BUSINESS WEEK

13 MARCH 1971 (17)

Another Safeguard dud

This week, the Defense Dept. explained to Congress
its latest plan for the Safeguard antiballistic-missile
system—but the explanation isn't enough.

The Pentagon is asking $1.3-billion to continue Safeguard's deployment in the year starting July 1—the same amount that Congress finally authorized for the system in fiscal 1971. But the Nixon Administration has pulled a major switch in tactics: It has dropped its request to expand Safeguard to protect American cities and wants Congress, instead, to grant the President a choice on the location of a fourth ABM site (page 86).

The Pentagon's rationale is that the President
needs more flexibility in negotiating with the Soviet
Union at the upcoming talks in Vienna on strategic
arms limitation. He may be forced to agree to the So-
viet wish that ABM systems be restricted to protecting
national command centers—meaning, for the U.S.,
Washington, D. C. The Russians already have an ABM
system protecting Moscow, but the U. S. is only build-
ing Safeguard now to defend its strategic (or retali-
atory) Minuteman missiles. Thus, the argument runs,
if the Russians have an ABM system around their capi-
tal, so should we.

The problem is that while the Defense Dept.'s argu-
ments change, the facts do not. The Safeguard system
has already cost the U. S. $2.8-billion. Despite this, it
continues to have serious radar and electronic limita-
tions, and many responsible scientists question its re-
liability in protecting missile sites—let along a city
like Washington.

There should be no question in the mind of the So-
viet Union that the U. S. intends to maintain a strong
defense posture and that it will bargain hard in
Vienna. But the latest attempt to salvage Safeguard
is a clumsy move. It would enable the Administration
to do something the American public has already re-
jected—to start deploying missiles around cities. This
is not only dangerous logic but could cost countless
billions of tax dollars, badly needed elsewhere. Con-
gress must once again reject this proposal.

NEW YORK TIMES - 14 MARCH 1971

91

The Hands
Of the
Weapons
Clock Keep
Moving

WASHINGTON — Weapons technology has become the common adversary of the two superstates whose representatives will meet tomorrow in Vienna for the fourth round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). As new varieties of ever-more-deadly weapons are developed, the United States and the Soviet Union find it increasingly difficult even to judge their respective missile strengths — much less agree upon a formula for mutual restraint.

Thus, the generally accepted face-off in offensive missiles takes this form:

The United States has 1,000 land-based Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM's); 54 Titan II ICBM's; 656 submarine-based missiles — for a total of 1,710 missiles.

The Soviet Union has 1,440 land-based missiles and 350 submarine-based missiles — for a total of 1,790 missiles.

On the face of it, a condition of near-parity between the powers. But last Tuesday Defense Secretary Melvin Laird told the House Armed Services Committee that American strategic strike forces add up to 4,600 nuclear weapons as opposed to 2,000 for the Soviets. And a day later, President Nixon was quoted in an interview as saying that the Soviets have three times the American missile strength.

Which of the estimates is right? Actually, all three. The two nations are neck and neck in numbers of missiles. But the United States has perfected a technique of mounting three to 14 nuclear warheads on a single missile; it is this so-called MIRV (multiple independently targeted reentry vehicle) that gives America the numerical superiority in warheads cited by Mr. Laird. On the other hand, the Soviets have deployed a huge ICBM, the SS-9, which can hurl many times the explosive payload of any American missile; it is the SS-9 that explains Mr. Nixon's high estimate of the Soviet superiority in deliverable megatonnage.

Because the two powers have this variety of missiles which can carry different payloads, their missiles systems are said by arms controllers to be "not symmetric." This difficulty confounded the disagreement at the last SALT session at Helsinki over the definition of strategic offensive arms.

The problems for the upcoming talks are aggravated by yet another basic disagreement. The Soviets have proposed that the two parties ignore, temporarily at least, the area of offensive missiles and concentrate instead on attaining a parity of defensive weapons — the antiballistic missile systems (ABM). But President Nixon seemed to rule out such a course in his March 4 press conference: "We will negotiate an agreement that is not comprehensive, but it must include offensive as well as defensive weapons, some mix."

Certainly, there is nothing simple about the defensive arms situation. The Soviets have deployed 64 Galosh missiles in a ring around Moscow. These missiles were developed in the mid-1960's and are somewhat out-of-date. Meanwhile, the United States is moving ahead with its Safeguard ABM program ($1.2-billion in the next budget) to deploy hundreds of long-range Spartan missiles and short-range Sprints around Minuteman missile fields.

## Soviet Proposal

It seems unlikely that the SALT talkers in Vienna will be able to resolve the ABM parity problem. The Soviets have offered a proposal matching the existing Moscow Galosh system against a projected ABM defense of Washington, D. C. But even if President Nixon were to relax his stance and agree to an ABM-only package, America could not deploy an ABM system around the nation's capital until after 1975. By then the Moscow system would be antiquated, and the Soviet would be suspicious that the more modern American missiles would protect not only Washington, D. C., but most of the Northeast.

The problems for SALT posed by weapons technology are illustrated by American development of MIRV. It creates a new, mad math for the arms race.

On their side, the Russians have the SS-9 ICBM, which packs the punch of 25 million tons of TNT. American observation of Soviet tests has spotted a triple-headed SS-9, presumably fitted with warheads that are released in a scattershot manner, as opposed to the targeted MIRV. To date they have not deployed a multi-headed SS-9, although this possibility may be behind Senator Henry Jackson's rather murky alarm last Sunday, when he warned of a new Soviet missile threat.

Given the growing numbers and complexity of strategic, hard-ware, hope for a breakthrough at Vienna seems to rest on the chance that the United States will take the initiative with a bold approach to the MIRV problem. Or perhaps our representatives will back away from insistence upon a double package; i.e., agreement on both offensive and defensive arms.

Meanwhile as the SALT negotiators talk, the hands of the weapons clock keep moving.

—RALPH LAPP

Dr. Lapp is a nuclear scientist and author of several books on national security.

WASHINGTON POST 15 MARCH 1971

33

# A New Nuclear Strategy?

Novelty—newness and change—was a central, even somewhat obsessive, theme of the 191-page Defense Report issued by Secretary Laird last week. Some comprehensive new approach to our friends and foes abroad, to be known as the "strategy of realistic deterrence," has been born, the Secretary said, going on to caution: "Those who would dismiss it as a mere continuation of past policies in new packaging would be quite mistaken." Because that language so closely resembles Mr. Nixon's own warning regarding his new Vietnamization policy in 1969, and because in matters of strategic nuclear policy—the subject which concerns us here—any fundamental change is of enormous importance, we have read Mr. Laird's report and related administration statements with his caveat firmly in mind.

Our preliminary conclusion is that so far as strategic arms are concerned—and some, but not all of the other aspects of defense the Secretary talks about—the novelty is overstated, as are claims for the internal cohesiveness of the new policy in all its many parts. These latter claims, which are illustrated in the chart we have reproduced below, probably represent what was an impossible ambition to begin with. And, like the chart, much of Mr. Laird's argument founders on a failure to establish the interconnectedness of things, as distinct from merely asserting their proximity and/or their essential connection as part of a larger purpose.

FIGURE 9
FOREIGN POLICY OBJECTIVE OF LASTING PEACE AND FREEDOM THROUGH NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY OF REALISTIC DETERRENCE AND A FOREIGN POLICY STRATEGY OF VIGOROUS NEGOTIATION

With deference to the artists involved, we would also add that only the Pentagon could have rendered the President's new policy for gaining "lasting peace and freedom" in the approximate configuration of a landbased missile lying on its side and mirv-ed with the three warheads of partnership, strength and negotiation.

When you have sorted out the packaging from the contents, a few things do become evident about the administration's approach to strategic arms in 1971. The fundamentals of a second-strike retaliatory strategy remain in place, despite the administration's determination to get rid of the term "assured destruction"—which has become a sort of shorthand for the strategy of deterrence by the preservation of a nuclear capacity to strike back. As he did last year, the President has again indicated his discomfort with strict limitations on his retaliatory choices, however, suggesting — still cryptically, as before—that he is in no way satisfied with the prospect of being obliged to order the destruction of Soviet civilian populations as his sole means of responding to challenge. "Sufficiency," the name under which his own strategy is meant to go, is said to require something different from this—but as yet we do not know what.

We have learned something, on the other hand. of the criteria that determine "sufficiency," at least as reflected in Secretary Laird's explanation of the objectives that flow from them. In addition to the staples of the older strategy—maintaining a capacity to retaliate, providing no incentive for a first strike against us—there are two more. One is prevention of the Soviets being in a position to wreak considerably greater damage on our urban/industrial centers than we could wreak on theirs. Presumably this means that the deterrent power of our strategic forces—even in their retaliatory aspect—would be compromised by a situation in which the Soviets could do us *substantially* more damage then we do them; since the critical proportions are not discussed, however, it is not clear whether we are talking about something relevant (80 per cent versus 10 per cent potential destruction, say) or proportions that are high enough and similar enough (50 per cent versus 40 per cent, for example) to make the idea of "advantage" academic.

A second important objective of "sufficiency" is a capacity to defend ourselves against accidental or relatively small attack, another way of saying that "sufficiency" presupposes some protection against a potential Chinese threat. It is a measure of the resistance of these issues to the kind of overall rationalization and consistency that Secretary Laird would impose on them, however, that in the President's report and in related documents, it has been suggested that in the interest of achieving an arrangement that would afford stability in our nuclear relationship with the Soviets, the President would be willing to forego the ABM—which is the principal component of defense against a prospective, if remote, Chinese attack. If this is so, it seems to us to reflect a wise and proper presidential choice.

(CONTINUED NEXT PAGE)

94

There are any number of reasons for these ten-
tative, obscure and contradictory aspects of the
policy statements regarding strategic nuclear arms
that any administration puts forward. Beyond the
obvious uncertainties of present technology and the
equally obvious pressures and conflicts within the
administration as a whole and among the various
baronies of Defense, there are the crucial uncer-
tainties as to what the Soviets are up to in their
own arms development and deployment and the
cat-and-mouse requirements of negotiating at SALT.
The trouble is that when you have appeased all
these obligations and taken account of all these
uncertainties both in your planning and your pub-
lic statements, you very likely have created a new
set of apparent threats to the other side, fed the
so-called "mad momentum," further undermined
the stability you claim to seek. It is not necessary
to minimize the dangerous potential of what the
Soviets are doing to observe that our own peculiar
perception of it and our disinclination to perceive
our own actions through their eyes can itself be

an impetus to destabilization. Mr. Nixon, in his
foreign policy message, provided an example of
this perspective at work:

"Deployed in sufficient numbers and armed with
the multiple independently targetable warheads
(MIRV's) of sufficient accuracy, this missile (the
SS-9) could threaten our land-based ICBM forces.
Our MIRV systems by contrast, do not have the
combination of numbers, accuracy and warhead
yield to pose a threat to the Soviet land-based
ICBM force.

The contrast of "by contrast" is more apparent
than real, since Mr. Nixon has put the Soviet threat
in conditional, long-range, speculative terms and
ours in terms of existing forces and present capa-
bility. The fact is that neither of us can at present
do what he warns of and that both of us have forces
that could acquire the threatening characteristics
of which he speaks.

C+5

What the President warns of—albeit solely in
relation to the Soviet Union—is enormously rele-
vant to the strategic arms talks that are reopening
in Vienna today—reopening on a note of pessimism

that is carefully analyzed elsewhere on this page
by Chalmers Roberts. As we understand the Soviet
and American proposals, neither in and of itself
would deal adequately with the prospective and
central impact of the kinds of weaponry Mr. Nixon
forecasts. In the tic-tac-toe-like argument that char-
acterizes public discussion of these issues it is al-
ways possible to find a counter to the merit of
any proposal by any side, and it is always easy
to slide into the assumption that we are talking
not about deterrence but rather about warfare, nu-
clear warfare that is madly presumed to be "man-
ageable"—if we do this, they do that, and so on.
The plain fact is that the horrendous and totally
destabilizing prospect of a high accuracy MIRV
lies at the heart of our nuclear relationship with
the Soviets and that—even if certain methods of
controlling it entirely have become obsolete—any
proposal which cannot be made, by negotiation, to
defuse its awful possibilities over the long run, will
not be much good. Pursuit of this goal at Vienna
(and at home) is, in our view, an essential part of
any strategy of "realistic deterrence."

WASHINGTON POST 15 MARCH 1971

SALT Talks

By Chalmers M. Roberts

Washington Post Staff Writer

TODAY IN VIENNA they will clink the champagne glasses once again and SALT IV will be under way. This round in the strategic arms limitation talks will open in a more somber mood than did any of the previous three, the initial exploratory round at Helsinki beginning Nov. 17, 1969, the first business round at Vienna last spring and summer and last winter's deadlocked round at Helsinki.

Probably today's less optimistic mood was inevitable. It took a good many months for the two delegation chiefs, America's Gerard C. Smith and Russia's Vladimir S. Semyonov, each obviously operating on a short string from the White House and the Kremlin, to get through the wary initial stage and into the cold, hard core of what is at issue on this nuclear threatened globe: how to construct a parity agreement that gives neither superpower an advantage, now or in the foreseeable future, in such life-and-death weaponry.

A great deal of optimism has been expressed in Washington that the long dialogue between Smith and Semyonov and their two groups of associates has enabled each side to learn how the other thinks. There doubtless is merit in this view but, the fact remains — and it is overriding — that as the talks have gone on the suspicions have increased. And they were rather considerable to begin with.

THE official veil of secrecy about details of the talks was pretty well removed in President Nixon's second annual foreign policy report on Feb. 25. There, though four or five pages of the original draft were excised so as not to offend Moscow, the situation that now exists was made quite clear. Its central fact is that the chances for a truly comprehensive nuclear arms agreement have now disappeared. Thus what Mr. Nixon meant when he subsequently said, at his March 4 press conference, that "we will negotiate an agreement that is not comprehensive" was that qualitative control of ICBMs is rated impossible. Qualitative control would have meant outlawing or limiting MIRVs, the multiple warheads which increase the numbers of nuclear tips one side can throw at the other in a single missile by factors of three, six, ten and potentially more.

Control of MIRV failed because the two sides did not sit down at the table when this new development was still in its infancy and because, once the weapon was developed, the technicians said it would be impossible to check on its deployment without the on-site inspection the U.S. demanded and Moscow rejected. Control of MIRVs through a ban on multiple warhead testing fell by the wayside because of a combination of the on-site inspection issue and Soviet reluctance to halt its own development at the point where the U.S. already had MIRVs and indeed was deploying them.

Without MIRV control, what is left? The two major new elements that threaten the stability many perceived in the nuclear arms race over the past decade or so are MIRVs and ABMs, or the rival anti-missile systems. The Soviets have four ABM complexes operational in the Moscow area, Defense Secretary Laird said in his March 9 posture report. The rival American Safeguard system is now under way and Laird has asked for one additional site, either in Wyoming or to protect the Washington area and what are termed "the national command authorities" who run the country.

The United States has already proposed to the Soviet Union that they agree either to outlaw ABMs altogether (the so-called "zero ABM") or limit them to the two national capital areas. But the U.S. proposal was not simply to curb ABMs but to do so as part of a package that also would put a numerical ceiling on rival intercontinental offensive missiles (ICBMs) with a specific sub-ceiling on super sized missiles, the latter being designed to limit the giant Soviet SS-9s. (That sub-ceiling, incidentally, would apply to the extrapolated new Soviet missile Sen. Henry M. Jackson disclosed on March 7 and which Laird has confirmed from satellite sightings of new and different large silo construction.)

The reasoning behind this U.S. proposal is evident from the initial meetings in Helsinki: the Soviets have shown special interest in curbing the Safeguard program, so much so that the idea developed here that it was a fine "bargaining chip" to trade off for control of the SS-9. But Moscow never came up with any numbers it would accept as ceilings on all ICBMs let alone on the SS-9s, to American frustration.

Instead, Semyonov developed the theme he had initially laid down at the beginning of SALT that control of strategic offensive weapons must include all U.S. nuclear weapons capable of reaching Soviet soil. That meant including in any agreement on offensive weapons that are known here as FBSs, forward based systems, the tactical aircraft based in Western Europe and on carriers in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Pacific. In Europe alone the U.S. normally deploys about 600 fighters and attack aircraft. Most tactical aircraft have both nuclear and conventional capabilities.

Inclusion of FBSs has been strongly resisted by the U.S. essentially on the grounds that such aircraft in Europe and the Mediterranean are a counter to Soviet medium and intermediate range missiles targeted on Western Europe and that to curtail them would be to upset the European balance and create major problems with the allies, especially West Germany. The Soviets, of course, know that well enough. For years Moscow has been trying to find devices to split NATO and move West Germany toward a neutralist position politically.

So last December, after fruitless discussions at SALT of the FBS issue, Semyonov said in substance: since we are deadlocked here, why not simply start with an agreement on ABMs alone? He might have added: after all, in asking for SALT in the first place, President Johnson wanted only to curb ABMs and we Soviets insisted on including offensive weapons and you agreed. Now we are back to your position.

Word of this Soviet "ABMs only" proposal leaked out in January and, as Moscow doubt less hoped, produced a considerable amount of backing in the Congress and elsewhere in the U.S. Indeed, Soviet diplomats have been doing some discreet Washington lobbying for the idea.

But the administration was instantly cool to "ABMs only." Mr. Nixon's Feb. 25 foreign policy report said an agreement "should" include offensive missiles. At his March 4 press conference the President hardened this by saying that "we reject that proposal" and that any agreement "must include offensive as well as defensive weapons, some mix."

Just how much leeway the term "mix" leaves negotiator Smith at Vienna is locked up in his top secret instructions from the President. Every indication is that Mr. Nixon's definition of "mix" includes some form of limitation on SS-9s. What Laird had to say in his March 9 posture statement about the numbers of SS-9s, their potentially increased accuracy and their initial multiple

95

warheads plus what he and others have said about the new mystery missile silos would seem to confirm that view of "mix." Furthermore, the Nixon foreign policy report, chiefly the product of Henry A. Kissinger, states that "the number of Soviet strategic forces now exceeds the level needed for deterrence" and that "these forces include systems—particularly the SS-9 ICBM with large multiple warheads—which, if further improved and deployed in sufficient numbers could be uniquely suitable for a first strike against our land-based deterrent forces."

That last sentence brings us to the problem of mutual suspicions, first from the U.S. side and then from the Soviet side.

In his foreign policy paper the President declared that "ideology continues to shape many aspects of Soviet policy. It dictates an attitude of constant pressure toward the outside world . . . In certain fundamental aspects the Soviet outlook on world affairs is incompatible with a stable international system." These statements are not disputed by most serious students of world affairs, indeed they are subscribed to by many who nonetheless believe Mr. Nixon is too rigid about SALT and other issues.

But the President went further when he referred to Soviet weaponry development and its potential use. While he spoke of first strike potential, the language of many in the Pentagon both military and civilian, he also emphasized the political potential, viz: "The growth of Soviet power in the last several years could tempt Soviet leaders into bolder challenges. It could lead them to underestimate the risks of certain policies." Mr. Nixon went on to take up a favorite Kissinger theme. "Confrontation may arise from a mistaken perception of the posture of an adversary," i.e., the Kremlin may think the White House is engaged in a world-wide retreat (the Nixon Doctrine as it originally emerged). "Such a mistake can lead to a failure to appreciate the risks and consequences of probing for advantage or testing the limits of toleration." The Middle East and Cuba, in recent months, were cited as examples.

On the Soviet side there are less clear statements but the mirror image remains evident. Articles and speeches appear contending American "imperialists" are thinking of launching new "aggressive wars" on top of the one in Indochina and are warned they will be "totally rebuffed" if they try any such thing.

When Soviet weapons development is directly related to the SALT talks, Presidential thinking becomes clearer. Discussing SALT in his report, Mr. Nixon said: "Given the available resources, neither of us will concede a significant strategic advantage to the other. Yet the temptation to attempt to achieve such advantage is ever present, and modern technology makes such an attempt feasible." Here the implication is that Moscow alone would do so. But in Moscow they can read Laird's recent remarks about negotiating "from a position of strength," a phrase from the days of John Foster Dulles when Nikita Khrushchev, (as Khrushchev later admitted) had to be very wary of the prevailing and undoubtedly massive American nuclear superiority. Nor does Moscow miss the coincidence of Sen. Jackson's leak about their new missile silo work with appropriation time in Congress, as pointed out last week by Sen. Stuart Symington.

Jackson was asked on the same TV program whether he really believed Moscow was thinking of a first strike against the U.S. His response was in line with the Nixon view; the senator said: "When you look at these huge weapons systems, you have to ask what can they be used for other than a first strike?" He added he was reasonably sure that Soviet "use of this new huge buildup will come not in the form of a first strike" on the U.S. "but to use this growing power to take greater and greater international political risks in the 1970s." In short political blackmail, as the Nixon Administration sees it in some future crises with "probing for advantage or testing the limits of toleration" as a steady process. On this, too, there is rather wide general agreement among Soviet specialists in and out of government.

It is against this backdrop of Nixon thinking that one must view the President's rejection of an ABMs only agreement and his insistence that any SALT pact must control ICBMs, particularly SS-9s, in "some mix."

And it is because of the deadlock that the rival Soviet and American approaches now have produced that the omens for SALT IV are not favorable.

Still, it is a fact that the Soviet Communist Party formally adopted, in 1963 after the Cuban missile crisis, the Khrushchevian logic that "the atomic bomb does not adhere to the class principle—it destroys everybody within range of its devastating force." Brezhnev, Kosygin & Co. have not repealed that aphorism. On nuclear issues they have rattled rockets far less than did Khrushchev when he had far fewer; instead they have concentrated on building to the parity they now have and exploiting it politically. Inside the Soviet structure there is fierce competition for slices of the economic pie, just as here, with the military resisting, just as here, hold-downs on nuclear weaponry.

Ideology and power politics separate the two giant states, suspicions remain and at times intensity. Still there is the appeal in both Washington and Moscow in the self-interest of arms limitation both for economic reasons and because of the fear of a further spiraling of the arms race leading to doomsday.

As of today SALT has made that horrendous prospect even clearer to both sides but it has yet to lead the men in either the Kremlin or the White House to find a precise way to halt the arms race. To do so requires risk taking beyond the apparent willingness of either leadership.

95

NEW YORK TIMES

16 MARCH 1971

Back to the SALT Mines

Resumption of the strategic arms limitation talks (SALT) in Vienna finds both the Soviet and American delegates dug into rigid positions on non-essential issues. The deadlock that emerged after 55 sessions could well frustrate any chance of meaningful agreement unless both sides face up to the illogic of their respective stands.

What is essential to an agreement is that it help to maintain the stability of mutual deterrence, the certainty on both sides that any attempt to launch a first strike against the other would bring unacceptable retaliation. Short of a first-strike capability, numerical advantages in the forces—which now are close to parity, but many times larger than deterrence requires—are of little military importance and only add to overkill.

Limitations in a SALT agreement other than those constraining first-strike capability may be desirable for economic or other reasons. But they are not essential to the security of either side. Yet these are precisely the kind of limitations, sought both by Moscow and Washington, that now are endangering the success of the SALT talks.

The American tactical fighter-bombers in Europe that Moscow wants to count in any numerical limitation of strategic offensive delivery systems do not have a significant first-strike capability. Their targets would be warned long before arrival. In a second-strike retaliatory role, they might reach the Soviet Union. But they could only inflict marginal damage on top of that already done by missiles. Some flexibility on both sides, as a result, should make it possible to resolve this relatively minor issue, which is more political and psychological than military.

Similarly, there is little logic in American rejection of the Soviet proposal that an initial SALT agreement be restricted to defensive antiballistic missile (ABM) systems. American insistence on linking to ABM limitations a numerical ceiling on offensive missiles, including a sub-ceiling on the large Soviet SS-9 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), can accomplish little.

The first-strike threat to the 1,000 silo-based American Minuteman ICBMs that the Pentagon envisages does not stem from SS-9 numbers, which remain less than 300. The Minuteman force can be expanded more rapidly and cheaply than the SS-9 force. The threat the Pentagon sees stems from the MIRV multiple warheads the SS-9 might carry: 420 SS-9s equipped with three MIRV warheads each would endanger the bulk of the Minuteman force it is argued. But limiting the Soviet Union to 250 SS-9s without restricting MIRV, as the U.S. proposes, would accomplish little. The Soviet Union could install six-warhead MIRVs on its SS-9s a bit later.

An effort to stop the Soviet MIRV—by offering to give up the American MIRV—would be the single most important move that could be made to halt the nuclear arms race. But President Nixon has refused to pay this price, siding with the Penatgon on this issue against the State Department, the C.I.A., his prestigious General Advisory Committee and a 72-6 vote of the Senate.

Unless Mr. Nixon is prepared to propose a realistic MIRV ban, it runs counter to the deepest security interests of the United States to delay exploration of an ABM agreement by linking it to valueless limitations on offensive missiles. If agreement can be reached to limit deployment of ABM radars and interceptors to present levels—or, better still, to ban them completely—there will be no need for MIRV warheads or any other expansion of offensive missiles on either side. Chances for a subsequent agreement limiting, then reducing, offensive missiles would be enhanced.

97

CHRISTIAN, SCI. MON.

18 MARCH 1971

Last clear chance?

By Joseph C. Harsch
Washington

The talks aimed at putting a lid on the race in nuclear weapons began in Helsinki on Nov. 17 of 1969. Prospects for something useful coming out of them seemed reasonably bright.

At that time neither the United States nor the Soviet Union had yet deployed any effective ABM (antiballistic missile) system. And neither party had yet perfected a workable MIRV (multiple, independently targetable, reentry vehicle).

Fourth round

And at that time both Washington and Moscow were feeling the horrific weight on their respective budgets of the costs of these types of weapons systems.

The fourth round of these talks is now under way in Vienna.

The prospects of something useful are visibly less now than they were a year and a half ago in Vienna.

The basic trouble is not new, but the difficulty of resolving it seems to be greater than was appreciated at that time.

The basic trouble is over how to equate "oranges and apples" — namely the differences between Russian and American weapons systems.

The American system is far ahead in MIRVs. They are being fitted now to the existing Minuteman missiles. Each time the new MIRV warhead is put on top of an existing missile its capacity is multiplied by three or more times. The old warhead is a single shot. The new MIRV warhead has three or more shots in it. And each one can be aimed at a separate target. Thus the American capacity to hit targets in Russia is right now mounting fast. And while the Russians have a few more of the big ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) in their underground silos in Russia than does the United States, the Russians do not have as yet a deployable MIRV.

American advantages

So right now, the United States is moving well ahead in the race in terms of numbers of targets in Russia at which American missiles are aimed.

To this advantage of being ahead in MIRVs is also the fact that the United States still has manned bombers capable of delivering nuclear weapons on targets in Russia. But Russia has no manned planes capable of operating as a strategic nuclear weapons system. The Russians didn't bother to keep up in the manned long-range bomber department.

Incidentally, these American advantages are always glossed over in official U.S. documents. The emphasis is put on the number of ICBM missiles in which the Russians have a slight numerical advantage.

The Russians, however, have an advantage in tonnage. Their ICBMs are larger, and mount a heavier warhead. And at one time they did begin to deploy an even larger weapon, the SS-9. Much was made here at the time of theory that the power of the SS-9 was so great that enough of them could constitute a "first-strike" weapon; namely the capacity to deprive the United States of a "second-strike" — hence a decisive advantage.

So, how does one balance off Russia's advantage in tonnage against the American advantage in warhead numbers?

And how does one measure against each other the present American lead in MIRV and ABM quality whatever new weapon the Russians may now be deploying? They are digging some new holes in the ground which could be for a second generation of the SS-9

Had the SALT talks begun when originally scheduled back in 1968, it is quite possible that a lid could have been put on the nuclear arms race. At that time neither side had any ABMs or MIRVs. But the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia in August of 1968 set back the SALT timetable. Mr. Nixon did not feel that he could go to the negotiating table with the Russians until the invasion receded into history.

In the meantime Washington got a "breakthrough" in MIRV technology. And Mr. Nixon was persuaded that the SS-9 threat required the ABM answer. Later, they stopped putting out SS-9's.

So the chance to put the lid on below the ABM-MIRV level is already gone. The only task left is to try to put the lid on at the higher level.

And the urge to get somewhere seems to have weakened in both Washington and Moscow. The victory of the weaponsmakers over the diplomats may not be decisive quite yet, but they certainly seem to have the advantage at the White House right now.

THE NEW REPUBLIC - 20 MAY 1971 (17)

Senator Jackson's Latest Alarm

Wolf at the Pentagon Door

by Ronald L. Tammen

Responsibility for national defense rests, of course, as much with Congress as with the military establishment. Congress, however, has not only neglected its responsibilities but has misused its power to review military programs. Not many years ago, certain weapons systems came out of Congress with more funds than DoD had optimistically requested. One is even tempted to say, more than they knew what to do with, but that would contradict a rule of bureaucracies. Perhaps lulled by congressional laxity, the public comfortably accepted the direction and size of the military establishment. In part, this acceptance can be attributed to a decline in keen investigative reporting. In part, it was a by-product of our confidence in American technology.

The Department of Defense is the largest single-unit bureaucracy in the world and, as with any bureaucracy, it responds to criticism in kind, engages in extreme forms of self-protection, expands whenever possible, generates work without authorization, and erects a protective wall around itself. With changes in Administration coming rather frequently, there is little on-going control over the bureaucracy; it bends but never breaks. Built-in bureaucratic inertia so regulates routine business that inefficiency becomes routine. Only in time of crisis can the organization shake loose. This tendency to respond effectively only in emergencies has led to an uneven weapon acquisition process. The Pentagon has done what comes natural; it tried to fill in the lows—the times when foreign threats did not seem alarming—in order to sustain a high level of weapon acquisition.

To borrow the basic concept of the free enterprise system, the Pentagon needs stimulation to work effectively. It needs competition with end-goals. But external competition, i.e. the international threat, is precisely what has been absent for most of the past decade. In a very real sense, the Pentagon has been too effective, and as a consequence has been forced to develop new methods for wringing the money it wants out of the Executive and the Congress.

Throughout the 1950s and most of the 1960s, the United States enjoyed unparalleled strategic superiority. Granted, Sputnik and the "missile gap" threw scares into the public and the military alike, yet in strict statistical measures, there was no real strategic threat to this country. This presented Defense planners with a distressing dilemma. How do you request more funds to augment an already overpowering military force? Several techniques were found. First, exaggerate the threat. This was not necessarily a deliberate decision. In certain cases, prolonged exposure to the military environment produced a particular mentality which generated perceptions of potential threats in larger-than-life forms. Mirror imaging and face value acceptance of some Soviet statements also contributed to this exaggeration. In addition, it is the normal inclination of defense planners to guard against all possible threats, even when unsubstantiated, and this encouraged a conservative analytical approach as represented by the "greater-than-expected" technique of assessing enemy capabilities.

On the other hand, occasionally this exaggeration was deliberate. A little inter-Service rivalry can go a long way toward producing a specific threat evaluation to fit a desired level of funding. For years, the Air Force held out against the Army, Navy, CIA and NSA over the question of the number of Soviet long-range

bombers. They used the technique of taking a footnote to the National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) on USSR strategic capabilities and intentions. In public and private discussions, the Air Force would cite their larger Service footnotes, instead of the consensus of the other intelligence agencies. This in turn provided the basis for Air Force requests for advanced air defense systems like SAGE, Nike-Hercules and now AWACS, as well as for new strategic bombers.

With the end of the 1960s, and the realization that the Soviet Union was approaching parity with the US in terms of strategic missile launchers, the competitive spirit was rekindled at the international level. However, a new problem faced the Pentagon—credibility. It hasn't solved it. After repeated cries of "wolf," traditional calls to arms are failing to evoke immediate congressional panic. For years, just prior to the military authorization and appropriations votes, lead stories appeared in newspapers warning of impending and aggressive Soviet military moves. The SS-9 scare emerged in time for the ABM authorization debate of 1970. The rumor of a Soviet submarine base in Cuba coincided with the 1970 appropriations bill, and now Senator Henry Jackson (D, Wash.) has aired his version of new "ominous developments." According to this Presidential aspirant, the Soviets have started deploying a large follow-on to the SS-9 ICBM, a fact that should "shock" us. As in previous leaks of this kind, his story is built upon sketchy information. Neither the Pentagon nor the Administration has echoed Jackson's alarm. The Soviets apparently have begun construction of some type of new or modified silos, but this alone does not support the assertion that the USSR is initiating a "huge build-up." The tone and timing of Jackson's statement are strikingly similar to John F. Kennedy's illusory missile-gap of 1960. These Soviet missile activities are subject to many different interpretations. It will be some time before intelligence analysts reach any firm conclusions. Focusing on the worst possible interpretation, exaggerating and even distorting facts, serves only to foster hysteria. The seriousness of the problem demands the highest responsibility. In the long run, this selective release of classified material to reinforce budgetary requests or to enhance political reputations will undermine public confidence in the Pentagon and in Congress.

What, then, are the lessons that Congress and DoD can learn from recent experience? First, if meaningful agreements are reached at SALT, we must beware that internal competition is not again substituted for the foreign threat and defense spending retained at inflated levels. Second, DoD must start playing it straight with Congress by explaining just how foreign threats are computed. And third, the Office of the Secretary of Defense must not be afraid to make hard allocative decisions, even though they may adversely affect one of the three Services. We can no longer afford to feed the Army, Navy and Air Force at $20 billion each a year. Someone has to, in Pentagonese, bite the bullet. And when that happens, it is quite possible that the Air Force will be the branch that feels the pain. Gradually, liberals and conservatives alike are reaching toward some sort of tacit understanding that the nation's deterrent is most effective when moved to sea. If Congress and the Executive continue to move in this direction, then the previous interbelline Service, battles will seem diminutive by comparison. It is not hard to forecast a real showdown between the Navy and Air Force over the spoils of strategic systems.

RONALD L. TAMMEN is a consultant on military spending to a group of 25 United States senators and representatives.

101

WASHINGTON POST 3/23/71

Strengthen Deterrence

# Total Ban on ABM Is Real Solution

By Henry Owen

IN RECENT public discussion of the resumed SALT talks, one key point has been slighted: In his foreign policy message, the President reported that we have made proposals to the Soviets "for either limitation or total ban of ABM." If you read this quickly, it sounds as though it were one proposal; in fact, there is a world of difference between banning and limiting ABMs. The pros and cons of each should now be talked out.

These pros and cons reflect the fact that there are two different reasons for deploying ABMs: to defend land-based missiles, and to defend cities. An effective ABM defense of land-based missiles should be stabilizing, as Professor Schelling points out in a recent issue of the Saturday Review, since it would reduce fears that either side's land-based ICBMs could be struck down in a surprise attack. ABM defense of cities, on the other hand, should be destabilizing, since it would threaten the effectiveness of each side's retaliatory capability. So the right solution, in theory, would be to negotiate an agreement which would allow ABM defense of missiles but forbid ABM defense of cities.

The trouble with this solution is that no one has yet found out how to devise an ABM defense of missiles which could not be converted (or which the other side might not believe could be converted) into a defense of cities. This is particularly true of the Soviet Union, since Soviet offensive missiles are so widely spread about Russia that ABMs deployed in their defense would seem to foreshadow an area defense of cities.

THE SUREST way to lift this shadow is by banning ABMs altogether. This is an exciting notion; it is surprising that its mention in the President's message hasn't aroused more comment. It would transform the strategic scene, by wholly setting to one side a weapon whose deployment could threaten mutual deterrence: Each side could, without any further buildup of offensive weapons, be sure of its—and of its enemy's—ability to mount effective retaliatory action. This would strengthen stable deterrence.

A total ban on ABMs will, however, be hard to achieve. The Soviets already have an ABM defense of Moscow, and may be reluctant to dismantle it. The United States might have trouble accepting this limited Soviet ABM system, unless a limited American ABM system were allowed in return. Which is why the notion of an agreement which would permit limited ABM deployment—in defense of national capitals—has gained some currency.

Deploying ABMs to protect Moscow and Washington would be a lot better than spraying them about more widely, but it would still raise problems: It might be difficult, unless the Moscow system were frozen in its present rudimentary state and the Washington system were equally crude, for military leaders on one side to be sure that the radar and other equipment associated with these ABM defenses on the other side was not the precursor of wider systems. Each side might thus fear that the other would suddenly expand its limited ABM defense—as Germany expanded the 100,000-man Reichswehr in 1935.

Nor is it clear that an ABM defense limited to capitals would do much to enhance U.S. security. It would provide a defense of Washington against Chinese or accidental attack, but it would not assure that defense against Soviet massive attack, which is the more serious threat. All of which makes a total ban on ABMs look a lot better than a partial limit.

A total ABM ban would have one disadvantage, however; it would leave each side fearful that its land-based ICBMs could be hit in a surprise attack. So long as each side wanted to re-insure itself by retaining land-based missiles, this fear could have serious destabilizing effects. This is why the United States has proposed linking an ABM agreement to a limit on offensive missiles, particularly the large Soviet SS-9s, which could threaten ICBMs. This would not indefinitely assure the ICBMs' invulnerability; when the Soviets put MIRVs (multiple warheads) on their SS-9s, our ICBMs would be in jeopardy. But the Soviets will need time to develop and deploy MIRVs; so an initial agreement which limited SS-9s would buy us time in which to negotiate a second agreement, which could further curtail offensive weapons—for example, by drastically reducing or phasing out both sides' vulnerable land-based ICBMs. Alternatively, we could try to meet the problem posed by the potential vulnerability of unprotected land-based ICBMs by seeking to choke off MIRV deployment, if it is not already too late now to prevent this, or by spending large sums trying to harden ICBM sites.

BUT THE main point is this: There are ways of dealing with the problem of ICBM vulnerability which a total ABM ban would create, particularly if that ban can be linked to a follow-on agreement to limit offensive weapons. One way to create this link would be to negotiate an ABM ban and to make its life expectancy clearly and explicitly dependent on early negotiation of a satisfactory agreement regarding offensive weapons. Nailing down this link in an initial ABM agreement is more important than merely limiting SS-9s; indeed, if the link between an ABM ban and a later agreement on offensive weapons is clearly established, it becomes less necessary to limit SS-9s in the initial agreement.

The key thing is to be clear about our goal. Having failed to choke off MIRVs, our best chance of stable deterrence lies in getting a total—not partial—ban on ABMs. Tactical negotiating decisions along the way should be keyed to both to getting such a ban and to ensuring that it is followed by a substantial curtailment of offensive weapons, which will make it last.

103

March 25, 1971

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE

104

For many years, I have taken part in the efforts to bring the arms race under control. For several years, I served as chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Disarmament and Arms Control. During that period, I introduced and cosponsored resolutions in the Senate which led to the Limited Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty; as Vice President of the United States, I worked for the acceptance of the Non-Proliferation Treaty; and as Vice President I signed Protocol II of the Treaty for the Latin American Nuclear Free Zone. And I have long supported the initiation and holding of these important strategic arms limitation talks.

During the past 2 years, while absent from public life, I had a further chance to study these problems, as student and teacher, and watched with approval the courageous efforts by Members of the Senate to free us all from the tyranny of the nuclear arms race. Now the effort here, in the Congress, must be renewed, and I intend to contribute as best I can to help insure that it is not in vain.

As I speak today, the arms race is continuing, despite the SALT talks and our hopes for their success.

When these talks did finally begin in November 1969, they promised to be an incentive for restraint on the part of the two superpowers.

But they became instead an excuse for each side to pile up arms and more arms—each justifying its action on the claim that it was strengthening its bargaining position; in other words, each country giving itself a new bargaining chip.

The arms race goes on, oblivious of the negotiators, of the hard demands of peace, and of the welfare of this Nation. While we continue to stockpile weapons, we are diverting valuable funds from the basic needs of our own country. It is our own people who are caught in the arms race and now we must ask ourselves what price we are paying for the catchall of sufficient security, as defined by this administration.

By conservative estimates, the total cost of Minuteman III—our most advanced ICBM—alone will be about $5.6 billion dollars, and another $5.1 billion at current prices for the Poseidon missile for our nuclear submarines. Estimates for our Safeguard program depend on what plan the administration follows. We could spend from roughly $12 billion for 12 sites to $200 billion for total ABM deployment. In welfare terms, the cost is phenomenal both in actual fiscal expenditures and human resources.

Then we must ask ourselves if these weapons would give us more security even if we were to buy them all. It is my view that they do not.

We did not enter the SALT talks with any doubts about the continued hostility of the Soviet Union toward us. Instead, we entered them with knowledge of the greater risks if we failed to act, and from awareness of two hard facts:

First, there was nothing that either the Russians or ourselves could do to the other, including a full-scale surprise attack, that would prevent the nation being attacked from causing the sure destruction of the attacker in return—

destruction of his industry, his cities, his population, and his society itself. No matter how it might begin, a nuclear war between our two countries would be mutual suicide. There can be no victory for anyone—only the defeat of the whole human race.

Second, both the United States and the Soviet Union had crossed the threshold of another round of the arms race. We had hoped that this could be avoided. But even if talks on arms reductions have been under way, a whole new dimension of weapons is now in the process of being constructed and deployed. If unchecked, it would cost vast sums of money; it would be more deadly than we have ever known before; and it would be less stable than the situation we know today.

These facts should have impelled both the United States and the Soviet Union to seek an end to nuclear competition.

Today, I would like to report with some assurance that this new round of the SALT talks, or one in the near future, will bring the arms race under control.

Unfortunately, I cannot do so, because of the difficulties that continue to surround the whole subject of limiting arms.

Mr. President, I am therefore submitting today a resolution which I send to the desk. It reads:

### RESOLUTION RELATING TO ARMAMENTS LIMITATIONS

Whereas the Governments of the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics have both expressed a willingness to deescalate the arms race by entering into the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) to consider the control of strategic weapons;

Whereas the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has recently shown an interest in negotiating agreed limitations on anti-ballistic missile defense systems and has slowed its deployment of ICBM's;

Whereas the United States has previously offered to negotiate a complete ban on or limitation of anti-ballistic missiles;

Whereas there is a strategic, political, and economic interrelationship between anti-ballistic missiles and multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles (MIRVs); and whereas the regulation of both of these weapons systems could contribute to a halt in the arms race;

Whereas an agreement limiting ABM deployment would contribute to the negotiation of limitations on offensive strategic systems because it would reduce the need for new offensive weapons to maintain the deterrent;

Now therefore, be it Resolved, That as the first step toward achieving a more comprehensive agreement on both defensive and offensive weapons, the Senate request the President to propose at the negotiations with the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics for the purpose of entering into an agreement—

SEC. 1: 1. to ban or limit to a very low level the deployment of anti-ballistic missile systems by the Government of the United States and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics;

2. to bind those Governments to conduct further negotiations to achieve a limitation on offensive strategic weapons;

The Senate also calls upon the President

SEC. 2: 1. to propose that the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics enter into a mutual freeze on the testing of multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles and on the deployment of both offensive and defensive nuclear weapons, including anti-ballistic missiles and multiple

SENATE RESOLUTION 87—SUBMISSION OF A RESOLUTION RELATING TO ARMAMENTS LIMITATIONS

A CHANCE TO HALT THE ARMS RACE NOW

Mr. HUMPHREY. Mr. President, I rise to address the Senate on a subject of great importance; namely, national security.

The United States and the Soviet Union have resumed meetings in Vienna—a city where peace has been made, or broken, on many occasions in the past. We are meeting to continue the strategic arms limitation talks, designed to arrest the terrifying race in nuclear arms before it can reach a new and even more dangerous level.

Several of my colleagues—most recently the distinguished Senator from Illinois (Mr. PERCY)—have vocalized their concern and introduced proposals to facilitate negotiations in an attempt to reach a satisfactory arms control agreement with the Soviet Union.

I would like to contribute constructively to this discussion and submit a resolution in that regard, intended to serve as a guideline to the administration.

At stake in these negotiations is the power of man to control his own fate—by placing firm limits on weapons that could lead to his self-destruction.

No other issue more meaningfully affects our chances for a peaceful world, and indeed for the survival of mankind. No other issue more deserves our attention here in the U.S. Senate, as the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, once again raise our hopes and fears about the nuclear arms race and its end.

8016

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE

March 25, 1971

105

independently targeted re-entry vehicles, for the duration of these negotiations with the understanding that the continued observance of the freeze requires comparable self-scrantain by both parties.

to inform the Congress fully and completely of all developments in the arms race which could affect the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), and to consult regularly with the Senate on those developments.

Mr. President, first, we in the United States are handicapped by the unwillingness of the Soviet Union so far to make definite declarations of restraint concerning its own nuclear weapons programs.

As ever, the Russians remain silent about what they intend to do. At the SALT talks they have not been forthcoming on the U.S. proposal for a comprehensive agreement—an agreement covering both offensive and defensive nuclear arms.

Second, the Soviet Union appears to be resuming the deployment of land-based missiles, after a period of suspension lasting several months. This merely refuels the fires of suspicion and tension. We have heard a great deal in our press and through the media about this lately.

We are not yet sure what these new deployments entail, but it does appear that our hopes for a continuing moratorium on Soviet land-based missile deployments has not been realized.

At the same time, however, these difficulties must be set against two positive developments of the past few months.

The Soviet Union has not resumedalk—and I repeat, has not resumedalk—on a number of missile sites already under construction. These include the giant SS-9's.

In addition, the Russians have now shown a willingness to negotiate an agreement to limit antiballistic missile defenses. This, too, may indicate Soviet interest in finding a new way to regulate the nuclear relations between our two countries.

I believe that these two developments could be more important than other Soviet behavior and therefore, respectfully urge that the administration probe more deeply into them.

Regrettably, it appears that this administration has, instead, concentrated on inconclusive evidence that the Russians are continuing and expanding their nuclear missile program. Thus we become prisoners of our own fears, and fail to give due recognition to the possibilities that may be before us.

Surely we ought to have been seriously exploring and asking:

Why they suspended their deployment programs of the SS-9. Were they demonstrating restraint? Or were they merely pausing, before new efforts to increase the power and effectiveness of their land-based arsenal? We may never know. We made it difficult to test Russian motives because of our own stepped-up deployment program.

But we did not need to know what Soviet motives were. We could have responded with our own acts of restraint. And our risks would have been minimal compared to the gains we might have achieved.

In talking about arms control we must be prepared to take what I call minimal, prudent risks for peace, to try to slow down the arms race. This is the best way I know to promote both our national security and world peace.

As I said, we did not need to know what Soviet motives were. We could have responded with our own acts of restraint. There is precedent for this assertion. Both Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy took unilateral action to stop our own nuclear testing; both acted in anticipation of a commensurate response from the Soviet Union and both were willing to accept less at the time than a complete test ban.

This is why we call it the limited nuclear test ban treaty. We can still exercise restraint today in ways that were long urged on the administration before the Russians launched their land-based missile program—if that is indeed what they are doing—and as yet we have no positive evidence that they are resuming this program.

We must not be panicked by recent Soviet moves, or headlines about them into believing that all chances for ending the arms race are dead. They are not; they have become even more imperative; and they require even more restraint on both sides.

Restraint should begin with the weapons that raise the most serious problems of immediate concern for the stability of the arms balance: The Soviet and our anti-ballistic-missile system, Soviet offensive missiles, and multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles—MIRV—both ours and theirs.

Our Safeguard system is presently deployed at three sites—and, if the administration has its way, it will be deployed at a fourth site, either in Wyoming or right here around Washington. So far this ABM is designed primarily to afford some protection for our land-based missile and bomber forces against a successful first-strike by the Soviet Union.

But this purpose has always been suspect: Few scientists really believe that Safeguard could thwart the attack of a determined aggressor. In any event, we have alternatives to Minuteman in order to deter a Soviet attack. Those alternatives include our bomber fleet and nuclear submarines with Polaris and Poseidon missiles. Come what may, we know and they know we can retaliate against any attack, at any time, from any quarter—with total devastating effect.

The arguments for Safeguard were always weak. Despite reported recent developments, they remain weak.

During a period of several months, the Soviet Union halted programs which, had they continued such programs unabated for long enough, and without any action by us, could have posed the threat of a disarming first-strike against Minuteman. According to Department of Defense figures in the posture statement, for 1971, the Soviet SS-9 program has leveled off at fewer than 300 missiles. Yet in order to launch an all-out first-strike against Minuteman, the Soviet Union would need at least 420 SS-9's, each armed with a MIRV system capable of bringing three separate targets un-

der attack in order to implement this strategy. They do not have this MIRV system at this time, Mr. President.

I am aware, of course, that the Soviet Union could try to achieve this same purpose—the ability to launch a disarming attack against Minuteman—without increasing the total number of its SS-9's. It could install an advanced system of highly accurate MIRV's. Each would have to carry at least six separate warheads.

Today, we know that the Soviet Union has tested a simple, unguided, multiple warhead that could fire three warheads like a shotgun. The Russians may also have begun testing a rudimentary MIRV, capable of taking three separate targets under attack at one time. But they have clearly not finished the test program that would be necessary to develop their MIRV into a system capable of successfully attacking Minuteman Missiles in their hardened silos. Even more, there is no evidence that they have begun a test program for a MIRV with six warheads, despite all the suppositions and scare talk that appears from time to time.

Before the Russians could possibly deploy a system of offensive weapons capable of threatening our Minuteman force, they would have to make considerable strides, in their missile programs—particularly in the development of their MIRV.

Do the Russians intend to build a first-strike capability sufficient to destroy our Minuteman force?

I believe that this possibility is too fanciful to merit our serious concern.

It ignores the political developments of a decade in our relations with the Soviet Union.

It ignores the certainty that the Russians would face a continued, all-out nuclear arms race with us—a race they could not win. We would never stand idly by and permit that.

But most important, the case for believing in a Soviet first-strike capability against Minuteman ignores totally the existence of our powerful Polaris submarine force.

Today that force on its own—and without MIRV—is capable of utterly destroying the Soviet Union, if this brings any comfort to anyone. I sometimes wonder about how mad we are. We talk about total destruction as if it were a game.

Indeed, if there were ever a real threat to our Nation that required the deployment of Poseidon submarines, one single Poseidon equipped submarine would be able to destroy a significant portion of the Soviet Union—one Poseidon could destroy 160 different cities.

We must understand one thing: we cannot continue to assert, without convincing evidence, that the Soviet Union is bent upon the destruction of our land-based missiles; and we must not undertake programs based upon that assertion. If we do, we stand to forfeit the possibility that the arms race itself can be brought to an end. Overinsurance, and the hysteria which breeds it, may only help to bring into being the very offensive threat that is the object of the Safeguard defense.

8018

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE

March 25, 1971

107

Mr. President, for many years the arms race has continued unabated because each of us, the United States and the Soviet Union, has insisted on a double standard. We in this country have er- ucted that we would never start a nuclear war—and I am sure we will not—and we know this to be true. This, in our minds, has justified our having a superiority or sufficiency of nuclear firepower.

At the same time, the Russians argued and acted on the basis of Communist doc- trine that the capitalist West would start the last great war. In other words, the Soviets have rationalized and justified their nuclear arsenal on the basis of their defense.

We may reject their doctrine, but we must not fail to understand the result of this parallel process of belief: each of us continues to rush ahead in the arms race, convinced that the other is the real villain.

Neither of us can any longer indulge ourselves in this practice of placing all the blame for the nuclear arms race on the other.

We in the United States, therefore, cannot argue that our MIRV's are weapons for peace, and theirs are weapons for war. Nor can they. We must realize that we are trapped together in this mad circle of escalation, and must work to- gether to break out of it.

Of course, it is widely argued that it is too late to head off a competition in these MIRV warheads.

We are told that yet another genie is out of the bottle, and that the Soviet Union will inevitably respond, and may be doing so now, to our MIRV de- mคลน, with new nuclear deployments of their own—one day including MIRV's.

For those of us who long ago urged the postponement of our MIRV program for this very reason—and who now watch new Soviet activity in land-based mis- siles—it is cold comfort to be told now that we were right.

I do not believe that it is too late to act.

Perhaps the Russians will undertake a full program to test MIRV's, and deploy them in significant numbers.

Perhaps.

But we will never know whether they can be convinced not to deploy MIRV's—and possibly a new ABM system, as well if we rush ahead with our own MIRV program. In despair, we would make our

There is one further reason for sus-
pending deployment of our MIRV's at
this time. Part of the nuclear equation
is closely related to the total number
of nuclear warheads and firepower on
each side.

The President has dealt with this issue
in defining his concept of nuclear suf-
ficiency. According to this concept, we
must have enough power to prevent our
being blackmailed by the Soviet Union.
Therefore, as the President has said:

Our strategic power (must) not be inferior
to that of any other state.

I heartily concur.

for that reason, we must be watchful
ignoring any new activity in the Soviet
strategic nuclear missile programs.

But I also recognize that the Russians
claim this prerogative and would resist

the right of a foreign power to exercise
nuclear blackmail over them. They, too,
must be concerned with the number of
our warheads—as it increases radically
with our deployment of MIRV.

This is why over the years both sides
have come to accept that neither must be
allowed to become so superior to the
other as to make it vulnerable to politi-
cal blackmail.

President Nixon endorsed this concept
in his press conference on March 4.

And as long ago as March 7, 1970, the
Soviet Union endorsed parity—and
claimed it for itself—in an article which
appeared in Pravada, the most authori-
tative public source of Soviet thinking:

The military strategic balance of forces
existing in the world makes quite unrealistic
any of the West's militant circles' cal-
culations about the possibility of winning in
the event of a thermonuclear war, and
judging from everything, a new spiral in the
arms race could not change the essence of
this balance.

And it noted even further that:

At the basis of the Soviet approach to
the problem of restricting strategic arms
there is no desire to receive any additional
unilateral advantages for itself in the sphere
of safeguarding just its security alone.

I do not suggest that we in the United
States should permit the Soviet Union
to be roughly equal with us in nuclear
power out of any abstract notions of nu-
clear justice.

Quite the contrary: We must accept
this kind of equality as the only basis
for stability, and the point at which
arms control can begin.

We are dealing with a psychological
concept—that each nation feels equal,
and can permit a lowering of political
tensions, whatever may be the true
facts of the case. Indeed, the Russians
claimed equality with us—and endorsed
an end to the arms race—at a time when
they were markedly and demonstrably
inferior to us in every form of nuclear
power except land-based missiles.

But if the Russians can be comfortable with that situation, and can urge that the competition come to an end, then it would be foolish for us to make their inferiority even more apparent, and force them to take a new hard look at their position relative to us.

These questions of restraint on ABM
and MIRV are doubly important at this
very moment. At the end of this month,
the 24th Congress of the Soviet Com-
munist Party will be convened.

High on the agenda will be the issue
of East-West relations.

Efforts will be made by the Soviet military leaders to portray the United States as an aggressive power, bent on the destruction of the Soviet Union. We will present them with a set of most persuasive arguments if they can demonstrate that we are continuing the arms race at a faster rate than they are.

The Soviet Union is clearly not a
pluralistic society in the sense that we
know pluralism.

I might suggest, Mr. President, that
the Russians have some tough, hardline
militarists in their Government.

But there are people in the Soviet
society and Government who are con-

cerned about both the risks and costs of
the arms race, just as we are.

There are strong incentives for the
Soviet Union, as well as for the United
States, to change its priorities away from
an arms race that costs them far more
relative to the rest of the economy than
it does us.

We can help make that possible, by not
undermining those people in the Soviet
Union who share our objective of slowing
down the arms race.

I suggest that we try to appeal to the
men of reason.

By suspending the deployment of our
MIRV's, coupled with an offer to freeze
our ABM position, we could strengthen
our hand at the SALT talks. SALT talks
have resumed in Vienna, and what hap-
pens in them will depend more on what
the superpowers do with their own
weapons programs than what they say
in Vienna.

Last year, we were told that we must
continue work on an ABM system as a
"bargaining chip" to be used in those
negotiations.

Whatever the merits of that view, we
should realize that we now have that
chip—and the one represented by our
capability to deploy MIRV's at will.

But we are in danger of changing our
bargaining chip into a chip on our
shoulder, if we do not show restraint.

It is one thing to prepare ourselves to
continue programs if the Soviet Union
does not negotiate in earnest; it is quite
another thing to build so many arms that
the Soviet Union will have no alternative
but to respond in kind, and even to sus-
pend productive work at SALT while
they try, once again, to catch up with us.

Indeed, the reputed Soviet resumption
of a land-based missile program may
be no more than an attempt to play our
game: To reestablish a bargaining chip
of their own, and another chip on their
shoulder.

As Admiral Moorer has said:

There is an interreaction between what we
do and what the Soviets do.

A demonstration of restraint is an
essential preliminary step in the pro-
cess of building the climate needed for
success at SALT.

But there are steps that we can take
during the negotiations themselves.

I recognize that we all must be very
careful here. The President, as Comma-
der in Chief, is primarily responsible for
our security. He, alone, must make the
final decision on our negotiation posture
at the strategic arms limitation talks.

But the Senate also has a role to play,
above and beyond its power to give our
"advice and consent" to the President on
a specific treaty. As a coordinate branch
of the Government, Congress at all times
has joint responsibility with the Presi-
dent for deciding our military posture
and has the power of the purse strings
to insure that it plays an active part in
making security policy for our Nation.

It would be folly to believe that the
Senate should only be consulted when
a treaty is presented to it. We have the
experience with the Treaty of Versailles
to chasten us. Then President Wilson's
failure to consult adequately with Mem-
bers of the Senate who opposed him but

March 25, 1971

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE

110

8621

two great powers were divided by an un-
bridgeable ideological chasm. For us, democ-
acy and individual liberty were basic; for
them, dictatorship and absolute conformity.
And it was clear that the Soviet Union was
omissive and expanding. For the United
States to take steps to strengthen countries
integrated with Soviet aggression or Com-
munist subversion was not to pull British
chestnuts out of the fire; it was to protect
the security of the United States—it was to
protect freedom itself, for if the Soviet Union
succeeded in extending its control over two-
thirds of the world's surface and three-
fourths of its population, there could be no
security for the United States, and freedom
anywhere in the world would have only a poor
chance of survival.

The Members of Congress were greatly impressed by the presentation. Senator Vandenberg is reported to have told the President that any request for funds and authority to aid Greece and Turkey must be accompanied by a message to Congress explaining the grim facts of the larger situation.

Six days later, in a letter to a con-
gressional colleague, Senator Vand-
berg defined the larger situation this
way:

I sense enough of the facts to realize that the problem in Greece cannot be isolated by itself. On the contrary, it is probably symbolic of the worldwide ideological clash between Eastern communism and Western democracy; and it may easily be the thing which requires us to make some very fateful and far-reaching decisions (The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg, Houghton Mifflin, 1952).

Very fateful and far-reaching deci-
sions, indeed, were made on the basis of
the assumptions about a bipolar world
interior between democracy and totali-
tarianism. Aid to Greece and Turkey was
followed by the Marshall plan. Then
came NATO and other military alliances
in Central and Southeast Asia. When
the U.S.S.R. broke the American monop-
oly of atomic weapons, both superpowers
engaged in a race for the H-bomb. Both
succeeded. The United States surrounded
the Soviet Union as well as Communist
China with more than 40 military al-
liances and more than 3,000 military
bases.

And I sense this same view made it
easier to rationalize the use of U.S. troops
in South Vietnam.

In 1970, with the wisdom of hindsight,
the Senate Subcommittee on Security
Agreements and Commitments Abroad
observed:

In retrospect, it is easy to assert that two
things seemed probable in the wake of these
policies:

"The United States eventually would not be able to continue bearing the financial burden of all these activities.

"The Soviet Union and China—both of them growing economically as well as militarily—would strive to increase their military positions as against the United States."

Earlier in 1961 President Eisenhower warned against the "unwarranted influence of the military-industrial complex." Despite that warning, our Nation engaged in a race for security which engaged an alliance which, with the result if not willful support of Congress and much of the Nation, consumed an ever-greater share of Federal resources.

The richest Nation in the world, which
thought it could have both guns and
butter, produced guns in profusion but
only dabs of lard for the poor, the aged,
the ill, the minority groups.

This Nation has invested more than $1
trillion in the military since the end
of World War II. We have produced the
most awesome military machine in his-
tory. By the end of the 1960's the United
States has deployed more than 4,000
long-range nuclear weapons, despite the
fact that Russia had half as many and
despite the fact that Defense Secretary
Robert McNamara told us that 400 of
these weapons could annihilate one-third
of the Soviet population.

Why did we continue to build 10 times
as many strategic nuclear weapons as re-
quired to destroy 70 million human be-
ings?

Does overkill really add to our secu-
rity?

Today are we really more secure, after
an expenditure of $1 trillion, than we
were in 1947 when no hostile country
could attack our territory? Is Greece, the
first country we aided under our new
foreign policy, more democratic under
the regime of the colonels in 1971 than it
was in the chaotic days of 1947? Are the
security of the United States and the
liberty of its people really enhanced by a
decade of military involvement in South-
east Asia?

These questions take on added im-
portance as we debate new departures in
foreign aid, as we are told we are wind-
ing down our war effort in South Viet-
nam, as we set out to negotiate an arms
control agreement in Vienna.

But the answers to those questions will
be useful only if we debate also the as-
sumptions which led to those policies to
determine if they are valid today.

Certainly the world has changed since
that day in 1947 when Dean Acheson
described the two polarized great powers.

Dr. Hans Morgenthal, a noted inter-
national affairs scholar, contends there
has been several major changes.

First, he sees evidence that both the
Soviet Union and the United States are
pursuing policies of nuclear restraint—a
reluctance to push confrontations to the
explosion point.

Second, he sees Washington and Moscow in a growing willingness to abandon the good-and-evil approach to world problems.

And third, he points to the obvious
development of polycentric communism,
with centers in Moscow, Peking, Bel-
grade, Hanoi, Havana, and even Buch-
arest.

On the minus side of the ledger, Dr. Morgenthal points to the development of ABM's and MIRV's, to efforts by both sides to make agents out of other countries, and to the possibility of the acceptance of the status quo in Europe leading to a Soviet-German alliance.

Whether or not we agree with the evalu-
ation of those observations, it would be
hard to argue that they do not accurately
portray some changes from the world of
1947.

So let us examine these changes, and
then let us ask whether the security of
the American people is better served in

1971 by another $77 billion for the military or by a shift of some of these bountiful resources to our unfinished but critically important business at home.

Certainly, no one need fear that this
unfinished business would provide too
small a challenge or too little work for
our people. According to the 1969 Eco-
nomic Report of the President and the
Bureau of the Budget, new Federal pro-
grams or expansions of existing pro-
grams just in fiscal year 1972 could total
$39.7 billion in education; health; nutri-
tion; community services; jobs and man-
power; social security and income sup-
port; veterans' benefits; economic, area
and other special development programs;
crime and delinquency; environment;
natural resource development and utili-
zation; urban development; transporta-
tion; science and space exploration, and
foreign economic aid.

In the process of reexamining our
concepts of national security, perhaps we
can arrive at a better balance between
destroying and healing, between defoliat-
ing and feeding, between deterring and
educating, and between despairing and
hoping.

Perhaps then we will be better able to
determine if the safety and well-being
of the American people are more endan-
gered by Communist-led guerrillas in
Southeast Asia than by drug addiction
and poverty-bred frustrations at home.

But even as we debate such questions,
I believe—with deep conviction—that
history tells us we should not delay on
doing what we can right now to stop
the arms race.

History not only compel us to explore
fully every initiative to secure a mean-
ingful arms control agreement, but his-
tory indicates that the time may be right
for such an agreement.

The major nuclear powers possess awe-
some destructive forces—forces stronger
than necessary to deter attack.

The major nuclear powers are under
pressures at home to direct greater por-
tions of their national resources from
war to peace, from military to domestic
programs.

And most important, representatives
of the major nuclear powers are now
meeting in Vienna to discuss arms con-
trol, and there are strong indications of
a willingness to negotiate.

History, I feel certain, will deal
sharply with us if we fail through in-
action to take advantage of that combi-
nation of circumstances.

And history tells us, as I shall recall
shortly, that initiatives by this Nation
and by this Senate have resulted in
significant arms control agreements.

It is then with a hope bred out of
history, with a hope strengthened by the
present combination of events, with a
hope based on the realization that the
shape of the future depends on what we
do today, I endorse a three-step U.S.
initiative at the SALT talks in Vienna.

The United States should seek:

First, a total ban on deployment of
anti-ballistic-missile systems.

Second. A firm promise to continue
negotiations on limiting the types and
numbers of other strategic nuclear weap-
ons after an ABM agreement is reached.

CXVII—505—Part 6

8022

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE

March 25, 1971

114

Third. A mutual freeze on deployment of new types of strategic nuclear weapons, including MIRV's, during such negotiations.

Let me briefly explain the reasoning behind each step.

### ABM BAN

I am more convinced than ever that Safeguard will not work. Even if it would operate as advertised, I am convinced that it is unneeded to protect our total deterrent and inadequate to defend our land-based deterrent.

Predictably, however, conservative military planners in Washington and Moscow would react as if the systems worked. And their response would be to develop and deploy offensive weapons to overcome such systems.

Development of such weapons would escalate the arms race.

By agreeing to a total ban on ABM deployment we would be eliminating a force for heating up the arms race and would save money, both without endangering the national security.

### BINDING NEGOTIATIONS

By linking a total ABM ban with continuing negotiations on limiting deployment of offensive weapons would diminish pressures which might develop to deploy new offensive weapons. Perhaps the ABM ban could be tied to prompt and successful negotiations on offensive weapons.

### MUTUAL FREEZE

And finally, history indicates that important arms limitation agreements have followed initiatives on our part.

When President Eisenhower sought a treaty to maintain the Antarctic a nuclear-free zone, he refrained from deploying nuclear weapons in that part of the world.

When President Kennedy sought a treaty banning atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, he announced the United States would suspend such testing as long as other nations did not test and that this Nation would not be the first to resume testing.

And when President Johnson sought a nonproliferation treaty, the Senate took the initiative of passing a resolution which supported the President's efforts and helped convince Moscow we had no intention of transferring nuclear arms to West Germany.

Let us take such an initiative now and see if Moscow responds as it has in those instances.

If it does, we will have made the world safer, yet increased our own security, and we will have made possible a diversion of funds from the Pentagon to important domestic programs.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an article entitled "To Strengthen Deterrence—Total Ban on ABM is Real Solution," written by Henry Owen and published in the Washington Post, be printed at this point in the RECORD.

There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

TO STRENGTHEN DETERRENCE: TOTAL BAN ON ABM IS REAL SOLUTION

(By Henry Owen)

In recent public discussion of the resumed SALT talks, one key point has been slighted: In his foreign policy message, the President reported that we have made proposals to the Soviets "for either limitation or total ban of ABM." If you read this quickly, it sounds as though it were one proposal; in fact, there is a world of difference between banning and limiting ABMs. The pros and cons of each should now be talked out.

These pros and cons reflect the fact that there are two different reasons for deploying ABMs; to defend land-based missiles, and to defend cities. An effective ABM defense of land-based missiles should be stabilizing, as Professor Schelling points out in a recent issue of the Saturday Review, since it would reduce fears that either side's land-based ICBMs could be struck down in a surprise attack. ABM defense of cities, on the other hand, should be destabilizing, since it would threaten the effectiveness of each side's retaliatory capability. So the right solution, in theory, would be to negotiate an agreement which would allow ABM defense of missiles but forbid ABM defense of cities.

The surest way to lift this shadow is by banning ABMs altogether. This is an exciting notion; it is surprising that its mention in the President's message hasn't aroused more comment. It would transform the strategic scene, by wholly setting to one side a weapon whose deployment could threaten mutual deterrence: Each side could, without any further buildup of offensive weapons, be sure of its—and of its enemy's—ability to mount effective retaliatory action. This would strengthen stable deterrence.

But the main point is this: There are ways of dealing with the problem of ICBM vulnerability which a total ABM ban would create, particularly if that ban can be linked to a follow-on agreement to limit offensive weapons. One way to create this link would be to negotiate an ABM ban and to make its life expectancy clearly and explicitly dependent on early negotiation of a satisfactory agreement regarding offensive weapons. Nailing down this link in an initial ABM agreement is more important than merely limiting SS-9s; indeed, if the link between an ABM ban and a later agreement on offensive weapons is clearly established, it becomes less necessary to limit SS-9s in the initial agreement.

NEW YORK TIMES
29 MARCH 71 p9
# A MISSILE FREEZE URGED BY JACKSON

Senator Calls for One-Year
Halt by U.S. and Soviet

By TAD SZULC

Special to The New York Times

WASHINGTON, March 28—
Senator Henry M. Jackson pro-
posed today a one-year agree-
ment with the Soviet Union
freezing the deployment of
most land-based missiles. He
said this would "arrest the de-
cline in the security" of the
United States nuclear deterrent.

The Washington Democrat, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who has been mentioned as a potential Presidential candidate, called for an immediate agreement that would halt the deployment of United States Minuteman III missiles with multiple warheads, as well as the deployment and construction of new Soviet intercontinental missiles and launchers and installation of antiballistic systems defending population centers.

Appearing on "Issues and
Answers," a radio and televi-
sion program of the American
Broadcasting Company, Sena-
tor Jackson announced that he
would outline his proposal in a
speech to the Senate tomor-
row.

He said such an agreement
was necessary because the So-
viet had started building "a
massive system that involves
the deployment of an ICBM
(inter-continental ballistic mis-
sile) force that exceeds 25
megatons."

Earlier Disclosure

It was Senator Jackson who disclosed three weeks ago that the United States had detected the new Soviet construction effort. This was later confirmed by the Defense Department.

Today, he said, "The Rus-
sians have an ability this year
—and this is what is ominous—
to deploy between 60 and 70 of
such huge SS-9 type missiles."

"If they should deploy 70 of such missiles," he said, "they would have a capability this year alone of adding more megatonnage, or destructive power than we have in our entire current land-based Minutemen ICBM system."

On Feb. 25, President Nixon
said in his State of the World
Message that the growth of
Soviet strategic forces "leads
inescapably to profound ques-
tions concerning the threats we
will face in the future, and the
adequacy of our current strate-
gic forces to meet the require-
ments of our security."

Mr. Nixon stressed that dur-
ing 1970 the Soviet Union had
further increased its lead over
the United States in the deploy-
ment of intercontinental mis-
siles. At the end of last year
he said, the Soviet Union had
1,440 ICM's and the United
States 1,054.

Senator Jackson's appeal for
a freeze came amid growing
concern over the new Soviet
strategic arms programs and
the apparent stalemate at the
talks in Vienna on bombing,
strategic arms.

Humphrey Asks Moratorium

In a major Senate speech last
Thursday, Senator Hubert H.
Humphrey, Minnesota Demo-
crat, another potential Presiden-
tial candidate, introduced a
resolution calling for a mutual
moratorium on deployments of
offensive and defensive weap-
ons and MIRV testing while the
U. S. and the Soviet Union
negotiated a ban on antiballistic
systems.

Senator Humphrey criticized
the Administration for Insulting
on a comprehensive agreement
with Moscow on both offensive
and defensive weapons, and
suggested that an antiballistic
accord come first.

The Senate disarmament sub-
committee, headed by Senator
Edmund S. Muskie of Maine, the
leading Democratic Presidential
contender, is scheduled to start
closed door briefings this week
on the status of the Arms
Limitation Talks and the Soviet
threat.

During his television appear-
ance, Senator Jackson said that
in the talks with the Russians,
resumed in Vienna on March
15, "the real problem that we
face is that, the Russians ap-
pear to be going ahead on an
unabated basis with a very
large offensive land-based sys-
tem."

He said the new Soviet ac-
tivities "would put into serious
question the credibility of our
second-strike force" and that
"if the Russians continue to de-
ploy these huge offensive sys-
tems we will have to take an-
other look at our whole deter-
rent posture" and "at the need
for more offensive systems."

113

WASHINGTON POST 29 March 1971 P1

114

# Jackson Urges Missile Freeze

Sen. Henry M. Jackson (D-Wash.) yesterday proposed an immediate one-year freeze in deployment of the most important Soviet and American land-based missile systems.

The senator, whose views are close to those of the Nixon administration, made public on ABC's television program, "Issues and Answers" (WMAL), the proposal he will make in a Senate speech today. Aides said, however, he had not discussed it with the administration.

His proposal was in sharp contrast to one made last week by his fellow Democrat who is a possible 1972 presidential nominee, Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey (Minn.). Both proposals are reflective of alarm in Washington over the deadlock at the Soviet-American strategic arms limitation talks (SALT) and over new reports of Soviet missile development.

In the four meetings thus far of the current Vienna round of SALT the United States has found itself on the defensive in the face of a Soviet proposal made last December for an initial agreement to limit rival anti-missile (ABM) systems.

Humphrey last Thursday in a Senate speech, in effect, advocated accepting the Soviet offer provided it is linked to later success in negotiating a limitation on offensive missiles.

But Jackson termed the Soviet proposal "completely unacceptable." Instead he offered this four-part one-year plan:

1. "The United States would immediately halt the deployment of Minuteman III missiles with their MIRV (multipole) warheads." The first 50 of these missiles were converted to MIRV warheads last year, and the Pentagon plan calls for 550 such Minuteman IIs.

2. "The Soviet Union would immediately halt the deployment of new ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) launchers and missiles including those now under construction."

That latter phrase refers to what Jackson yesterday again called a "new" Soviet missile

system, a judgment based on reconnaissance photos of new silo construction in both European Russia and Siberia. Jackson added that the Soviets have the "ability" to deploy 60 to 70 of what he termed "such huge SS-9 type missiles" this year.

Deployment of 70, he said, would "put into serious question the credibility of our second strike force." The Soviets now have around 290 of the SS-9s, a giant missile capable of holding a 25 megaton warhead.

3. "Both countries would retain the freedom to assure the survivability of their strategic land-based forces so long as they did not add to their offensive potential." Jackson explained that by this he meant the right to further "harden" missile silos with more concrete and steel.

4. "Neither side would deploy a population-defending ABM. Jackson, like the Nixon administration, considers the American Safeguard ABM system as a "light" rather than a "thick" or population defense. But the Soviet Union at the SALT talks has indicated worry that Safeguard could become a thick system.

Jackson's alarm about the new Soviet silos is shared by the administration although thus far there is no agreed administration intelligence estimate as to just what the

Soviet Union is up to. Work on new SS-9 silos, somewhat smaller in size, has been halted for some months. The new silo work was first photographed in early February.

## Free to Continue

Jackson was careful to point out that under his proposal the United States would be free to continue deployment of what he called "the much smaller warheads of the MIRVed Poseidon missile on our Polaris submarines." The first such Poseidon sub will, go to sea this spring and 31 of 41 Polaris subs are to be refitted to take the new MIRVed missile.

Thus far, the Soviet Union, as far as is known, has not deployed multiple warheads on either its land-based or sea-based missiles although MIRV testing has been going on for some time.

Humphrey called for suspension of deployment of both Safeguard and MIRVs on Minutemen and, in return, called on the Soviet Union to suspend its own land-based missile program and its MIRV testing.

But Jackson, like the administration, would have no part of an ABM freeze. He argued that the Soviet proposal "would accelerate the decline" in the stability of the existing balance of nuclear terror.

President Nixon has publicly rejected the "ABMs only" proposal by Moscow, declaring that any SALT agreement

must have "some mix" of both offensive and defensive weapons systems. However, many arms control experts outside the government and some in Congress favor the "ABMs only" approach as a beginning.

To encourage Soviet acceptance of "some mix" the administration has gone to Vienna with a trimmed down proposal. What has been eliminated are what are termed corollary conditions for limiting rival ICBMs. Essentially, this means the United States is asking only that the Soviets accept a numerical ceiling of around 2,000 missiles for each superpower.

This number, however, would include a sub-celling by number for missiles over a certain size, a provision designed to limit the SS-9s that also would limit whatever the Soviets intend to put into the new, larger silos now being built.

One reason for the strong administration resistance to an "ABMs only" agreement is pragmatic. It is feared in high administration circles that if there were such an agreement it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to get from Congress the money to either complete the initial Safeguard phases now under construction near Minuteman sites in Montana and North Dakota or to protect Washington if there were an agreement limiting ABMs to the Washington and Moscow areas.

CBS Evening News

March 30, 1961

Russians Propose End to ABM

MARVIN KALB: CBS News has learned that the Russians two weeks ago formally proposed an end to the development and deployment of anti-ballistic missiles, the so-called ABM's in both countries.

Today the State Department indicated that the Administration intended to reject the offer.

The specific Soviet proposal and the expected US turndown are likely to fuel a major political fight between the Administration and its Democratic Party critics, some of them aspiring presidential candidates.

The Russians tabled a formal draft treaty on the ABM on March 16 in Vienna, the day after Soviet and American negotiators began another series of secret talks on strategic arms.

Top officials here insist that an agreement on the ABM on defensive missiles alone is not enough. They want an agreement embracing those offensive and defensive missiles.

Democratic dissatisfaction with this White House position is sharpening. Last Thursday Humphrey proposed an ABM freeze as a step towards a comprehensive agreement.

Yesterday Jackson proposed a mutual freeze on offensive missiles.

Today Symington called for an ABM freeze, pure and simple. And this week Muskie is opening hearings on the Vienna negotiations.

Administration officials are aware of this building Democratic pressure for an arms control deal even when limited to the ABM. But they insist President Nixon is adamant. As of now the Russian proposal they say will be turned down.

118

WASHINGTON STAR 30 MAR (21)

The Jackson Freeze

As usual, Senator Henry M. Jackson
has got it about right. His proposal for
an immediate freeze on further deploy-
ment of American and Russian land-
based offensive missiles is the first we
have seen that makes any real sense.

The Washington Democrat's proposal
is based on the very real possibility that
the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
(SALT) in progress in Vienna may be
overtaken by events. Progress at the
talks is understandably slow. And while
they continue, the relative stability of
the nuclear balance, on which the suc-
cess of the talks ultimately will depend.
is being seriously threatened by a con-
tinuing buildup of Soviet offensive
weaponry.

What Jackson suggests is an interim
arrangement to stabilize the situation
while the effort to reach a comprehen-
sive agreement goes forward. For a peri-
od of a year, both Russia and the United
States would undertake to halt the fur-
ther deployment of land-based intercon-
tinental missiles, including those now
under construction.

Both countries would be free to take
measures to assure the survivability of
their existing strategic land-based forces
as long as these measures did not add to
their offensive potential. Neither side
would deploy antiballistic missiles de-
signed to protect population centers —
as opposed to missile sites — from nucle-
ar attack.

The proposal, unlike others that have
been heard, faces up to the central reali-
ty of the nuclear balance. Deterrence of
nuclear war depends entirely on assuring
on both sides the capability for a retali-
tory nuclear second-strike. Stability is
threatened whenever one side — in this
case the Russians — begins to achieve a
capability of destroying retaliatory
forces with an opening attack. It is also
threatened by deployment of an ABM
system designed to protect cities against
a retaliatory blow.

The Jackson plan, if accepted, would
have the effect of stabilizing the present
balance. It would give no advantage to
either side in terms of first-strike poten-
tial. It would permit further protection
of retaliatory forces, through greater
hardening of missile silos and through
the deployment of ABM defenses, de-
signed exclusively for the protection of
missiles.

The great question, of course, is
whether the Russians would even con-
sider such a proposal. What they are
urging — incomprehensibly supported
by some American politicians — is a ban
limited entirely to defensive missiles,
which would have the effect of destabil-
izing the balance at an even faster pace.
They might well reject the Jackson pro-
posals out of hand. But were they to do
so, the Soviet intentions at the SALT
negotiations will be clearer than they
are today.

119

120

WEDNESDAY MORNING, 31 MARCH 1971

BALTIMORE, SUN 31 MARCH 1971 P.6

# Symington, Jackson Differ On Arms Limit

BY CHARLES W. CORDRY

Washington, March 30—

pushing sharply contrasting arms control proposals. Senator Henry M. Jackson (D., Wash.) and Senator Stuart Symington (D., Mo.) have drawn lines for this year's controversy over anti-ballistic missile defenses and over Soviet intentions in the so-called nuclear arms race.

## "Dangerous And Unwise"

In a speech in New York yesterday, Mr. Symington said that Moscow's offer of a limitation on ABM systems was one of the "rays of hope" in the American-Soviet strategic arms limitation talks.

Mr. Jackson, noting that only defensive systems and not offensive

missiles were encompassed in the Russian plan, described it in the Senate as "dangerous and unwise" for this country.

It was an offer, he said, that would not control the offensive ballistic missiles which threaten America's deterrent forces but would limit the defensive, or ABM, systems designed to protect the deterrent forces.

The issue brings up the crucial and cloudy question of Russian intentions in the nuclear arms competition.

## Parity Or Superiority?

If there were a deal to limit or eliminate anti-ballistic missile systems, would the Soviet Union follow up such an agreement by slowing or ending its expansion of intercontinental missile forces? Or would it take advan-

tage of it to continue that expansion?

Do the Russians, in short, intend by one means and another to gain strategic nuclear superiority, or will they settle for parity?

The Nixon administration has been unwilling to take the chance that limits on ABM's alone would lead later to agreement on offensive missiles. It has insisted on a pact including both offensive and defensive weapons.

This Senator Symington called, "to say the least, disappointing."

Senator Jackson, laying before the Senate a proposal for a one-year limitation on American and Russian land-based (but not

submarine-based) offensive missile deployments, said he hoped discussion of his proposal "may help to illuminate the nature of Soviet strategic objectives."

"In spite of the obvious importance of having such knowledge," he said, "we really know very little about Soviet strategic doctrine."

Senator Jackson was backed by other sources familiar with the American-Soviet arms talks.

They said the Russians offer no explanation of their continuing expansion of strategic nuclear forces or their purposes while the talks go on.

## One-Year Halt

Senator Jackson maintained that the "clear implication" of the Soviet-proposed limitation only on ABM's "is that they wish to inhibit our defenses while proceeding to increase the capability of their offensive force to strike—and perhaps destroy—our deterrent."

As an American "alternative" proposal to end missile production while talks proceed Senator Jackson urged a one-year halt in deployment of U.S. Minuteman III missiles armed with multiple warheads, the only type now being installed, and of new Russian intercontinental missiles.

Both sides could take steps to protect their missiles by "hardening" launch sites against nuclear blast and installing ABM's to defend the missiles.

## End Soviet Build-Up

But neither would build big ABM systems, so called "thick city defenses," for the defense of populated areas. That is, neither would try to build the sort of defenses it would need to defend against retaliatory blows after it had launched a first-strike on the other's missiles.

The Jackson proposal would arrest the Soviet missile build-up and any expansion of Russian ABM city defenses beyond those now around Moscow.

Consequently, it would diminish America's need for multiple-warhead missiles to penetrate Soviet city defenses and, presumably, for ABM defenses of missile sites as well—though there would be no ban on the latter.

WASHINGTON POST - 31. MARCH 1971

Chalmers M. Roberts

Brezhnev Scans the U.S.

Five weeks ago President
Nixon, in his annual foreign
policy report, declared that
"ideally, continues, shares
many aspects of Soviet pol-
icy. It dictates an attitude of
constant pressure toward
the external world."

Furthermore, said Mr.
Nixon, "the growth of Soviet
power in the last several
years could tempt Soviet
leaders into bolder chal-
lemes."

Yesterday, during a long
report at the 24th Soviet
Communist Party Congress,
Leonid Brezhnev put forth
his view of the United
State. As has long been the
case, the view from the
Kremlin is very different
from the view at the White
House.

"Whenever the imperial-
ists need to mask their ag-
gressive measures," said
Brezhnev in a passage about
Soviet-American relations,
"they try to resurrect the
myth of the Soviet threat.

"They search for signs of
such a threat both in the

depths of the Indian Ocean
and on the peaks of the Cor-
dillera, while on the plains
of Europe, if one looks
through NATO binoculars,
nothing at all is visible
apart from Soviet divisions
ready to pounce on the
West."

Mr. Nixon conceded that
Americans "have grown
somewhat weary of 25 years
of international burdens."
While cautioning Americans
against receding into
"isolationism," the President
warned the Soviets against
"misconceptions of the role
we will play in international
affairs."

BREZHNEV, without
naming Mr. Nixon, scoffed
at his contentions, declaring
that the Soviets "have no
territorial claims on
anyone," "threaten no one"
and "are not preparing to
attack anyone." But, he
added, "Let no one try to
talk with us in the language
of ultimata and strength."

The Tass account reported
applause in the Kremlin
hall at that point.

Both the President and
Brezhnev ran through the
outstanding Soviet-Ameri-

can issues: Berlin, the Mid-
dle East, the strategic arms
limitation talks (SALT) and
East-West security in Eu-
rope. Both said, in effect,
that each of these problems
could be resolved if only the
other showed a little more
sense of reality

IN SHORT, once again
the two superpowers have
sketched out their funda-
mental views of the world
and they are very different.
Neither rattled any rockets
but neither, in these docu-
ments, did they alter funda-
mental bargaining positions.

Thus, more interesting to
Washington than the Brezh-
nev generalities are recent
Moscow specifics. The most
hopeful of these was the So-
viet move yesterday at the
Geneva disarmament confer-
ence, where Moscow finally
agreed to the Western plan
to negotiate a ban on biolog-
ical warfare ahead of one on
chemical warfare. First re-
ports of the Soviet draft in-
dicate that an agreement is
now possible.

At Vienna this month, the

Soviets laid down a draft of
their proposed agreement:
on anti-missiles (ABM) alone
offering a lot more of sub-
stance. Moscow knows Mr.
Nixon has said "no" to this
approach on SALT but it
also knows there is consider-
able support in the United
States for an ABMs-only
pact as a starter.

On Berlin, the Soviets last
week matched the three
Western powers by putting
into one piece of paper their
known past positions. Brezh-
nev yesterday restated these
fundamentals, which are un-
acceptable to the West.

On the Middle East, the
Soviet position, as mirrored
in Brezhnev's remarks, is to
blame everything on Israel
and to press the United
States to pressure Jerusa-
lem to back down. Washing-
ton is now caught in disa-
greement with Jerusalem on
how to proceed.

In sum, the Soviet posi-
tion as stated by Brezhnev
comes through as firm and
confident, based on newly
acquired military muscle, in
comparison to President
Nixon's worries about Soviet
intentions worldwide and
about a retreat from over-
seas responsibilities by
Americans here at home.

122

NATION'S BUSINESS
APRIL 1971

123

# How Not to Negotiate With the Russians

BY SEN. HENRY M. JACKSON

In Paris, Viet Nam talks drag on; SALT negotiations proceed at Helsinki and Vienna; the status of Berlin is under discussion; there is diplomatic jockeying over a European security conference; and talks about a Middle East settlement go forward.

Clearly, international negotiations are the order of the day.

If we handle such negotiations effectively, we are able from time to time to act together with the Soviets in ways consistent with our own interests and purposes. Certainly, Americans want to identify areas of common or parallel interest with the Soviets.

Yet negotiating with them is a most complicated process, and Moscow's objectives and tactics create enormous difficulties. Negotiations would be hard enough to bring to a successful outcome if those on our side handled themselves skillfully. That is very often not the case.

Watching America conduct its

foreign affairs, I've seen blunders lead to missed opportunities and serious setbacks to the national interest, including unnecessary wars.

Here, for the benefit of those who want to avoid these pitfalls, is a "Bungler's Guide to International Negotiation"—or "How to Botch the Talks."

1. In approaching a negotiation, the bungler will discard in advance any proposal he thinks the other side will object to.

As the American government formulates its position on an issue, it often happens that a possible proposal is scrapped as being "unacceptable" to Moscow—even though the idea has much to recommend it from the U. S. point of view. Since a proposal obviously can never be accepted if it is never submitted, the effect of ruling one out as "unacceptable" is to guarantee its unacceptability.

There is the possibility, however, that an adversary can be brought to change its evaluation of what is acceptable as a negotiation proceeds. It is, after all, one of the main purposes of negotiation to persuade the other side to change its mind about what is an acceptable outcome.

The Austrian State Treaty is a classic case in point. We and our allies

remained firmly committed to a free Austria and we pressed the Soviets with proposals that were "unacceptable" from their point of view. Finally, in 1955, the Russians decided it would also be to their advantage to end the occupation and partition of Austria.

Another important postwar agreement with the Soviets—the partial nuclear test ban (i.e., it does not cover underground tests)—was realized after some five years of negotiations, although part of U. S. officialdom had classified the partial ban as "unacceptable" to Moscow.

2. The perfect patsy will banish from his mind any ugly suspicions about the intentions of the opposing side.

Ignorance of the other side's intentions is obviously no help negotiating. But understanding these intentions does not necessarily augment trust and make your task easier. America's decision to enter the Atlantic Alliance did not result from failure to grasp what the Kremlin wanted. We needed that defensive alliance because the Kremlin's designs on Europe were crystal clear.

Averell Harriman tells how—at the Potsdam Conference in 1945—he said to Stalin that it must be very gratifying for him to be in Berlin after all the struggle and tragedy Stalin replied: "Czar Alexander going to Paris." As Mr. Harriman adds, "It didn't need much of a clairvoyant to guess what was in Stalin's mind."

Moscow may now share the common interest of avoiding a general nuclear war. But it does not follow that Moscow wants all-out peace. There is much room for maneuver between trying to avoid a nuclear holocaust and seeking a genuine peace.

The Russians know it.

Leonard Schapiro, dean of Soviet studies in Great Britain, stated the matter this way to our Senate sub-committee:

"Soviet policy is unremittingly dynamic. It is not directed towards achieving equilibrium, or balance of forces, or peace, or collective security. . . . Its ultimate aim is 'victory,' which means communist rule on a world scale. However unrealistic this aim may seem, it is the case that it has been thoroughly inculcated into

SEN. JACKSON, a Democrat from Washington, is now conducting the first major Congressional inquiry into the problems of international negotiation. He is chairman of the Senate Government Operations Committee's Subcommittee on National Security and International Operations.

52

NATION'S BUSINESS/APRIL 1971

124

# How Not to Negotiate With the Russians *continued*

the minds of all Soviet leaders from
Lenin onwards for over 50 years. ...

"There is no time factor attached to this ultimate ideological aim—in contrast in this respect, say, to Hitler, or Genghis Khan. And so ... the Soviet Union seeks to advance wherever this is possible, to gain one advantage here, and another there, and to move forward or halt as advantage dictates. ..."

Understanding Soviet intentions today, far from diminishing concern, arouses it. What the Kremlin wants—if it can get it—is not in the interest of the Free World and the future of individual liberty.

**3. The truly timid negotiator will not want to embarrass the other side.**

If it comes to light that an adversary is guilty of bad faith, you can make a lot of trouble for yourself by hiding the truth about it.

A classic example of how not to deal with the Russians was the U. S. response to the Soviet and Egyptian violations of the Mid-East cease-fire. We were taken to the cleaners in that August, 1970, fiasco.

No sooner had agreement on the military standstill been achieved than the first Soviet-Egyptian violations occurred. We saw the violations taking place. By failing to corroborate them, the State Department invited still further illicit movement of surface-to-air missiles into the prohibited zone.

The fact that we turned our backs on gross violations of an initiative proposed and arranged in Washington, and concurred in by Moscow, can have the effect of encouraging the Soviets to deliberate deception and greater boldness elsewhere.

U. S. officials should know by now that the consequences of telling the truth about Soviet bad faith will be easier to live with than the consequences of not telling it.

**4. The brilliant bumbler will signal the opponent that he is desperate to get some kind of agreement, especially for domestic political reasons.**

In adversary relations the appearance of overeagerness is bound to stimulate stubbornness and intransigence on the other side.

When top U. S. officials give the impression that some arms control

treaty or agreement is indispensable to them they make it enormously more difficult for the American negotiating team to strike a favorable bargain in the talks.

We should not negotiate any agreement just for agreement's sake. We should vigorously pursue arms control agreements that can add to the stability of the strategic balance, while rejecting proposals that have a built-in incentive to instability. What we really want are agreements that will reduce the risk of nuclear war; and this means careful agreements which are extremely difficult to contravene and which confer no destabilizing advantage.

What security exists in the world today depends on the delicate balance of military, political and economic forces.

As the Soviet Union reaches parity (or more) with the United States in strategic arms, its leaders are likely to become more energetic in trying to spread Soviet influence and more willing to run dangerous risks in the international arena.

Those who live in freedom are able to do so only under the shelter and power of ourselves and our allies. This is a grave responsibility, and while we strive for sensible and salutary arms control agreements, we must not imperil a stable Free World deterrent.

**5. The gregarious sap will put a premium on being popular with the other side.**

A persistent danger of all diplomacy is what Harold Nicolson called "the human difficulty of remaining disagreeable to the same set of people for many days at a stretch."

If you have obstinately refused on Monday to agree in a matter pressed by the other side, you may be tempted to be less stubborn than you should be on Tuesday when a wholly different subject is under discussion. You may ask too little and offer too much.

Popularity-seekers seldom make good negotiators. They are likely to give the wrong signals.

If you are so concerned about being a "good fellow" that you shrink from speaking bluntly when this is called for, you may lead your adversaries to misjudge your fortitude,

thereby whetting their appetite. What might be appropriate to say on the Senate floor to one's colleagues is not necessarily appropriate to say in talks with top officials in Moscow.

Americans, often great conciliators in working with allies, sometimes lack perseverance in pursuing their cause against a hostile opponent.

**6. The eager sucker will try for accord by giving something for nothing.**

A sure way to worsen one's problems is to make unilateral concessions in hopes the opponent can be "condemnated" and will return the "favor."

When closely allied nations are engaged in a long-term common effort, there may be enough "community spirit," to use Jean Monnet's phrase, so that an act of generosity on one issue establishes credit on another issue. However, in negotiation with the Russians, a concession without any assurance of an equivalent countergain weakens one's bargaining position.

The policy of making gratuitous concessions to dynamic powers has been tried in the past from time to time, and the results have been disastrous.

There is the example of the obliteration of Carthage, which had allowed itself to be disarmed by Rome in the hope this would lead to peaceful coexistence. And there is the example of French and British appeasement of Nazi Germany, which led directly to World War II.

Moreover, things given as gifts cannot be traded.

A major and as yet unachieved purpose of the Atlantic Alliance is to reach a genuine, stable European settlement with the Kremlin. Among other things, such a settlement will involve the return of Soviet forces to the Soviet Union. How can the Soviet government be encouraged to move in this direction? Certainly not by our making a substantial, unilateral, and unrequited reduction of American forces in Europe, as some U. S. Senators are urging.

Clearly, NATO should sustain the bargaining position it has worked so long and hard to construct, and actively pursue acceptance of gradual, mutual and balanced revisions in forces on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

END

54

NATION'S BUSINESS/APRIL 1971

125

THURSDAY MORNING, 1 APRIL 1971

WASHINGTON POST
BALTIMORE SUN

Joseph Kraft

1 APRIL 1971 P-21

Russians' Offer On ABM's
Puts The Ball In U.S. Court

Washington.

The confident, almost Khrushchev-sounding disarmament proposals aired by the Soviet party secretary, Leonid I. Brezhnev, at the 24th party congress find their true significance against the background of a proposal put forward by the Russians in the secret arms-control talks now going on in Vienna.

The central fact is that the Russians have put the United States on the defensive. Moscow will be picking up propaganda points galore until the Nixon administration gets enough untangled from its own fancy footwork to respond to the serious offer the Russians have advanced in the Vienna talks.

The serious Russian offer, as distinct from the rhetoric of the party congress, involves the anti-ballistic missile. The Russians have put forward a draft treaty whereby the two countries agree to limit ABM development to a single system—the so-called National Command Authority.

Under that proposal, the Russians would stop ABM development at the level of the present system they have built around Moscow. The United States would build an equivalent system. After that there would be a freeze on both sides.

The Soviet proposal has two undoubted difficulties. It has no provision for limiting offensive weapons. It is vague in the definition of National Command Authority, and therefore the rings built around Washington and Moscow might be improved through technological breakthroughs to the point

of becoming full national systems.

Even so, the offer is attractive. Each side would have immediate assurance the other was developing only a limited defense capability against nuclear weapons. Existing stocks of such weapons would be more than enough to do devastating damage to the other side. There would thus be little incentive to go on building new offensive weapons.

Several leading Democrats, including Senator Hubert H. Humphrey and Senator Stuart Symington, have seen these possibilities and responded in a positive way. They have called on the United States to accept the Russian proposal of an ABM freeze as a first step for a temporary period. During this period, ABM's would be frozen and negotiations would continue for a larger agreement limiting the number of offensive weapons and defining more exactly the meaning of a National Command Authority.

But the administration has been much more inhibited in dealing with the Soviet gambit. For the President has been tied up in knots by two positions taken in the past.

For one thing, Mr. Nixon and his Defense Secretary, Melvin R. Laird, have repeatedly emphasized that American security was jeopardized by the giant SS-9 missile the Russians have been building. Their fears have been intensified by intelligence about new Soviet launching sites—perhaps for the purpose of improved SS-9 missiles. Mr. Nix-

on has been insisting that an agreement could not be limited to ABM's only. At his press conference of March 3, the President said that any agreement "must include offensive as well as defensive missiles."

Secondly, there is a hang-up about the National Command Authority proposal. At one point in the arms-control talks, the Nixon administration advanced just such a proposal. Only after the Russians accepted that idea did Washington become aware that a loosely defined National Command Authority might lend itself to upgrading into a full national system. And the administration has not yet sorted out relations between a National Command ABM and the three Safeguard ABM sites it is building to defend offensive missiles.

Right now there is a terrific hauling and pulling going on inside the administration. The disarmers in the State Department and Arms Control Agency want the President to pick up the Soviet offer in one way or another. The Pentagon is resisting any proposal that does not limit the SS-9. Presumably Mr. Nixon will be coming out fairly soon with a fleshed-out response to the Russian offer.

But whether he will move far and fast enough to keep negotiations going is a real question. The Russians undoubtedly feel they have advanced a genuine and worthwhile offer. They dislike and mistrust Mr. Nixon, and their suspicions have only been heightened by the recent course of arms-control negotiations.

They are probably not going to negotiate an agreement with Mr. Nixon that is substantially more favorable to the United States than the agreement they know they

could get from the Democrats. They would be particularly reluctant to negotiate in 1972 an agreement that would contribute to his re-election campaign.

So to get an agreement, Mr. Nixon is going to have to whet the Soviet appetite. And that means being much more forthcoming on arms control then he has shown himself so far.

NEW YORK TIMES

5 APRIL 1971

SALT Can Be Saved

The strategic arms limitation talks (SALT) in Vienna
increasingly take on the aspect of men in futile chase
of a moving train. Development and deployment of new
strategic systems in the United States and the Soviet
Union are going ahead more rapidly than the diplomats
can negotiate agreements to control them.

In the United States, growing alarm in the Congress
at the fading prospects of a SALT agreement is leading
even such military advocates as Senator Jackson of
Washington to call for "a pause" in the build-up before
the negotiations are "overtaken by events."

The Nixon Administration has pressed ahead with
testing and deployment of offensive and defensive stra-
tegic weapons on the assumption that Moscow would
be worried into an agreement at the same time that
American security would increase. Predictably, Russia's
response has been to step up its deployment too.

Senator Jackson's concern, tardy but well-warranted, is that the build-up on both sides now is endangering, not enhancing, United States security. He is urging the Administration to seek "an immediate freeze" for an initial period of one year in Russia's offensive missile build-up, particularly expansion of its 300 big SS-9 ICBM's. In return, he would offer to halt one part of the American build-up, the deployment of Minuteman III missiles with their MIRV multiple warheads.

The trouble with the Jackson proposal is that it is
insufficient to turn away the danger he sees. It is too
one-sided to interest the Russians. It would halt Mos-
cow's chosen instrument in the offensive-weapons race,
the SS-9, but permit the United States to continue with
deployment of MIRV-tipped Poseidon missiles and the
Safeguard antiballistic missile (ABM) system.

Moreover, even if the Soviet Union were to agree,
Senator Jackson would fail to achieve his objective. The
real threat to the American land-based deterrent is not
the SS-9 missile-launcher itself but the MIRV multiple
warheads it may one day carry. The Soviet Union clearly
is not going to stop MIRV development unless the
United States abandons Poseidon as well as Minuteman
III and agrees to halt the ABM deployment on both sides
that MIRV is designed to counter.

An even-handed offer of this kind has long been sug-
gested by the Democrats' front-running Presidential
aspirant, Senator Muskie of Maine.

Senator Humphrey of Minnesota has already moved
out ahead on this issue with a forthright sense-of-the-
Senate resolution urging a new approach in SALT. It calls
on the President to seek an agreement with the Soviet
Union banning ABM systems or limiting them to a very
low level as the first step toward a comprehensive
treaty.

The Soviet Union submitted a draft of an ABM-only
agreement at Vienna last month, despite President
Nixon's repeated rejection of this approach and his
insistence that offensive missile numbers—but, illogical-
ly, not their MIRV warheads—must be limited simul-
taneously.

Mr. Humphrey's answer to this problem is to make
continuation of the ABM limitation dependent on suc-
cessful negotiation of a curb on offensive missiles and
their MIRV warheads. While the ABM limitation was
being negotiated, he would seek an immediate mutual
freeze on the deployment of new offensive and defensive
weapons and on the testing and deployment of MIRV
multiple warheads.

Early passage of the Humphrey resolution could have
a salutary effect on the Administration. But, by itself,
it is unlikely to influence Mr. Nixon any more than did
the Senate's 72-6 vote last year for the Brooke resolu-
tion urging a similar moratorium.

Far more important is Mr. Humphrey's suggestion that
Congressional appropriations for MIRV be put in escrow.
Only if the Congress holds up deployment of ABM and
MIRV missiles through its control of the purse-strings—
while calling on the Soviet Union to demonstrate similar
restraint—will Mr. Nixon be likely to implement the
Senate's recommendations in SALT.

126

128

THE DEFENSE CRISIS

PRINCIPLES
AND
HERESIES

Neither the sec-
tions on defense
in President
Nixon's foreign

policy report nor Secretary Laird's de-
fense posture statement to the Congress
develops a program directed toward
seriously meeting the degradation of
our defenses relative to the strength of
the Soviet Union. Rather, the Admin-
istration's analysis of growing Soviet
strength confirms the most serious ap-
prehensions, while the proposals for
American countermeasures are, so far
as current deployment is concerned, too
little and, so far as projections are con-
cerned, much too late. On the decisive
question of strategic deterrence, Secre-
tary Laird's projections of Soviet nu-
clear-missile power do nothing to dis-
pute the analysis of Charles Benson,
recently published in NATIONAL REVIEW
(March 9); but what is ignored is the
significance of the SS-9 buildup as a
first-strike force capable within a very
few years of eliminating our land-based
missile capacity and thus calling our
whole deterrent capability into question.

But although there is no direct con-
sideration of this specific danger, there
are two specious efforts made to mini-
mize the SS-9 buildup as such. The first
is a hope that the temporary halt in
such deployment might indicate Soviet
acceptance of "sufficiency." This hope
has recently been blown sky high by
Senator Henry Jackson, who revealed
intelligence information that the buildup
had been resumed. The second is a con-
tinuing reliance on the SALT talks. To
this hope anyone with a knowledge of
Soviet diplomatic activity over fifty
years can give a categorical answer:
The Soviets will sign no treaty of ar-
mament limitation that does not
strengthen them and weaken us. Where
one would have hoped for a sharp in-
crease in our offensive missiles, a much
accelerated buildup of the ABM, and
crash programs directed toward new
weapons systems, we have business as
usual in modernizing Minuteman and

Poseidon and in the previously pro-
jected minor increase in ABM.

So far as new weapons systems are concerned, after showing that the Soviets are outspending us by something like 50 per cent, or $3 billion per annum, on research and development, Secretary Laird proposes a 12 per cent increase, or less than $1 billion a year, for fiscal 1972. The future of our defenses will be determined by today's research and development programs. It is scandalous that a country with a trillion-dollar GNP is being outspent in this decisive area for future survival.

The same story repeats itself at every
level of American defense vis-à-vis the
Soviet Union. The Navy can serve as
an example. While our naval forces
grow smaller and more superannuated
from year to year, the Soviets are de-
veloping a large and totally modern
open-ocean navy, preparing to challenge
us in every corner of the world. The
present challenge to our sea supremacy
in the eastern Mediterranean is but a
harbinger of things to come if our
Navy continues to deteriorate.

The measure of our entire defense
effort can be summed up in the Ad-
ministration's budgetary proposals for
defense. On the one hand, the Soviet
Union with steadily increasing effort
moves toward a first-strike capacity
from which they would have the po-
tential for presenting us with a final ulti-
matum. On the other hand, we make
great play with increasing the military
budget by $1.5 billion—a figure which
turns out to be a reduction of $3.5 bil-
lion after allowance is made for infla-
tion. Or, to cite Secretary Laird's own
section on "Changing Priorities"
(shades of John V. Lindsay): Defense
spending in fiscal 1972 will amount to
6.8 per cent of the gross national prod-
uct, as compared to 9.5 per cent in
1968 and 13.3 per cent during the
Korean War—or as compared to 8.3
per cent in 1964 before we were seri-
ously involved in Vietnam.

It is hard to understand why the Ad-

NATIONAL REVIEW 6 APRIL

ministration, faced with the developing
preponderance of Soviet power, does
not call for a sharply increased defense
effort. One must assume that President
Nixon, while aware of the great growth
in Soviet military potential, does not
seriously believe in the intention of the
enemy to use his potential in a final
confrontation with the United States.
History and Soviet dogma, political and
military, throw the most serious doubt
upon such a conclusion—despite the
euphoric climate of coexistence that per-
meates the academy, the media and
much of the ruling circles of the U. S.

WHEN THE UNITED STATES possessed
overwhelming nuclear power, and still
the Soviet Union boldly pressed
forward, creating crisis after crisis,
Winston Churchill said: "If thus they
act in the green wood, how will they
act in the dry?" The wood is drying.
The Soviets show no signs of having
changed. Yet President Nixon tells C. L.
Sulzberger of the *New York Times*:
"This war [the Indochina war] is end-
ing. In fact, I seriously doubt if we will
ever have another war." It is to be
hoped that this is only pious wishful
thinking on Mr. Nixon's part, that he is
aware of the danger, and that the rea-
son for his parsimonious underfinanc-
ing of defense in the forthcoming
budget is, as some say, that he thinks
it is the most he can get out of Con-
gress, particularly the Senate.

This last may be true, as things pres-
ently stand, but if the situation is as
dangerous as it seems to be, the Presi-
dent has a recourse, a recourse that the
security of the country demands of
him. Let him go before the people,
making dramatically clear the urgency
of our needs, pulling no punches either
as to the gravity of the crisis or the
expenditures necessary to meet it. To
do less is to yield leadership to those
in the media and in the Congress who
are taking us down the perilous path to
defeat.
☐

WASHINGTON POST

11 April 1971 Pl

# U.S., Soviet Study ABM Pact Details

By Chalmers M. Roberts

Washington Post Staff Writer

The United States and the Soviet Union at the Vienna SALT talks now are deeply engaged in detailed discussion of an antimissile agreement (ABM) despite the fact that they still differ on how such an agreement should relate to a curb on offensive nuclear weapons.

This represents something of a shift in the American position since the Soviets last December at the Helsinki round of the strategic arms limitation talks proposed an ABMs-only agreement, leaving control of offensive weapons to later.

At that time Gerard C. Smith, chief U.S. delegate, was forbidden by Washington to consider the Soviet proposal. The Soviets offered to go into details if Washington would agree to the principle. But since Smith was foreclosed on that the details were not forth coming.

Now it has been agreed that the details will be discussed with both sides reserving their positions on the principle.

The U.S. at Vienna thus has made clear it is talking details on the stated assumption that any agreement must include what President Nixon has termed "some mix" of both offensive and defensive systems. The Soviets agreed to the discussion without a resolution of the later issue.

The U.S. last year put forward what amounted to a draft treaty covering both offensive and defensive systems. The ABM part of that draft is now matched against the Soviet ABM draft put forward at Vienna recently and the two proposals are said to be "in the same ball park." In other words they are close enough together to make agreement possible in a technical sense.

In several past arms control negotiations technical agreements were reached while policy disputes were unresolved. Then once the policy frame-

work was set, as in agreeing on a limited rather than a comprehensive nuclear test ban in 1963, it was an easy matter to finalize the treaty.

Hence agreement on ABMs in the technical sense could speed a SALT agreement if and when the two superpowers decide how it fits into a treaty.

One additional point on the ABM issue has now come to light. The U.S. last year was willing to accept the Soviet proposal that ABMs be limited to national capital areas, Moscow and Washington, The Nixon administration subsequently decided that, if Moscow and Washington. The counterpart to the existing Moscow ABM system should be the initial phase of the Safeguard ABM system now being built in Montana and North Dakota rather than scrapping that and building a system around Washington.

This idea has been broached to the Soviets in informal talks at Vienna rather than at the conference table. No firm Soviet reaction has yet surfaced but it would be a surprise if Moscow agreed.

The second major element of the current Vienna talks, aside from the ABM issue, is the question of how to prevent World War III's being set off by an accidental missile launch by either the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. or a launch by a third country. The third country both have in mind is China, now just beginning to enter the nuclear missile age.

This discussion began last winter and is now intensive. It got a public boost when Soviet Communist Party leader Leonid Brezhnev said in his March 30 speech that "we consider it advisable to work out measures that would reduce the likelihood of accidental or deliberately fabricated armed incidents that could lead to international crises or war."

It was this discussion which led to the recent Vienna announcement that technicians of both nations would begin examination of how to improve the Moscow-Washington teletype "hot line."

The Vienna discussion is designed to improve the exchange of information that would make it easier to differentiate between an accidental and a deliberate launch and to separate Chinese from Soviet or American launches. Some language to cover this problem may wind up a SALT agreement.

Very little is currently being said at SALT on offensive weapons. The Americans

have hinted they would like to know why the Soviets are constructing new and bigger missile silos but no response has been given.

Thus it appears that considerable work of importance is being done at Vienna despite the deadlock on setting the framework into which the results of that work would have to fit.

The reason the Soviets gave for proposing an ABMs-only agreement was the American refusal to accept their demand that any SALT agreement must cover forward-based American tactical aircraft in Europe and on carriers. It appears that Moscow is waiting to see how much pressure there is in the United States, especially in Congress, for accepting the Soviet formula.

Several key senators, including Hubert H. Humphrey (D-Minn.) and Edmund S. Muskie (D-Maine), have come out for something closer to the Soviet approach but Sen. Henry M. Jackson (D-Wash.) is adamantly opposed as is President Nixon.

129

UPI

13 APRIL 1971

VIENNA (UPI) -- THE STRATEGIC ARMS LIMINATION TALKS (SALT) RESUMED THEIR TWO-A-WEEK MEETING SCHEDULED TODAY WITH THE RETURN OF THE CHIEF SOVIET DELEGATE FROM THE 24TH COMMUNIST PARTY CONGRESS IN MOSCOW.

TODAY'S MEETING, THE SEVENTH SESSION OF THE CURRENT VIENNA ROUND OF SALT, WAS BEING HELD IN THE SOVIET EMBASSY, WITH VLADIMIR S. SEMENOV BACK TO HEAD HIS SOVIET TEAM. SALT RESUMED THE TWO MEETINGS A WEEK ROUTINE THAT HAD BEEN CUT IN HALF IN THE PAST TWO WEEKS.

LACK OF POSITIVE RESULTS AT THE VIENNA ROUND HAS LED TO MOUNTING CRITICISM ABOUT THE U.S. APPROACH TO SALT. SEN. STUART SYMINGTON, D-MO., ONE OF THE MAIN CRITICS, CAME HERE AFTER THE LAST SESSION TO GET A "THOROUGH BRIEFING" BY U.S. CHIEF DELEGATE GERARD C. SMITH ON CURRENT SALT DEVELOPMENTS.

SYMINGTON, WHO REFUSED TO COMMENT WHILE ON A FOREIGN TRIP, HOLDS A DIFFERENT VIEW ON HOW TO APPROACH SALT. IN A RECENT SPEECH HE URGED THE UNITED STATES TO ACCEPT THE SOVIET PROPOSAL THEY MADE LAST FALL FOR A MUTUAL FREEZE ON FURTHER ANTIBALLISTIC MISSILE (ABM) CONSTRUCTION ONLY.

SYMINGTON SAID HE BELIEVES A PARTIAL AGREEMENT INCLUDING ABM CURBS ONLY COULD BE THE FIRST STEP TO A WIDER PACT.

BUT PRESIDENT NIXON EARLIER PUBLICLY REJECTED THE SOVIET PROPOSAL ON GROUNDS THAT ANY PACT MUST MIX OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE WEAPONS.

A SALT OFFICIAL SAID THERE WAS NO INDICATION SOFAR THAT THE U.S. SALT DELEGATION WOULD CHANGE ITS APPROACH TO SALT AS A RESULT OF THE CRITICISM.

"THE U.S. DELEGATION CONTINUES TO FOLLOW THE ADMINISTRATION'S POLICY," THE OFFICIAL SAID. "UNLESS THERE IS A CHANGE IN THE ADMINISTRATION'S VIEW, THERE WILL BE NO CHANGE IN THE U.S. APPROACH TO SALT."

131

THURSDAY MORNING, 15 APRIL 1971

ADV FOR NOON EST

WASHINGTON (UPI) --SEP. HENRY M. JACKSON, D-WASH., TOLD U.S. NEWSPAPER EDITORS TODAY A RELENTLESS SOVIET ARMS BUILDUP THREATENS THE CAPACITY OF THE AMERICAN NUCLEAR DETERMINANT FORCE TO SURVIVE.

JACKSON SAID POPULAR OPINION, WHICH HOLDS THE MILITARY BALANCE LEANS HEAVILY IN THE FAVOR OF THE UNITED STATES, IS WRONG.

"THE UNITED STATES IS SLIPPING," JACKSON SAID. "THE OVERALL STRATEGIC BALANCE IS TILTING IN FAVOR OF MOSCOW."

"... THE CAPACITY OF OUR STRATEGIC FORCE TO SURVIVE IS NOW COMING INTO QUESTION."

JACKSON SAID THE ARMS RACE MUST BE BROUGHT UNDER CONTROL AT THE STRATEGIC ARMS LIMITATION TALKS (SALT). HE SAID THE UNITED STATES SHOULD "BUY MORE TIME" AND SHOULD CONSIDER A PARTIAL, INTERIM AGREEMENT -- FOR AN INITIAL PERIOD OF ONE YEAR -- WITH THE SOVIET UNION.

THIS WOULD HAVE THE EFFECT OF "SLOWING THE STRATEGIC ARMS COMPETITION AND ADDING TO THE IMMEDIATE SECURITY OF THE STRATEGIC BALANCE," JACKSON SAID. HE SAID TERMS OF THE AGREEMENT SHOULD INCLUDE A HALT BY THE U.S. TO DEPLOYMENT OF MINUTEMAN III MISSILES WITH THEIR MULTIPLE RE-ENTRY WARHEADS AND A HALT IN DEPLOYMENT BY THE SOVIETS OF NEW ICBM LAUNCHERS AND MISSILES. HE SAID BOTH SIDES SHOULD AGREE NOT TO DEPLOY A POPULATION DEFENDING ANTIBALLISTIC MISSILE.

JACKSON SAID THE SHIFT IN THE NUCLEAR BALANCE OF POWER WOULD HAVE FAR-REACHING EFFECTS UPON WORLD POLITICS.

"A MORE CONFIDENT SOVIET UNION CAN BE EXPECTED TO THROW ITS WEIGHT AROUND MORE VIGOROUSLY ON BEHALF OF ITS GREAT POWER INTERESTS AND TO RAISE ITS BARGAINING PRICE AT THE NEGOTIATING TABLE," JACKSON SAID. "THUS, NEW ELEMENTS OF RISK AND TURBULENCE WILL BE INTRODUCED INTO INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, ENHANCING THE DANGERS IN CRISIS SITUATIONS."

THE OVERALL STRATEGIC BALANCE MOVED MARKEDLY IN FAVOR OF THE SOVIET UNION DURING THE PERIOD 1966-1971, JACKSON SAID. IN 1966, HE SAID, THE UNITED STATES HAD MORE THAN 700 LONG RANGE BOMBERS, ABOUT 600 SUBMARINE LAUNCHED BALLISTIC MISSILES AND MORE THAN 900 MINUTEMAN MISSILES. IN CONTRAST, THE SOVIETS HAD ABOUT 150 LONG RANGE BOMBERS, LESS THAN 100 SUBMARINE MISSILES AND ABOUT 250 ICBS.

TODAY, JACKSON SAID, THE U.S. BOMBER FORCE IS LESS THAN 600, SUB-LAUNCHED MISSILES NUMBER 656, AND LAND-BASED MISSILES TOTAL 1,054. THE SOVIET BOMBER FORCE HAS REMAINED ABOUT CONSTANT DURING THE FIVE YEARS, BUT THEIR SUBMARINE MISSILE FORCE HAS GROWN TO ALMOST 400 LAUNCHERS WHILE THEIR LAND-BASED MISSILE FORCE HAS RISEN TO MORE THAN 1,440 LAUNCHERS.

JACKSON SAID TOTAL MEGATONNAGE THAT THE SOVIETS COULD DELIVER AGAINST U.S. TARGETS "IS SEVERAL TIMES OUR OWN."

ADV FOR NOON EST