CONVERSATION WITH SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, 7 MARCH 1978

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01554R003200280017-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 14, 2005
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: March 8, 1978
• Content Type: MFR

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8 MAR 1978
SUBJECT: Conversation with Secretary of Defense,
7 March 1978
1. National/Tactical Interface.
a. The Secretary said it was his understanding that
we worked it out that both
would go up for the testimony on the national/!
actica
interface study. I said that I agreed.
b. The Secretary said he had been asked by both the
SSCI Subcommittee on Budget and the House Appropriations
Committee for a copy of the restudy on the national/
tactical interface issue. We didn't see how he could not
send that study. I said I thought that we did not need
to send it because it was an internal document. The
Secretary ex ressed his view that the Committee had asked
for this study; I said I did not believe that was the
case. I thought they directed that he and I do a study
and that there be an input to it from outsiders or an
outside group. Therefore, the 0 product was an internal
component of our study which they had received. The
Secretary indicated he would check whether this was in fact
the status of the request from the House Appropriations
Committee. He further questioned whether there was any
difference between refusing to send an internal working
document and one that was an outside study group that had
been brought in on a given topic. I said I didn't really
see a difference.
2. 0 The Secretary indicated that Defense was preparing a
special briefing on how to justify 0 He felt this would have to
encompass not only the national requirements such as SALT, MBFR and
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I said
triat was pease this was being done and had been talking to =
= about it. Further, if there were not an opportunity for
Dr. mark to present it to Chairman Hathaway, I would plan to cover
it in my wrap-up briefing for that Committee but I thought it preferable
that D/NRO make a full presentation of it if the Committee would take
the time.
3. Senator Eagleton has been inquiring of Defense about the
connection between and AWACS information that may
have been The Secretary provided me a copy
of the letter rom a ocum to Senator Eagleton which explains
their knowledge and position on it.
4. PRC(I) Meeting on Intelligence Priorities. The Secretary
has a number of military priorities that he believes should be added
to the list. He will have those out very shortly; I encouraged him
either to let us or for him to circulate them so that everyone would
have a chance to look at them before the meeting. He indicated he
would do the latter. He indicated he thought that this meeting
should lead to some generalized discussion of the impact of these
priorities on the budget, but not get into a detailed formulation
of my budget. I concurred. I pointed out it would be all too easy
to add his additional military priorities into the list and that I
thought we needed some form of constraint so that we didn't just add
things but gave some sense of priority. He agreed we should try to
find some way to do that--that is, to limit the number of priorities
we could have so that we didn't just add new items in to be accommodating.
5. We went over the new Executive Order and the Attorney General's
requirement to produce procedures to regulate our collection operations.
I pointed out our view that it was probably impossible to find the
manpower and time to correlate all of these submissions as Deanne
Siemer would like, but that I would revisit this with Tony Lapham.
Beyond that, he indicates that Defense has its 150-page document of
procedures ready to forward. I told him I thought we were all for-
warding our comments piece by piece as required by the Justice deadlines
and that conferences were already going on with all of the intelligence
agencies and Justice on these individual pieces. He continued to be
worried about the divide and conquer problem. I said that if we didn't
manage to have the DCI coordinate all the intelligence views before
they went to Justice, at the least we should get Tony and Deanne to
insure they have identified the areas where different intelligence
organizations might be at strong variance with each other so that we
could try to have a resolution of these specific issues outside the
halls of Justice.
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7. I asked both Secretary Brown and Duncan their views on the
NID. They both read it daily; neither one had any substantial comments.
Secretary Brown said he'd like to see the introductory bold-face para-
graphs a little longer. His view is this would better enable him to
skip reading the entire article. I pointed out if we made them too
long then those whose appetites were whetted and did read the whole
article would find themselves having to read that much more twice.
In general, Secretary Brown's only comment was that some of the inside
articles were a bit long.
8. I delivered the memo from Dr. Bowie to me on
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9. I discussed the budget guidance and the fact that 0MB was late
in getting theirs to us, and that Brzezinski was still arguing that
guidance. I further pointed out that our guidance would be out shortly
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regardless of this and that we wanted very much to insure there were
no misunderstandings or hard feelings as the new budget process went
through since this would be the first time through from scratch. I
urged him to let me know if there were any adverse repercussions as
we proceed.
I pointed out that we have obtained the S&I
reports to help in the present budget testimony.
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STANSFIELD TURNER
Director
11. I raised NIE 4-1. The Secretary was generally aware of the
conclusions from our previous go at it last summer.
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