A
Yes.
l
Representative, Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT)
Q ..
Did the MBFR negotiations get started before you left?
I left just before the actual negotiations in Vienna began. I had gone back to
A
Washington to present the final plans to Admiral Thomas Moorer, the chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But I found out that MBFR was not uppermost in his
mind; the strategic arms negotiation was. I learned that a deal had been struck
between Scoop Jackson and Henry Kissinger. Scoop Jackson didn't have
confidence in General Royal Allison, the JCS representative to the SALT talks.
Kissinger wanted Jackson's support for the ABM treaty. As part of the payment
for Jackson's support of the ABM treaty, Jackson would get to name the
representative to the strategic arms talks. The person he named was me.
I had met Scoop Jackson 20 years earlier and we had become friends. However,
I didn't want the SALT job. I had spent a year and a half getting MBFR started
and considered it more important than SALT. Besides, I felt I was back on a
career track and had a good chance of being promoted to four stars as the U.S.
permanent representative to NATO. In fact, it had been Scoop Jackson who was
responsible for a setback in my career earlier. Jackson wanted me to introduce
armed helicopters in Vietnam, something I was myself interested in.I saw a role
for helicopters in a counterinsurgency operation. They seemed ideally suited for
seeking out and destroying guerrilla forces. This got me into the middle of a roles
and missions fight, with the result that my promotion to three stars had been held
up for several years. Having been promoted to three stars late in my career, I still
saw a fourth star on the horizon.
Besides, Admiral Moorer resented what he felt was interference with his
prerogative. He felt he should be able to pick his own representative to SALT and
had an admiral in mind to replace General Allison. I told Moorer that was fine
with me because I didn't want the job in SALT. Moorer told me he was going to
talk to Jackson and Kissinger and tell them he was running the Joint Chiefs of Staff
and entitled to name his own representative* "Over my dead body," he said, "Will
someone tell me who will be my representative."
The next day I went to see Admiral Moorer. He leaned back in his chair, threw
out his arms and said, " I ' m dead."
He told me it was a done deal. Jackson and Kissinger had taken the deal to the
President who had given his approval.
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