To bring NATO officially on board, the State Department sent this draft paper to U.S. ambassadors in Italy, NATO, and Turkey for use with the North Atlantic Council and with SACEUR. Just as the three governments had informed the Council of the Jupiter deployment plans in the late 1950s, they would brief the NAC on the purposes of the Jupiter-Polaris arrangement and its military implications, including retargeting requirements for the “timely damage” of Allied Command Europe targets.

Seymour Weiss would push back against any efforts to remove the Jupiters, but he and others realized that President Kennedy had a “keen interest” in the matter and that Secretary of Defense McNamara had ordered that action be taken (assigning his General Counsel John McNaughton to take the lead). Nevertheless Weiss and Assistant Secretary of State William Tyler presented Secretary of State Rusk with a memorandum making the case against action on the Jupiters or at least postponing their removal until a “later time.” Paralleling arguments made during the crisis by Ambassadors Hare and Reinhardt, Tyler pointed to the “symbolic and psychological importance” of the Jupiter deployments. While Tyler noted parenthetically that the Italians had “given indications of a disposition to work toward the eventual removal of the Jupiters,” the U.S. could not phase them out “without general Alliance agreement,” including Italy and Turkey’s consent, “unless we are prepared to lay ourselves open to the charge of abrogation of specific or implied agreements.” Rusk was in the know on the secret deal, but his reference to a “later time” was consistent with it and signing the memo would have placated Tyler and Weiss.

This report is part of a wide documentation prepared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the meeting of the Atlantic Council in Brussels in December 1983. A central theme is the installation of the INF in Western Europe and the consequent interruption of the INF treaty negotiations in Geneva by the USSR.

Vice Secretary General of NATO Rinaldo Petrignani sends PM Giulio Andreotti a report from the meeting of the Italian Atlatic Committee regarding Western European security situation and the threat posed by political and military modernization in the Soviet Union, and in particular, the introduction of SS20 missiles.

Reflections on the current state of transatlantic relations and Kissinger's foreign policy from Italian perspective. The meeting in Ottawa revealed that the US-Europe relationship is not one of harmony and concord, but that Kissinger sees himself as a peace builder in East-West relations, viewing them in strictly bilateral terms.