PARTICIPATION IN ACDA GENERAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING ON CHINA, 25 NOVEMBER 1969

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01495R000100010001-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 18, 2005
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 25, 1969
• Content Type: MFR

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25 November 1969
MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD
SUBJECT: Participation in ACDA General Advisory
Committee Meeting on China, 25 November 1969
1. ACDA General Advisory Committee (GAC)* had
its first outing on China today, with outside consultants Professor
Allen S. Whiting, University of Michigan; Professor A. Doak
Barnett of the Brookings Institute; and myself, representing CIA.
My participation had been worked out between ACDA and the DDI.
2. Per pre-arranged scheduling with Mr. McCloy and
Mr. Thomas W. Fina of the ACDA GAC staff, I led off with the
GAC (only) with an all-source 30-minute discussion of Chinese ad-
vanced weapons highlights. My second half hour was an open one,
with Messrs. Whiting, Barnett, and Fina sitting in. Here I started
the discussion with a brief set of (personal) propositions concerning
China's nuclear motives. Discussion was lively and went well.
3. Allen Whiting, next at bat, sketched certain of the
debates on strategic questions which have taken place within China
during recent years, and suggested that:
Chairman John J. McCloy; Messrs. I. W. Abel, William J.
Casey, C. Douglas Dillon, William C. Foster, Kermit Gordon,
James R. Killian, Lauris Norstad, Peter G. Peterson, Dean
Rusk, William Scranton, John A. Wheeler. Also present,
Messrs. Marshall Green, Assistant Secretary of State for East
Asian Pacific Affairs, and Mr. Howard A. Furnas, Special
Assistant to Director, ACDA. Absent: GAC members Harold
Brown, Jack Ruina, and Cyrus Vance.
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a. We should recognize that the Chinese
will be extremely suspicious of any US post-Mao
initiatives, especially any made during the
probable Chinese succession crisis.
b. We should therefore seek to avoid
building an image of US-Soviet collusion.
c. Also, the earlier US initiatives are
taken, the better (that is, before Mao's death), and
the less likely that the more militant voices within
China will prevail in a post-Mao situation.
d. There are plenty of better ways and
means of talking quietly to the Chinese other than
in Warsaw.
e. We should take a more relaxed position
concerning Chinese Communist participation in
Specialized Agency and other international conferences.
4. Doak Barnett stressed China's political motives
re nuclear status. He judged that the Chinese have already
entered a period of change and uncertainty concerning both the
US and the USSR, and that therefore they may come to take a
less starchy position concerning arms limitations pacts if they
feel that adherence to them might help to narrow the nuclear
gap between China and the USSR/USA. Barnett stated that one
way for the US and the USSR to approach the question of China
and arms control would be the route of total damage-limiting
actions. This would mean ABMs, etc. He added that a better
approach would be for the US and the USSR. to assume that China
will begin-to move toward a responsible counter deterrent policy,
realizing the enormous gap between its nuclear capability and
that of the USSR/USA. What China will be after, according to
Barnett, will be a minimal second strike nuclear deterrent,
with no thought whatsoever of a possible first strike capability.
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The US should accordingly stay away from ABMs, which the
Chinese will continue to estimate are principally anti-Chinese
weapons. Even if the Sovs should put up a few more ABMs,
said Barnett, the US should not respond in kind but should
seek to offset them in some other way: e. g. , more US nuclear
submarines.
5. Subsequent discussion centered on the questions
of Chinese suspicion of US-Soviet collusion, the degree to
which the US might be fairly free in its negotiations with the
USSR because of the enormous gap in Chinese nuclear prospects,
(my point) the possibility that Chinese are now in a period of
fundamental internal debate as to whether the US or the USSR
should be considered China's number one enemy, and the (ad-
mittedly specious) China justification for a US ABM.
6. The only GAC conclusion on collusion concerned
us three consultants, the GAC wigging us because although we
came at the Chinese question from different vantage points, our
judgments were virtually identical concerning China's motives,
the high political content thereof, China's generally prudent
foreign behavior, and the ways in which Chinese strategic
questions are markedly.different from those of the Soviets.
I think we collectively made a constructive contribution -- and
a dent on Committee members used to dealing primarily with
US-Soviet strategic context.
7. A stenotypist was present at the wish of Chairman
Mc Cloy, for all but my initial all-source discussion. Even so,
Mr. Rusk and I asked him to stop note-taking on a couple of
occasions during the later, general discussion.
8. Chairman McCloy broke us off at 12:15 for lunch.
We were divided into four small table groups: my companions,
Kermit Gordon, James Killian, I/auris Norstad, and I. W. Abel.
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9. All-in-all, I thought the exercise a lively and
worthwhile one, and I heard various expressions of such
sentiment from various of the GAC members. They are a
most impressive group, and I am pleased to see them
beginning to bring China more into the equation.
10. I am indebted to various officers in OSR., ISA,
and OSI for helping me get set for this seance.
25X1
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