The Limits of Control: A History of the SALT Process, 1969-1983 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Matthew John Ambrose Graduate Program in History The Ohio State University 2014 Dissertation Committee: Professor Peter L. Hahn, Advisor Professor Robert J. McMahon, Advisor Professor Jennifer Siegel Copyright by Matthew John Ambrose 2014 Abstract Historians have only begun to grapple with the implications of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, the longest-running arms control negotiation in modern history. This dissertation breaks with the existing literature by examining the process from beginning to end, and placing an in-depth examination of SALT at the center of the narrative. In effect, SALT‘s structural constraints limited the progress that could actually be achieved in reducing arms. Rather than retreating from the process, the leaderships of both superpowers embraced it as a way to reassert their control over fractious domestic interests and restive polities, using foreign policy to effect a ―domestic condominium‖ between them. Widespread discontent with the threat of nuclear annihilation prompted the superpowers to redirect SALT to enhance their control over their military and diplomatic apparatuses and insulate themselves from the political consequences of continued competition. Prolonged engagement with arms control issues introduced dynamic effects into nuclear policy in the United States and, to a lesser extent, the Soviet Union. Arms control considerations came to influence most areas of defense decision making, while the measure of stability SALT provided allowed the examination of new and potentially dangerous nuclear doctrines. Verification and compliance concerns by the United States prompted continuous reassessments of Soviet capabilities and intentions, while challenging their definitions of knowledge itself. ii This framework grew strained as the short and long-term interests of the superpowers began to diverge. The Reagan administration came to power promising to break this cycle, but could not find a way to operate constructively within the existing framework. The SALT process, broadly construed, reached its definitive end with the Soviet walkout from arms control talks in 1983. iii Dedication: To my parents, who taught me to love learning. And to my wife and best friend, Jillian. Her strength and love continue to inspire me. iv Acknowledgments A number of individuals and institutions helped to shape this project through a variety of means of support. Indeed, without much of this assistance, this project might never have come to pass. I am especially indebted to Prof. Peter Hahn and Prof. Robert McMahon for their advice and support throughout this process. Their guidance and insights have been indispensable. I am indebted to the staffs of the National Archives at College Park, MD, and of the Reagan, Carter, and Ford Presidential Libraries for their kindly assistance to a relative newcomer to archival research. I am also grateful to the family of Paul A. Nitze as well as the staff of the Library of Congress, for their help in accessing and navigating Ambassador Nitze‘s papers. Several others have influenced this project by providing guidance or insight into specific periods and chapters. These individuals include Prof. David Stebenne and Prof. Jennifer Siegel of Ohio State University, as well as Doctors Ronald Granieri, Ted Keefer, Glen Asner, and Erin Mahan, of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Historical Office. I am also grateful to the Harry and Lynde Bradley Foundation, whose financial assistance proved critical to completing this project in a timely fashion, and helped to produce a substantially better dissertation as a result. v Vita 2003................................................................Milford High School 2007................................................................B.A. History, Vassar College 2012................................................................M.A. History, The Ohio State University 2010-2011 .....................................................Dean Roy A. Koenigsknecht Graduate Alumni Fellow, The Ohio State University 2011-2012 .....................................................Graduate Teaching Assistant, The Ohio State University 2012-2013 .....................................................Small Section Leader, The Ohio State University 2013-2014 .....................................................Fellow, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Historical Office Fields of Study Major Field: History vi Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Dedication: ......................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgments............................................................................................................... v Vita ..................................................................................................................................... vi Fields of Study ................................................................................................................... vi Table of Contents .............................................................................................................. vii Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: SALT and the New Age of Nuclear Competition ........................................... 21 Chapter 2: Aftermath and Adaptation ............................................................................... 76 Chapter 3: ―In Good Faith‖: SALT in the Carter Years ................................................. 130 Chapter 4: ―Thinking Out Loud‖ .................................................................................... 191 Chapter 5: ―Summary: Bleak‖ ........................................................................................ 279 Chapter 6: The Last Gasp of SALT ................................................................................ 333 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 425 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 435 vii Introduction The major nuclear arms control treaties of the twentieth century remain some of the most significant and least understood milestones of the Cold War. Nowhere is this tendency more apparent than for the agreements and negotiations that collectively grew out of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) process: SALT I, SALT II, and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) negotiations. In the collective memory of the United States (and to a lesser extent, Russia), these treaties loom large over the other arms control agreements of this period, such as the Biological Weapons Convention, the Outer Space Treaty, and the Peaceful Nuclear Explosion and Threshold Test Ban Treaties. The SALT process, and the approach to arms control it represented, came to act as one of the defining intellectual questions of the final decades of the Cold War. The significant engagement of intellectuals with arms control was in part due to the issue‘s broad and radical complexity, involving extremely complex technical questions, and intersecting with a range of issues and programs as broad as the national security apparatuses of the two superpowers. In addition to the issue‘s technical complexity, arms control as reflected by these three agreements quickly became a defining political issue in the U.S. context. Presidential candidates scrutinized and often criticized the arms control records of their opponents, and they debated the merits of previous and proposed frameworks for reining in the nuclear arms race. 1 Negotiating such ambitious and complicated accords stretched the abilities of both governments, but the relatively open and decentralized character of the U.S. government presented substantial additional challenges. Negotiating competently required publicly reconciling difficult, even impossible questions of nuclear strategy, ideology, and popular politics, a standard that not all administrations surpassed. These events, when viewed in the appropriate perspective, were critical watersheds in the ending of the Cold War, but on a far more sophisticated level than is traditionally presumed. Because these agreements were so expansive and contentious within the governments negotiating them, an analysis of the individuals and ideas which shaped the accords and their success or failure will shed important light on how these governments functioned. The terms of SALT itself, the ideas underpinning it, and the politics of ratifying it had long-lasting effects on U.S. force posture, without which critical changes to U.S. nuclear strategy would have been impossible. Furthermore, in politicizing nuclear weapons and strategy to a degree inconceivable before it, SALT accelerated the breakdown of the Cold War consensus by limiting the role that those with differing strategic perspectives could serve in any administration. Over time, SALT became more than an agreement or set of talks. It was a process, an attempt to cope with the legacies of decades of