Intelligence and alliance politics: America, Britain, and the strategic Defense Initiative

ABSTRACT

In March 1983, President Ronald Reagan called upon American scientists to develop a capability to render nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete.” The president’s speech led to the creation of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), an effort to develop a missile defense system with interceptors on land and in space that Reagan hoped would lead to a nuclear-free world. SDI quickly became a contentious subject in American-Soviet relations and among the transatlantic allies. Even though she rejected Reagan’s ultimate goal for SDI, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher decided to have the United Kingdom become formally involved in SDI research and development. This article investigates the role of intelligence in shaping U.S. and British policy on SDI. It further explores how SDI impacted Anglo-American intelligence cooperation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Lettow, Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, 100.

2. Hennessy, The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War, 44.

3. Prados, “The Strategic Defense Initiative”; Wilson, The Triumph of Improvisation, 17. For a revisionist account of intelligence in the Reagan administration, see: Dujmovic, “Ronald Reagan, Intelligence William Casey, and CIA: A Reappraisal.”

4. Peter Westwick called for greater investigation into the international dimensions of SDI, see: Westwick, “The International History of the Strategic Defense Initiative: American Influence and Economic Competition in the Late Cold War.” For recent analysis of foreign involvement in SDI, see: Andreoni, “Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative and Transatlantic Relations, 1983–1986” and Rabinowitz, ““Arrow” Mythology Revisited: The Curious Case of the Reagan Administration, Israel, and SDI Cooperation.”

5. Archie Brown writes that offering U.S. research and development dollars “[McFarlane] maintained, led the prime minister to change her tune and to her speaking in support of SDI when she addressed the US Congress a month later. See Brown, The Human Factor, 141.

6. In particular, Charles Powell informed the author that Thatcher believed getting access to the more sensitive technological areas of SDI would give Britain insights into what would be in the realm of the possible for the Soviet Union’s missile defense efforts as well. She also hoped to get more intelligence on Soviet missile defense research. Even more recent scholarship that portrays Thatcher as having been more favorable to SDI still mostly focuses on the economic considerations related to British SDI participation; see: Agar, Science Policy under Thatcher, 189. Richard Aldous correctly notes that Thatcher did support SDI moving ahead, but that she did not share the president’s nuclear abolitionism; see: Aldous, Reagan and Thatcher: The Difficult Relationship, 133–4.

7. Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, 463.

8. See endnote 25 for references on Trident and Britain’s negotiations with the United States over acquiring the system.

9. “The Real War in Space.”

10. Ibid

11. Ibid.

12. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) 11–3/8-77, “Soviet Capabilities for Strategic Nuclear Conflict Through the Late 1980s, CIA-DOC_0000268138.

13. “Soviet Breakthrough Is Reported In Work on an Anti-Missile Beam.”

14. “Aviation Weekly Counters Carter on Soviet Beam.”

15. Pike, “The Death-Beam Gap: Putting Keegan’s Follies in Perspective.”

16. Moore, Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, Volume 1, 371.

17. PREM 19/1188, MT annotations on pages from Transnational Security, 24 December 1979, U.K. National Archives (TNA).

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid.

20. PREM 19/1188, MOD Letter to No.10, “Military Uses of Laser Technology in Space,” 28 January 1980, TNA.

21. Agar, Science Policy under Thatcher, 190.

22. PREM 19/382, No.10 record of conversation (PM and General Keegan), 12 March 1980, TNA.

23. PREM 19/1188, MoD letter to No. 10, US development of directed energy weapons, 14 January 1981, TNA.

24. Charles Powell interview with author via telephone, 4 February 2020.

25. Doyle, “A Foregone Conclusion? The United States, Britain and the Trident D5 Agreement” and Doyle, “The United States Sale of Trident to Britain, 1977–1982: Deal Making in the Anglo-American Nuclear Relationship.”

26. DEFE 24/2842, “The Polaris Force: Origin and Operation,” (undated) TNA, 6–7.

27. Beginning in the 1960s, the Ministry of Defense had begun examining multiple options for Polaris improvement; Super Antelope was the most extensive in terms of developing costly, sophisticated ABM penetration aids. The decision to pursue Super Antelope, the original name for Chevaline, took a long time and was contentious. For an overview of the decision to pursue Super Antelope/Chevaline (the name for the effort beginning in 1973), see: Jones, The Official History of the UK Strategic Nuclear Deterrent: Volume II: The Labour Government and the Polaris Programme, 1964–1970 and Stoddardt, “The British Labour Government and the development of Chevaline, 1974–79.” Stanley Orman, a former British defense scientist, discussed Super Antelope/Chevaline in his memoirs, An Uncivil Civil servant.

28. Meeting with Prime Minister Thatcher at the Pentagon, 27 February 1981, Central Intelligence Agency, CREST, CIA-RDP84B00049R001403560041-3.

29. In September 1982, Reagan met with Edward Teller who told the president that due to technological advances, strategic defense was indeed feasible. The meeting with Teller has been identified as the key moment for the birth of SDI, but this was not the case in reality. Teller even said that he was not ‘particularly influential’ in Reagan’s decision to pursue SDI. Teller’s missile defense framework, involving a nuclear-powered laser, would moreover not find a welcoming audience in the White House or the Pentagon. The scientist’s comment did, however, likely reinforce Reagan’s resolve to establish a strategic defense program. See for details: Duric, The Strategic Defense Initiative, 7 and Lettow, 82.

30. Lettow, 100.

31. FitzGerald, Way Out There in the Blue, 18.

32. Prados, “The Strategic Defense Initiative,” 90–95.

33. Wilson, The Triumph of Improvisation, 17.

34. Brands, What Good is Grand Strategy? 102.

35. Wilson, The Triumph of Improvisation, 23.

36. NIE 11–3/8-80, December, 14, 1980, http://insidethecoldwar.org/sites/default/files/documents/NIE%2011-3%20880%20Soviet%20Capabilities%200%20December%2014%2 C%201980.pdf.

37. NSC Staff Request for Evaluations of the A Team-B Experiment, 16 November 1982, CIA-CREST, CIA-RDP85B00134R000200090002-8.

38. NIE 11–3/8-81, 23 March 1982, CIA-RDP09T00367R000400260001-6.pdf.

39. Wilson, The Triumph of Improvisation, 23. There was significant overlap in membership between Team B and the hawkish Committee on Present Danger, which included Eugene Rostow and Paul Nitze, among several other people who would take prominent roles in the Reagan administration (see Shribman, “Group Goes from Exile to Influence.” Under Reagan, Rostow would become the head of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and Nitze served as a senior advisor on arms control matters. Nitze had long-held alarmist views of the Soviet Union. He was the principal author of NSC 68 (1950) that declared ‘our free society finds itself mortally challenged by the Soviet system’ (see: Section IV of ‘A Report to the President Pursuant to the President’s Directive of 31 January 1950,’: https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsc-hst/nsc-68.htm). For a good description of Nitze position that the USSR intended to dominate the nuclear escalation ladder, see: Johnson, Improbable Dangers, 96–97.

40. Lettow, 128–129.

41. Brands, 107.

42. Intelligence memo on technology surprise, 9 October 1984, CREST: CIA-RDP89b00423r000300340013-2.

43. FitzGerald, 157. See memo for Reagan, from William Casey, “Progress at the CIA,” 6 May 1981. Reagan initialed the document. http://web.archive.org/web/20130413105819/http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/17/19810506.pdf

44. Memorandum from Casey to Reagan on progress at CIA, 6 May 1981.

45. Ibid.

46. Ibid.

47. John Gross (former U.S. Air Force officer who contributed to NIE 11-1-83 on the Soviet space program), interview with author, 21 August 2020.

48. Ibid.

49. Wilson, “AF Leaders Skeptical of Laser Threat.”

50. Ibid.

51. NIE 11–3/8-81, 23 March 1982, CREST: CIA-RDP09T00367R000400260001-6.pdf.

52. Memo For the NIO/SP regarding DeLauer’s comments on Soviet space lasers, 3 March 1982, CREST: CIA-RDP86R00893R000100090043-5.

53. Memo for Casey, “The Soviet ABM Program,” 10 June 1981, http://web.archive.org/web/20130413105925/http:/www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/17/19810717.pdf.

54. NIE, “Soviet Ballistic Missile Defense,” 13 October 1982, CREST: CIA-RDP00B00369R000100040001-8. The estimative language used in the report was not definitive. Terms like unlikely or ‘could be able’ created significant ambiguity. Richards J. Heuer is highly critical of such terms and calls them ‘empty shells,’ because the policy maker ‘fills them with meaning though the context in which they are used and what is already in the [reader’s] mind.’ See Heuer, Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, 87. Retired Air Force officer John Gross who contributed to NIE 11-1-83 on the Soviet space program, explained to the author that the Soviet laser threat in space was exaggerated and that DIA tended to present a more aggressive view of Soviet capabilities in this arena (John Gross, interview with author via telephone 21 August 2020). DIA, which was and remains part of the Department of Defense, holding more aggressive views of Soviet military capabilities provided fodder for justifying a larger defense budget. This does not definitively establish that defense budget considerations were the driving factor behind DIA analysis, but it is notable that DIA generally had a more aggressive view of Soviet military space capabilities than CIA. John Prados notes the ‘more alarmist’ views of DIA, see Prados, 91.

55. Ibid.

56. Historians and former administration officials have observed that Reagan did not pay close attention to the technical details of policy issues. Admiral John Poindexter, who served as Reagan’s national security advisor, told the author that Reagan tended to think ‘in terms of principles, not details’ (John Poindexter interview with author via skype, 25 February 2019). George H.W. Bush observed that ‘it was too bad that Ronald Reagan only read the intelligence at his leisure after he became president,’ see: Helgerson 2013, Getting to Know the President, 124. Dujmovic, however, challenges the idea that Reagan was a disinterested intelligence consumer, see: Dujmovic, 3.

57. Brand, “Intelligence, Warning, and Policy,” 12; Grabo, Anticipating Surprise: Analysis for Strategic, 4.

58. Interagency Intelligence Memorandum, “Soviet Ballistic Missile Defense, 17 July 1981, CREST: CIA-RDP83b00140r000100060013-5.

59. Ibid.

60. Matovski, “Strategic Intelligence and International Crisis Behavior.”

61. National Security Study Directive Number 13–82, National Space Strategy, 15 December 1982, CIA-RDP85M00364R000400550064-1.

62. Intelligence Estimate, “Outlook for Rapid Expansion of Soviet Space Programs Through 1986,” October 1982, http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB501/docs/EBB-35.pdf.

63. Ellis, “Reds in Space,” 167.

64. Ronald Reagan, “Address to the Nation on Defense and National Security,” 23 March 1983, https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/address-nation-defense-and-national-security. Reagan had a deep-rooted and long-held abhorrence of Mutually Assured Destruction and nuclear weapons. He first became interested in missile defense when he visited Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 1967 and met with Edward Teller. According to George Schultz, ‘this [meeting] may have become the first gleam in Ronald Reagan’s eye of what later became the Strategic Defense Initiative,’ see: Schultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 261.

65. NSDD-119, “Strategic Defense Initiative,” 6 January 1984, https://aerospace.csis.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/NSDD-119-Strategic-Defense-Initiative.pdf.

66. Minutes of a National Security Planning Group Meeting, “Discussion of Substantive Issues for Geneva,” 17 December 1984, FRUS, 1981–1988 Volume IV, 1194, https://static.history.state.gov/frus/frus1981-88v04/pdf/frus1981-88v04.pdf.

67. In 1976, Gerald Ford approved NSDM 333 that called for greater investment in survivability measures for U.S. space system, especially intelligence satellites. Over one year later, Carter administration officials acknowledged that very little work in this area had actually taken place and identified the need for more robust survivability measures. It is not yet clear whether or not significant advances had been made by the early 1980s. For a brief overview of NSDM 333 and survivability considerations, see: Presidential Directive/NSC-37, 11 May 1978, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), Volume XXVI, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v26/d27. Reagan’s advisors raised survivability enhancements to the prime minister in her December 1984 meeting with Reagan; see for details: PREM 19/1656, No.10 record of conversation (MT-President Reagan), 22 December 1984, TNA.

68. Minutes of a National Security Planning Group Meeting, “Soviet Defense and Arms Control Objectives,” 30 November 1984, FRUS, 1981–1988 Volume IV, 1157, available online: https://static.history.state.gov/frus/frus1981-88v04/pdf/frus1981-88v04.pdf.

69. National Security Decision Memorandum 333 on “Enhanced Survivability of Critical U.S. Military and Intelligence Space Systems, 7 July 1976, FRUS, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76ve03/d128.

70. Memorandum of conversation, 26 September 1984, FRUS, 1981–1988 Volume IV, 1013, https://static.history.state.gov/frus/frus1981-88v04/pdf/frus1981-88v04.pdf.

71. Memorandum from Weinberger to McFarlane, 20 November 1984, FRUS, 1981–1988 Volume IV, 1133, https://static.history.state.gov/frus/frus1981-88v04/pdf/frus1981-88v04.pdf.

72. Ellis, “Reds in Space,” 169.

73. Intelligence Memorandum, “Allied Attitudes Towards the Strategic Defense Initiative and US Development of Anti-Satellite Weapons,” 20 June 1984, CREST: CIA-RDP85T00287R001100280001-1.pdf.

74. Ibid.

75. Minutes of a National Security Planning Group Meeting, “Discussion of Substantive Issues for Geneva,” 17 December 1984, FRUS, 1981–1988 Volume IV, 1191, https://static.history.state.gov/frus/frus1981-88v04/pdf/frus1981-88v04.pdf.

76. NSDD-172, “Presenting the Strategic Defense Initiative,” 30 May 1985, https://aerospace.csis.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/NSDD-172-Presenting-the-Strategic-Defense-Initiative.pdf.

77. Ellis, “Reds in Space,” 171.

78. Hoffman, The Dead Hand, 272.

79. U.S. Government, Soviet Strategic Defense Programs (Washington DC, 1985).

80. NIE 11–3/8-84/85, 25 April 1985, CREST: CIA-RDP09T00367R000300180001-6.

81. Memo from Gershwin to D/Dir CIA, 10 June 1986, CREST: CIA-RDP7M00248R000500220015-6.

82. Margaret Thatcher Interview, 8 January 1990, Margaret Thatcher Foundation, https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/109324.

83. Thatcher would repeatedly tell Reagan that nuclear weapons had kept the peace. See for one example: PREM 19/1656, No.10 record of conversation (MT-President Reagan), 22 December 1984, TNA.

84. PREM 19/1188, MOD Letter to No. 10, “President’s Reagan;s Speech on Defensive Technology,’ 29 March 1983, TNA.

85. Ibid.

86. Ibid.

87. Andreoni, 52.

88. PREM 19/1188, MoD assessment of President’s speech on defensive technology, 29 March 1983, TNA.

89. At a national security meeting a CIA official said that ‘ASAT is the stalking horse for SDI.’ See Minutes of a National Security Planning Group Meeting, ‘Soviet Defense and Arms Control Objectives,’ 30 November 1984, FRUS, 1981–1988 Volume IV, 1154, https://static.history.state.gov/frus/frus1981-88v04/pdf/frus1981-88v04.pdf.

90. PREM 19/1188, Heseltine and Howe Minute to MT, “Anti-Satellite Systems and Arms Control,” 19 June 1984,TNA.

91. Ibid.

92. Bateman, “Space Reconnaissance and Anglo-American Relations.”

93. See note 24 above.

94. For information about Zircon see chapter five in Urban, UK Eyes Alpha: Inside Story of British Intelligence and Ferris, Behind the Enigma, 322, 674, and 676.

95. PREM 19/2891, Powell briefing for PM (meeting with Carlucci), 31 July 1987, TNA.

96. PREM 19/1188, FCO paper for PM on ASAT controls, 20 February 1984, TNA.

97. PREM 19/1188, MoD/FCO paper on SDI, ASATS, and arms control, 19 June 1984, TNA, 3.

98. Ibid.

99. For MoD/FCO thinking on ASATs and strategic stability, see: PREM 19/1188, Heseltine and Howe Minute to MT, “Anti-Satellite Systems and Arms Control,” 19 June 1984,TNA.

100. Ibid, 6.

101. Ibid.

102. Ibid, 7.

103. Ibid., 22.

104. PREM 19/1188, PM response to joint MoD/FCO paper, 2 July 1984, TNA.

105. PREM 19/1188, MoD note on arrangements for restricted briefing, 9 July 1984, TNA.

106. PREM 19/1188, Cradock memo to Powell, 2 July 1984, TNA.

107. PREM 19/1188, No. 10 record of conversation, 16 July 1984, TNA.

108. Ibid.

109. PREM 19/1188, MoD/FCO paper on policy towards BMD, 11 October 1984, TNA.

110. Annex C, pg. 6 in PREM 19/1188, MoD/FCO paper on policy towards BMD, 11 October 1984, TNA.

111. Ibid.

112. Ibid, 28.

113. Ibid.

114. Ibid.

115. Thatcher, 463.

116. Marrin, “Why Strategic Intelligence Analysis Has Limited Influence on American Foreign Policy,” 728.

117. Ibid.

118. PREM 19/1413, Note from Colin Budd to Powell, “BMD: Research and Development,” 14 December 1984, TNA.

119. PREM 19/1188, No. 10 record of conversation about ASATs and arms control, 16 July 1984, TNA.

120. PREM 19/1656, No.10 record of conversation (MT-President Reagan), 22 December 1984, TNA

121. Ibid.

122. Bateman, “Science, Technology, and the ‘Special Relationship’.”

123. PREM 19/1444. Powell to Mottram, 8 January 1985, TNA and Agar, 199.

124. CAB 130/1303, “Report of the US-UK Joint Working Group Concerning Cooperative Research for the Strategic Defense Initiative,” 15 October 1985, TNA.

125. See note 24 above.

126. For an overview of the Reagan administration’s views of the ABM Treaty, see: Holmes and Weinrod, “Weighing the Evidence: How the ABM Treaty Permits a Strategic Defense System.”

127. National Security Decision Directive 192, “The ABM Treaty and the SDI Program, 11 October 1985, https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/nsdd-192.pdf.

128. PREM 19/1444, FCO letter to No. 10 on SDI Testing-ABM Treaty, 28 February 1985, TNA.

129. ACDA Response to senator on ABM compliance, 14 August 1987, CREST: CIA-RDP90G00152R000600770012-7.

130. For an overview of differences in American and British intelligence analysis cultures, see Marrin and Davis, “National Assessment by the National Security Council Staff 1968–80: An American Experiment in a British Style of Analysis?”

131. PREM 19/1444 memo from Heseltine to PM, 27 March 1985, TNA.

132. PREM 19/3980 prime minister’s meeting with the United States Defence Secretary, 2 December 1987, TNA.

133. PREM 19/2614, SDI Participation Office report on “SDI Programme Status” February 1988, TNA.

134. Krepon, “Nitze’s Strategic Concept.”

135. The SNIE said that the USSR ‘will focus on devising countermeasures to exploit anticipated weaknesses or vulnerabilities in what they view as the most likely technologies for a future US defensive shield. ASAT upgrades are the most obvious route to this goal,’ see: SNIE, Soviet Actions to Counter The US Strategic Defense Initiative, 1 February 1986, CREST: CIA-RDP09T00367R000300070001-8. Donald Baucom describes the garage vulnerability in his article, “The Rise and Fall of Brilliant Pebbles,” 148.

136. Ibid.

137. PREM 19/2068, Notes from meeting with Abrahamson, 14 July 1986, TNA.

138. PREM 19/2068, Notes from meeting with Abrahamson, 14 March 1987, TNA.

139. PREM 29/2068, MoD memo for the PM, 1 October 1987, TNA.

140. Ibid.

141. PREM 29/2068, Powell memo for the PM, 2 October 1987, TNA.

142. Stanley Orman interview with author, 31 July 2020.

143. PREM 19/2614, Strategic Defence Initiative, 16 January 1989, TNA.

144. Ibid.

145. Ibid.

146. PREM 19/2890, No.10 conversation record, PM-Bush, 1 June 1989, TNA.

147. PREM 19/3650, “Draft Letter from the Prime Minister to President Bush,” 1992, TNA.

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Aaron Bateman

Aaron Bateman is a PhD candidate in the history of science and technology at Johns Hopkins University. He is currently a Guggenheim Fellow at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC.