarily result in apocalypse — they believed they could control escalation during a nuclear war.
In part, the United States took this approach because the architects of PD believed the Soviets had a concept of victory in nuclear war and already had limited nuclear options themselves. The directive is presented below. For other relevant documents and more analysis, please visit the briefing book at the National Security Archive web site.
Foreign Policy, Economics, North America. Harold Brown had sent a draft from the Pentagon, but Odom reworked it so that it reflected White House preferences and priorities. This made the SIOP an "obstacle to further progress. Odom wanted to use the PD to get rid of the SIOP altogether but he realized that the bureaucratic obstacles were powerful. Indeed, as he wrote in this memorandum, he believed that there had to be a section on "pre-planned options" so that he would not "shock the SIOP people and SAC.
Reviewing the draft presidential directive not declassified with this memorandum , Odom described the key passages including sections on flexibility, targeting priorities, and command-control-communications and intelligence C3I. In the section on C3I, Odom explained how he thought nuclear war would play out. Tacitly rejecting Brown's view that nuclear war was not likely to stay limited, Odom described a prolonged nuclear war that avoided mass civilian casualties.
Document 8 : William E. Source: JCL. To move the work on the PD forward, Odom and a colleague, Air Force General Jasper Welch, drafted a memorandum from Brzezinski to Brown, which forwarded the draft directive not yet declassified. Brzezinski informed Brown that he did not want interagency coordination of the directive at the SCC level because "it is so closely related to military contingency planning, an activity that justly remains a close-hold prerogative and responsibility of the Department of Defense and the Joint Staff.
Muskie's predecessor, Cyrus Vance, and Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher, had already registered dissents about the need for a directive; no doubt Brzezinski wanted no more debate. Document 9 : William E. This memorandum illuminates the process that produced the final draft of PD While Harold Brown had produced a draft that was very close to the White House version, Odom and Welch had disagreed with some of Brown's language and suggested revisions to meet basic Defense Department objectives.
On some points, for example, a paragraph on the first page that they wanted to delete, on whether to refer to target "priorities" or "categories," Odom and Welch got their way.
But on others, for example, whether to preserve references to Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, and China, Brown prevailed, as he did on the language on launch-on-warning. Odom and Welch saw that as "operationally a very dangerous thing" and not properly belonging in the PD.
Starting with the premise that deterrence would persuade the Soviets that no use of nuclear weapons could produce "victory," Brown spoke of the need for plans for battlefield use of nuclear weapons and "relatively limited use," and of "less than all-out strikes" and the role of a survivable force that could strike "a broader set of industrial and economic targets" During the discussion Brown explained that if the "Soviets can be made to realize that a wide range of targets are open to attack, including their strategic forces and forces along the Chinese border, it should give them pause to think.
Document 11 : William E. Getting Brzezinski ready to brief President Carter on the PD, Odom noted that the Republican presidential platform "includes a lot of nuclear war-fighting doctrine" and the PD will "clarify our policy and leave no room for confusion.
The memorandum to Carter, which Brzezinski initialed, suggested that the PD was a combination of old and new: "significant and important innovations in improving control and management of our new forces," but "not a totally new departure" because NSDM also "sought more flexibility.
Document 12 : William E. On 5 August, in advance of a regular meeting with Brown and Muskie, Odom advised Brzezinski to tell Muskie about the directive and, for his convenience, attached a copy of it.
What happened, however, was that Brown offered to brief Muskie about changes in nuclear policy, although it was not clear to Muskie that they involved a presidential directive [See Document 18 below]. The document that Carter had signed followed the broad outlines of Odom's 22 March memorandum. An earlier declassification on the Carter Library Web site revealed language about deterrence and the importance of improved C3I capabilities, and the need for exercises to test the new targeting system, but it is massively excised.
Among the excised portions is the language about pre-planned options for attacking a broad range of targets--military, industrial, and leadership--including "Cuba, North Vietnam [sic[, and North Korea. The language on launch-on-warning LOW had also been exempted.
While refraining from an endorsement of LOW-it was not U. As Odom had noted, this was a concession to Brown who sought such an option. Also previously excised was the language on the importance of flexibility for designing targeting plans on "short notice" with appropriate staff capabilities in the military commands and the National Command Authority To permit post-attack options, a reserve force of the "most survivable and enduring strategic systems" was to be available against a "wide target spectrum.
After the newspaper stories about Muskie's lack of knowledge about PD appeared, Brzezinski had his say on the problem in a memo to President Carter. In part, he blamed the State Department for not informing Muskie about the targeting policy review, especially Secretary of Defense Brown's exposition of elements of it before the Nuclear Planning Group a few months earlier [See Document 10 ].
He acknowledged, however, that Brown was "somewhat slow" in briefing Muskie and that Brown had not shown him the "actual directive" before the story broke. While Brzezinski wrote that Brown had "briefed" Muskie, a White House document from later in the month indicated that the briefing did not get across the central point that there was a new presidential directive [See Document 18 below].
In any event, Brzezinski argued that the State Department should be kept out of matters involving the SIOP; it was far too sensitive for "diplomatists" and should not be "reviewed or discussed by those not authorized or required to deal with it. Strategic Targeting Policy," 6 August , Secret. Instead of learning about PD from the White House, Muskie found out about it from the newspapers and he was probably furious.
While no one at the Department had seen the PD, Bartholomew believed that the press stories were generally accurate, although he suggested that the emphasis on military targeting as a "new feature" was misleading: "we have always included Soviet military targets in our plans. Document 15 : R. In part Gompert's paper was a critique of the news coverage which he thought was "overblown" by emphasizing PD as an "abrupt and dramatic departure" instead of its "evolutionary" character.
While Gompert believed that U. Noting Moscow's critical reactions, Gompert wondered if the reaction would have been different if the policy had not been leaked but broached in a more "responsible" manner. According to press reports, the Pentagon asserted that it had kept the State Department informed [15] , but Gompert described a policymaking process which excluded the Department's input at crucial stages. There had been no interagency analysis or discussion and both the Pentagon and the White House had "rebuffed" State Department efforts to follow up on the issues.
Not surprisingly Gombert concluded that the Department should be involved in the "formulation and assessment of national security decisions that have significant foreign policy implications.
Brzezinski pushed back against State Department claims about being excluded from PD by sending Brown and Muskie a chronology that glossed over the details that Gompert had discussed.
The chronology included details on briefing of key reporters at the Times and the Washington Post and the efforts to spin the coverage, by muting whether Muskie was in the loop or not. While the chronology ended with the claim that "all of the agencies were involved" and there had been no "intention to exclude the Secretary of State," it showed that President Carter had made a choice not to include Muskie in an early briefing when he signed the PD, and that the State Department had no role in its actual preparation.
Former Columbia University Professor Marshall Shulman, a leading Sovietologist who served as a special adviser on Soviet policy to Vance and Muskie, saw the PD decision-making process as a "case study in how not to make national security policy. For example, on the notions that the Soviets had a concept of victory in nuclear war and already had limited nuclear options, "We may be placing more weight on the Soviet [military] literature than is warranted.
To this end and so as to preserve the possibility of bargaining effectively to terminate the war on acceptable terms that are as favorable as practical, if deterrence fails initially, we must be capable of fighting successfully so that the adversary would not achieve his war aims and would suffer costs that are unacceptable, or in any event greater than his gains, from having initiated an attack. Van Tascal, National Security Council.
The employment of nuclear forces must be effectively related to operations of our general purpose forces. Our doctrines for the use of forces in nuclear conflict must insure that we can pursue specific policy objectives selected by the National Command Authorities at that time, from general guidelines established in advance.
These requirements form the broad outline of our evolving countervailing strategy. To meet these requirements, improvements should be made to our forces, their supporting C3 and intelligence, and their employment plans and planning apparatus, to achieve a high degree of flexibility, enduring survivability, and adequate performance in the face of enemy actions.
The following principles and goals should guide your efforts in making these improvements. Pre-planned options. NSDM is superseded by this directive.
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