OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY
(Moscow, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics)

THE WHITE HOUSE

PRESS CONFERENCE
OF
HENRY A. KISSINGER
SECRETARY OF STATE

INTOURIST HOTEL

10:10 A.M. (Moscow Time)

MR. ZIEGLER: Secretary Kissinger has appeared here before, so I don't think he needs any introduction.

You have all of the material that will be signed today, and the communique. I guess Jerry has explained to you the fact that there was a section inadvertently left out of the communique you have, and apparently he is running off that insert now. I believe he has described those circumstances, so I won't dwell on it.

The Secretary, first of all, will make an opening statement and then take your questions.

Mr. Secretary.

Q Could we have the section read to us so we know what it says?

MR. ZIEGLER: Secretary Kissinger has that section.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: But then they will be able to ask questions on it. (Laughter)

Q We don't have one protocol mentioned in the communique.

MR. ZIEGLER: The Secretary will cover that with you and the reason for it.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Mr. Ziegler said I should entitle this briefing, "The View From Ten Feet Behind." (Laughter) They don't read the pool reports.

I thought I would give you a brief summary of the summit as we see it, and I think the best way to start is to look at it in terms of the press conference in which I tried to explain the purposes of the meeting.

I pointed out that there are three fundamental purposes in these summit meetings; one, for the leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States to exchange ideas and to check assessments about international affairs in general.

The necessity for this arises because as the two nations capable of destroying humanity, they have a special obligation to prevent conflicts caused by inadvertence, by miscalculation, by misassessment of each other's motives, examples of which history is replete.

The second is to see whether they can, by meeting the needs of their peoples and of mankind, construct a network of positive relationships, that will provide an incentive for moderation and for a beneficial and humane conduct of foreign policy.

The second large objective is to prevent the nuclear arms race and the arms race in general from dominating international affairs, and I want to stress again that this objective is no mean goal and one that will occupy American Administrations in the absence of comprehensive agreements for as far into the future as we can see.

It is not only the complexity of the weapons and their destructiveness, it is also the justifications that will have to be used in each country to sustain large armament programs that will, over a period of time, present a major obstacle to the humane or even safe conduct of foreign policy.

And the third general goal is to identify those areas of common interests, either produced by the nonmilitary aspects of technology or by others or by the nature of modern life in which the Soviet Union and the United States can cooperate and thereby create a perspective on world affairs that recognizes the interdependence of events and the fact that isolation and confrontation are, over a period of time, inimical to progress and inconsistent with human aspirations.

Now, in terms of these three objectives, a great deal of time was spent by the two leaders in reviewing the international situation, and I will get into details when I go through the various documents.

There were the most extensive discussions at that level of the arms race that have ever taken place, and with a frankness that would have been considered inconceivable two years ago, indeed with an amount of detail that would have been considered violating intelligence codes in previous periods.

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So, on the issue of SALT, for example, on which I will have more to say in a few minutes, the words of the communique that far reaching and deep conversations took place, are of very profound significance, and in the next phase of the discussions, difficulties cannot be caused by misapprehensions about each other's general intentions and general perceptions of the nature of the strategic environment.

And thirdly, there were a series of agreements, about most of which you have already been briefed, in the field of cooperative relationships.

Now, let me speak for myself about the two areas of arms control and the general review of the international situation.

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With respect to arms control, let me cover first
the agreements that have been made and then let me talk
about the strategic arms limitations talks.

With respect to the agreements that have been
made, there are three, the agreement that neither side will
build the second ABM site, the agreement on the limited
threshold test ban and thirdly, the agreement to begin
negotiations on environmental warfare.

With respect to the first agreement in which both
sides forego the second ABM site, you remember that the
permanent agreement on defensive weapons signed in Moscow
in 1972, permitted each of the two countries to maintain
two ABM sites, one to defend its capital, the second to
defend an ICBM field provided that field was no closer
than 1,300 kilometers to the capital.

The United States at that time opted for a
defense of an ICBM field, The Soviet Union opted for
a defense of its capital. There were provisions of the
number of interceptors and radars that could be maintained at
each site, but there is no point in going through these.

The United States and the Soviet Union have
now decided to forego that second ABM site and to maintain
only the one ABM site that each currently has which is
Moscow for the Soviet Union, and an ICBM field for the
United States. However, because it was thought desirable
to keep some flexibility with respect to which area could
be defended, each side is permitted at one time during the
course of the agreement and once in a five-year period,
to alter its original decision.

In other words, if the United States should
decide that it would prefer to defend Washington rather
than the ICBM site, we have the option once in a five-year
period to move from the ICBM site to Washington and
equally the Soviet Union has the option of moving once
in that five-year period from Moscow to an ICBM site.

That option, having once been exercised, cannot
be exercised the second time. In other words, countries
cannot shuttle their ABM sites back and forth between the
capital and an ICBM field. Each side, in short, has the
option once to reverse its original decision and it may
do so once in any five-year period when the treaty comes
up for automatic review.

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The significance of this agreement is that it reenforces the original decision implicit in 1972, in fact, explicit in 1972, that neither side would maintain ABM defenses. It makes it even more difficult, if not impossible, to break out of the agreement rapidly, and in turn, the decision to forego ABM defenses has profound strategic consequences which are sometimes lost sight of.

You must remember that the original impetus for the multiple warheads derived from the desire or the necessity to overcome ABM defenses and to make sure that the required number of missiles would get through.

In the absence of ABM defenses, the extraordinary number of foreseeable multiple warheads will create a situation in which such terms as superiority should not be lightly thrown around because they may be devoid of any operational meaning.

The notion of nuclear sufficiency of what is necessary under conditions of no ABM defenses requires careful correlation with the number of available warheads. For present purposes, I want to say that any idea that any country can easily achieve strategic superiority is almost devoid, under these conditions, of any operational significance and can only have a numerical significance.

The ABM agreement reenforces the element of strategic stability that was inherent in the original ABM agreement made in 1972. The second agreement on the threshold test ban prohibits underground nuclear explosions above 150 kilotons and will therefore have the tendency to concentrate that competition in the ranges of the lower yield weapons. The date for its going into effect has been put into the future because a number of additional agreements remain to be worked out.

There remains to have an agreement on the peaceful uses of nuclear explosions in which adequate assurance will be given that they will not be used to circumvent the intention of the agreement and there is an agreement in principle that the inspection of peaceful nuclear explosion, among other things, will involve prior notification, precise definition of the time and place, and the presence of observers which is a major step forward in our discussions.

The second subject that will require further discussion is the exchange of geological information which is needed for the adequate verification of this threshold test ban.

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The third area in which an agreement was reached was to begin discussions on the dangers of environmental warfare from the point of view of overcoming these dangers. This is a form of warfare that is in its infancy, the nature of which is not properly understood and which obviously, by definition, can have profound consequences for the future of mankind.

The United States and the Soviet Union, in the near future, will open discussions on this problem of environmental warfare.

In addition to these three agreements, two protocols will be signed on the Standing Consultative Commission and we will certainly make diplomatic history because it will be the first time that secret agreements are publicly signed. The agreements are being kept secret at the request of the Soviet Union because they involve dismantling procedures for replacement missiles under the interim agreement and the ABM agreement. However, they will be submitted to the appropriate Congressional committees upon our return to the United States.

Let me say a word about the Standing Consultative Commission. The Standing Consultative Commission was created in the 1972 agreement, in order to implement the provisions for replacement or destruction of weapons under the two agreements on defensive and offensive weapons.

There is a protocol for defensive weapons, because the United States will have to dismantle some deployments that have taken place at a site which under the agreement we can no longer maintain and the Soviet Union will have to dismantle 15 ABM launchers and associated radars on their test ranges.

Secondly, there is a protocol for offensive weapons which discusses dismantling and replacement procedure under the provisions of the interim agreement where all land based missiles can be traded in for modern sea based missiles and where older submarine launched nuclear missiles can be traded in for newer submarine launched sea based missiles.

These are the two protocols that have been the subject of illuminating exchange that took place just before I left the United States.

It must be understood that it was the assignment from the beginning of the Standing Consultative Commission to work out precise provisions for replacement and dismantling, that for that purpose they had to go into greater technical detail than was the case in the agreement and that two protocols will be signed, one to implement

the defensive provisions, the other to implement the
defensive provisions.

They break no new ground, they change no
provisions. If I may say so, they close no loopholes,
they deal only with the technical implementation of agree-
ments previously reached. They will be submitted to
Congressional committees. They are not policy documents.
They are technical documents, in implementation of the
1972 agreement, and they are being signed now as a result
of work extending over a period of 18 months because it
is only now that the replacement provisions are becoming
effective due to the fact that the missiles,
the ICBM's, did not have to be dismantled
until the submarines containing the 741st missile on the
Soviet side underwent sea trial.

Now these are the agreements that have been
reached.

Now let me say a word about strategic arms limita-
tion talks. As I pointed out, prior to our coming here,
the Administration considers the problem of strategic
arms limitation one of the central issues of our time.
It is one of the central issues because if it runs unchecked
the number of warheads will reach proportions astronomical
compared to the time when Armageddon seemed near, when
there were something less than 1,000 warheads on both sides.

It is important because a perception may grow
that these warheads will provide a capability which will
not be sustained by any systematic analysis, but because
in any event they bring about a gap between the perceived
first and second strike capabilities which in itself will
fuel a constantly accelerating arms race.

Now the problem we face in these discussions is
that under the interim agreement the Soviet Union possesses
more missiles, though if you add together the total number
of launchers that is to say, strategic bombers, there is
no significant gap, and after all, it was not the Soviet
Union that made us build bombers, that was our own decision
and therefore, an attempt has been made to establish
a correlation between the number of MIRV missiles and the
number of launchers in which perhaps to some extent the larger
numbers of missiles on one side can be offset by a
larger number of MIRV's on the other.

The difficulty with this approach has been the
limited time frame within which it was attempted to be
implemented so that during the maximum deployment period
it would not be clear whether any of these limitations
would not simply be to provide a base for a breakout when
the agreement lapsed.

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Therefore, the two leaders have decided that the principal focus of the discussions would not be on a brief extension of the interim agreement tied to an equally brief MIRV agreement, but to see whether the three factors, time, quantity of launchers and quantity of warheads cannot be related in a more constructive and stabilizing fashion over a longer period of time, that is to say, by 1985.

And in that context, some of the difficulty of relating the various asymmetries in number can be taken care of and a stability can be perhaps achieved in deployment rates that would remove, to a considerable extent, the insecurities inherent in an unchecked arms race.

As the communique says, the two sides will reconvene their delegations in Geneva on the basis of this approach and on the basis of instructions growing out of the summit meeting.

With respect to the review of the international situation implicit in the communique, I think I will confine myself to a few observations and primarily answer your questions.

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The basic purpose of this review was, as I have pointed out, to attempt to avoid miscalculation and where possible, bring about cooperative action.

In Europe, the principal focus were two subjects: the European security conference and the mutual balanced force reductions.

With respect to the European security conference, the United States repeated its position, which is that we are prepared to have that security conference end at the summit level if the results of the conference warrant it, and that we would believe that such a conference, with adequate results, could make a contribution to European security.

That phrase has been used by Western statesmen now for two years, and it will not in itself advance matters until we can define for ourselves what results we constitute justifying a summit conference. We have put that question to our European allies at Ottawa, discussions of it have begun in Brussels, and we hope to be able to have at least a Western answer to this in the relatively near future.

With respect to the Middle East, I will read the part you don't have.

"Both sides believe that the removal of the danger of war and tension in the Middle East is a task of paramount importance and urgency, and therefore, the only alternative is the achievement on the basis of U.N. Security Council Resolution 338, of a just and lasting peace settlement in which should be taken into account the legitimate interests of all peoples in the Middle East, including the Palestinian people, and the right to existence of all states in the area.

"As Co-Chairmen of the Geneva Peace Conference on the Middle East, the USA and the USSR consider it important that the Conference resume its work as soon as possible, with the question of other participants from the Middle East area to be discussed at the Conference. Both sides see the main purpose of the Geneva Peace Conference, the achievement of which they will promote in every way, as the establishment of just and stable peace in the Middle East.

"They agreed that the USA and the USSR will continue to remain in close touch with a view toward coordinating the efforts of both countries toward a peaceful settlement in the Middle East."

This is the extent of the Middle East section, which will be distributed to you as soon as this briefing is over.

Finally, the communique lists the area of bilateral relations that have already been covered in previous briefings on which separate agreements were signed. In addition to the ones that have been signed, there will be additional cooperation in space and technology of high speed transportation and in the area of environmental protection where both sides will create biosphere areas; that is, areas which are kept free of the encroachment of modern technology to use for purposes of comparison with areas in which major environmental problems are posed.

Now, these are the main outlines of the Conference, and of the agreements that have been signed. They should be seen in the context of what is now and what will remain for the decades ahead, the problem of preserving the peace: namely, that the United States and the Soviet Union make every honorable effort to avoid the catastrophe of war, and every endeavor to improve the lot of humanity, and that for this purpose the regular meeting of their leaders -- which the communique points out can be supplemented for special occasions between the yearly intervals that have been set -- performs an essential role.

I would be glad to answer questions now.

Q Mr. Secretary, doesn't your Middle East section suggest a change in U.S. policy, and doesn't it now advocate the seating of the Palestinians at the Geneva Peace Conference as the Soviets wanted?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Absolutely not.

Q What does it mean then?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: What it means is that this sentence about the problem of the participation of others from the Middle East is verbatim, drawn from the original letter of invitation to the Geneva Conference, and it adds not one word to the original letter in which the invitation was extended to the parties that are now at the Geneva Conference.

Indeed, it is a slight reduction from it where it was said that this problem would be discussed in the first stage, and here it simply says it will be discussed at the Geneva Peace Conference.

Q Dr. Kissinger, two questions. One, how did you arrive at the date 1985 on the SALT business as a concluding date or terminating date?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Because we couldn't pick

1984. (Laughter)

(ie)

Q That is what I thought, but I know you will give a more serious answer in a minute. And secondly, what is the nature of the instruction that will be going out to the delegation that will reconvene in Geneva, and approximately when will they start?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: We would expect them to start around August 1, give or take two weeks. The date 1985 was picked for the following reasons:

We had been thinking in terms of extending the interim agreement by perhaps two or three years and at the same time coupling with it some MIRV limitations. This presented a number of extraordinarily difficult problems, because we would be pressed in terms of quantity, since a number of our new programs such as Trident are going to be deployed starting around 1978, 1979, and on the other hand, the Soviet Union would be pressed in terms of quality because their deployment of MIRVs is only now starting and the difficulty of making an agreement with a cutoff date of 1979 is when you have gone through all the agony, you have not put a cap on the rate of deployment, most of which will be occurring after 1978, 1979.

So, it seemed to us that by picking a period of 1985, one could take into account the projected programs and put on limitations that would have some operational significance in which in any event would introduce some stability into deployment rates in such a way that it was not each side's perception of the other, that would be driving it into an ever accelerating spiral.

As we were discussing on Sunday, the various ways of tackling the problem, it became apparent that one of the big obstacles was the short time frame which we were considering and that for what we had in mind it was really necessary to look at it in a longer time frame.

On the other hand, when you talk of a permanent agreement, you get yourself frozen into situations in which the technology is so unpredictable that it is very difficult to make reasonable judgments, and this is why the period 1985 was chosen.

It was chosen in the hope, not the assurance, that if such an agreement were reached next year, we would be talking of a ten-year agreement. This is one of the factors.

Q Could I follow that, because it seems important. You talked about the technological explosion in Brussels, I think. Does this not suggest that in the period between now and 1985 you will have one hell of an arms race going on?

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SECRETARY KISSINGER: No. It depends when the agreement is made. As I said in Brussels, and I maintain, that we have about 18 months to gain control of the multiple warheads, control not in the sense of eliminating it, but by introducing some stability into the rate and nature of their deployment.

If an agreement is reached within that time frame, more or less--that doesn't mean down to the last month--then it can make a major contribution to turning down the arms race, to including the problem of reduction to which we attach importance and to bring stability into the strategic equation.

With every six-month period that it is delayed, the problem becomes more complicated, but the point is precisely to avoid what you called the hell of an arms race, and the difficulty, as you analyze the problem with cutoff dates of 1977, 1979, is that both sides will be preparing for the break of the agreement while they are negotiating the agreement, and it became clear that one of the obstacles was that both sides, while negotiating limitations, were also putting themselves into the position of the agreement lapsing and, therefore, having to develop programs that would be pressing against limits of the agreement at the edge of its time period and for that very reason have another vested interest not to have an agreement.

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Q Dr. Kissinger, General Secretary Brezhnev said last night that these accords could have been still broader than they were. First, I would like your comments on that and also whether it is not correct then from your interpretation that one could not say there are agreed guidelines on the MIRV warhead negotiations.

Secondly, on the question of the underground nuclear test ban, could you clarify with some figures what I believe is a fact that the limit of 150 kilotons would permit all continuing underground testing of MIRV's currently conducted by the United States which are considerably below that range and would that not allow the continuance even beyond the target date here of all the projectable of multiple warheads likely to be produced by both sides.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: First, the degree of cooperation between the Soviet Union and the United States has not yet reached the point where the General Secretary shows me the text of his speeches before he makes them. (Laughter) And therefore, I am not the best witness of what he may have had in mind.

My impression from what I have observed is that both sides have to convince their military establishments of the benefits of restraint and that that is not a thought that comes naturally to military people on either side.

Now, by definition, the limitations could have been broader. On the one hand as you know, the Soviet Union has been proposing a complete test ban, but under provisions that are unverifiable and with escape clauses which would make it directed clearly against other countries. And therefore, we have deferred a further discussion of the test ban, which we are not rejecting in principle, which indeed we are accepting in principle for a later occasion. So I am assuming this is one thing the General Secretary had in mind.

The second is, from my description of the SALT discussions, obviously a broader agreement is conceivable. With respect to your question, are there agreed guidelines for Geneva, the idea of extending the time frame arose really only on Monday, and it wasn't possible to work out detailed agreed guidelines in the interval.

On the other hand, certain basic principles do exist and I believe we have made a major step forward in the approach to the problem.

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With respect to the testing, it is not true
that all the projected MIRV developments are in the category
below 150. Indeed, the enthusiasm seems to run more in
the categories above 150, coupled with improved accuracies,
but whenever I link these two I get a rebuttal. So I
must be cautious. So if we are concerned that one of
the threats to stability is the combination and accuracy
and higher yields, then in the next phase of the MIRV
warhead race, this ban will make a major contribution.

Clearly for the existing multiple warheads the
testing has been substantially completed on both sides.
We are concerned with the next generation of warheads, not
this generation of warheads and with respect to those,
it will play a very significant role.

Q May I follow that, Dr. Kissinger?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Yes.

Q On this question of the 150 threshold,
just if you can get a little more specific, what will
it prevent us from doing that we had planned to do, planned
to test and what will it prevent the Soviets from doing
that we know they had planned to test?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: To tell you what we know about what the Soviets are planning to do would present major problems of hospitality. (Laughter)

Q We have had some already. (Laughter)

SECRETARY KISSINGER: You are supposed to laugh at my jokes, not top them. (Laughter)

I cannot obviously go into what we were planning
to do and what the Soviet Union was planning to do. It is
obvious that if one of the concerns is the elaboration
of strategies that rely on first strikes, and if, to
put it another way, the concern of each side is that the
proliferation of warheads might make it subject to
a first strike, then it stands to reason that with the
hardening of silos, it is the increase in the explosive
power of warheads together with improved accuracy that
becomes of greatest concern and therefore to the extent
that those strategies become possible, conceivable or
dominant on each side, whatever its previous approach,
each side will be driven towards the elaboration of
larger warheads on its MIRV's.

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So I repeat, this is addressed to the next generation of warheads, not to the present generation of warheads.

Q What I was getting at there, as I understand it -- and I could be wrong -- we test in miniature, or do to some extent, wouldn't that put us well below 150, below 100 in fact, and do the Soviets do the same kind of testing in miniature or not?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I don't think this is the place, nor can I think of many more convenient places (Laughter) to go in detail into our methods of testing or what we know about the Soviet methods of testing.

It is my understanding that miniature testing is very rarely done, never done with operational weapons, and the concern that has been expressed to us, as we were discussing this, within our government, was precisely the necessity of full scale tests of those categories of weapons of principal significance.

Q Dr. Kissinger, will they be able to test MIRV's on the SS-9 under that 150 kiloton limitation?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Whenever I describe the characteristics of Soviet weapons to Soviet colleagues, their self-control evaporates. I don't know how they feel when I describe them to American journalists.

It is our understanding that no MIRV's are being put on SS-9's, that they are developing a missile of comparable size which will have a MIRV capability. I am not making a hair-splitting point. The warhead of that missile which we call the SS-18 and in which our judgment is that the testing of MIRV's is in its very early stage, those warheads, in our judgment, would be considerably larger than 150 kilotons and indeed, if those warheads could be driven below 150 kilotons, we would consider it a considerable success.

Q Do you interpret this limitation as in effect to preventing them from MIRVing on SS-9's or SS-18's?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: As I said, they are not MIRVing the SS-9's. In order to get MIRV's on a large missile, they would have to replace the SS-9 with a SS-18, but that is just a refinement.

Quite honestly I believe they have probably tested
the warheads they would want to put on the SS-18 already.
However, these have always to be calculated in terms of
weight-to-yield ratio; that is to say, at the present state
of their technology there may be a limit to the number of
warheads of large yield they can put on the SS-18, while with
continued testing, the number of warheads could be multiplied
very considerably and still maintain the same explosive power,
but I don't want to go beyond that. But you have to look at
it both in terms of numbers of warheads that can be carried
on an individual missile as well as in terms of the explosive
power of each warhead and both of them are a function of
testing, because testing determines the packaging which is
to say the size of the warhead, as well as the yield of the
warhead.

Q Mr. Secretary, will you be presenting to
Members of the Congress any indications of a lessening
of tensions and the problems with respect to emigration
and harassment and have you found any further understanding
and receptivity on the part of the Soviet leaders in this
field?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: There was a discussion of the
subject -- and I will have to maintain the position that
we have previously, which is to say that we believe that the
objective which we think we share with those who have other
approaches can, in our judgment, be realized more effectively
without making it a public government-to-government
confrontation.

Q Can't you tell us if anything new has arisen,
not what it is, but if anything new has arisen.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I will discuss the subject
with those who are interested in the Congress after I
return, but I will not discuss it publicly, as I have stated
consistently.

Q Dr. Kissinger, you sound as though you have,
at least for the time being, given up hope for getting a
comprehensive SALT agreement with the Soviet Union. Is that
correct?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Not a comprehensive, but a
permanent, and this is not a question of giving up hope,
it is a question of looking at the realities of how to
move matters forward. We have been operating up to now within
the constraint of either a very short term or a sort of
permanent agreement.

Now, permanent would have to have review clauses
every five to ten years anyway. So, when you talk of
1985, that is about as permanent as you can realistically
become under present circumstances.

Q Dr. Kissinger, what is the view of the Government of the United States of the effect on the good will and spirit that this agreement and the others seek to create of the Soviet efforts to interfere with American television transmissions last night?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I don't know the details of the interference with the television transmission, but we certainly don't approve of it.

Q Mr. Secretary, I thought I heard you say at the outset that the underground testing ban -- I may have misheard you -- but I thought I heard you say the underground testing ban included some provision for observers. I can't find it. Can you elaborate on that?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: No, the negotiations with respect to the verification of peaceful nuclear explosions included an understanding which is not part of the agreement, that the verification of the underground explosions would involve, among other things, the specification of time and place, and the presence of observers.

That, in itself, is not enough, however. It is not written in the document, and you are quite correct in not finding it because this is, I believe, Article III, and Article III simply says it will be negotiated in the earliest time, and I am simply indicating that we did discuss some of the substance of this Article III, even now.

The difficulty with peaceful nuclear explosions, or the inspection difficulty or verification difficulty, is on two levels. Below the threshold level of 150 kilotons, it does not present a problem of magnitude, but it presents a problem of location.

As you know from the agreement, the location of military test sites is specified and geological information is exchanged and also, there is provision, as you can see in the protocol, for calibration shots.

Therefore, we have a substantial degree of confidence within a factor that is very tolerable for military purposes that we will know violations of the threshold test ban as long as the testing takes place at known sites.

A peaceful nuclear explosion obviously will almost never take place at military test sites; therefore, we will have less geological information; therefore, special verification procedures will have to be used.

This is below 150 kilotons. If the peaceful
nuclear explosion should be above 150 kilotons, even more
stringent requirements exist to make sure that peaceful
nuclear explosions do not hide military testing and those
provisions frankly have not been worked out, but there is an
understanding that they will include the presence of observers.

Q For those of us without a deep background
in the arms negotiation, is this then the first time the
Soviet Union has -- leaving aside what kind of tests these
are -- agreed to on-site inspection?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: That is correct. But
agreed in the form of an unwritten understanding. This
does not exist yet.

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Q Sir, does this understanding specify as
to whether these observers will be principals of both
countries or whether they will be third nation observers
or perhaps observers from an international body?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: This has not been worked
out. In the context of the discussions, it was from the
two countries, which incidentally is much more reassuring
to the two countries than to bring in outsiders, but that
is a question that has not been refined.

Q Dr. Kissinger, are we or the Russians currently
testing any warheads larger than 150 kilotons?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I can't go into great
detail about it, but as I said, the trend is clearly
in that direction.

Q I didn't quite understand that. What I
wanted to get out was, does this merely freeze the tests
at the current level, or is it actually cutting the
size of it?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: As I pointed out, because
there is no sense in misleading anybody, obviously the
warheads for the current generation have been substantially
tested almost certainly by both sides. What will be affected
is the improved packaging of new generations or the
improved yield of new generations, not of missiles necessarily,
but of warheads.

In that sense, without going into the testing
programs, I think it is correct to say that the trend of the
arms race is in the direction of the higher yields, for reasons
which I gave you.

Q What about the problem of decoupling?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: The problem of decoupling, I think has been insofar as it can be, taken care of by the exchange of geological information and by the calibration shots.

Q I am kind of puzzled how you can take what happened here on SALT as anything less than a setback. If you have changed from searching for a permanent agreement to searching for one in a finite time period, and you postponed the time you have given yourself, or you have put back the time you have given yourself to find that agreement. It seems to me there are two setbacks there, and I don't see how you can say this hasn't been a failure at the summit.

Q We couldn't hear the question.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: It is just as well. (Laughter) The question is how we can construe SALT as anything other than a setback because we extended the time period for negotiation and we shortened the time period of the agreement to be reached.

Is that correct?

Q Yes.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: If you approach it in a formalistic way, then these are valid arguments. If you approach it from the point of view of what will in fact contribute to slowing down the arms race, then I believe that we have found an approach in which the factors that have inhibited progress can be hopefully overcome.

The difficulty with the previous negotiations has been that it has proved extremely difficult to reconcile the various asymmetries that exist in the design of the forces, in the locations of the forces and in the relative deployment rates of the forces. And the time limits we have been talking about until this visit, created a situation in which both sides would be pressing against the limits of the agreement at the precise moment of its expiration date, the Soviet Union from the point of view of quality, the United States from the point of view of quantity; and therefore, there was a great danger that the mere expiration date might fuel, especially in its final phases, a race.

And as a result of the discussions that took place Sunday, where for the first time, I believe, at least where the concerns and the perceptions of both sides were put before each other in what I considered an unusually frank way, and in which it turned out that the perceptions by each side of the other really was remarkably close -- the only

difference being that each side of course has to take
the worst case of what the other one might do; I think
this was the major gap that existed -- it became apparent
that the time pressure was a greater factor than had been
commonly understood by either side.

So, I don't want to do this in terms of setback.
We are not running a race with ourselves. This is a problem
which I have been stressing will be with us for a long
time and it shouldn't be seen in terms of hitting a home
run on any one occasion.

Q You, at the Brussels briefing, said there was
only 18 months before their decisions were irrevocable
and each six months made it worse in terms of the rate of
deployment.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: That is right and I have
reaffirmed that here.

Q But what I mean is you introduced the time
pressure as you call it.

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SECRETARY KISSINGER: There are two time factors,
the time factor available for negotiation and the time factor
involved in the length of the agreement. I have reaffirmed
here that in my judgment the time frame in which the problems
that I have identified can be constructively settled is
in the 18 month range -- 24 months, 18 months -- in that
range, and one of the reasons for 1985 is that if this
agreement were to be concluded in '75, it would then take
care of the next decade. This was one of the reasons
behind it.

So that time factor still exists and that time
factor will press on us and must press on us if we are
serious.

Q Can I follow up on that, sir? What would
you envision will happen then if the interim agreement
expires or is allowed to expire in 1977 but you have
not yet reached a replacement agreement -- what will
happen between 1977 and 1985 in terms of the arms race
psychology?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: If we have not reached an agreement well before 1977, then I believe you will see an explosion of technology and an explosion of numbers at the end of which we will be lucky if we have the present stability; in which it will be impossible to describe what strategic superiority means. And one of the questions which we have to ask ourselves as a country is what in the name of God is strategic superiority? What is the significance of it, politically, militarily, operationally, at these levels of numbers? What do you do with it?

But my prediction would be that if we do not solve this problem well before, in my judgment, the end of the expiration of the agreement, we will be living in a world which will be extraordinarily complex, in which opportunities for nuclear warfare exist that were unimaginable 15 years ago at the beginning of the nuclear age, and that is what is driving our concern, not the disputes that one reads in the day-to-day --

Q One last point, on the weather modification, sir, could you clarify? You only referred to it very briefly. Weather modification techniques, as I understand, proved a failure in the Vietnam war. Could you explain why the issue is regarded as significant in arms control?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, the issue is significant because the problem exists. And it is not a problem, frankly, that we have completely understood. We have just started our studies on the subject. How significant it is, frankly, will become apparent only as time goes on. It is significant for the determination of the two sides to try to limit new areas of arms competition.

THE PRESS: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

END (AT 11:15 A.M. Moscow Time)

PRESS
DEPARTMENT OF STATE

[L-C]

July 3, 1974

No. 283

No. 27

PRESS CONFERENCE
BY
THE HONORABLE HENRY A. KISSINGER
SECRETARY OF STATE
INTOURIST HOTEL
MOSCOW, UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS

JULY 3, 1974

The necessity for this arises because as the two nations capable of destroying humanity, they have a special obligation to prevent conflicts caused by inadvertance, by miscalculation, by misassessment of each other's motives, examples of which history is replete.

For further information contact:

PR #283

- 2 -

They were the most extensive discussions at that level of the arms race
that have ever taken place, and with a frankness that would have been
considered inconceivable two years ago, indeed with an amount of detail
that would have been considered violating intelligence codes in previous
periods.

So, on the issue of SALT, for example, on which I will have more to
say in a few minutes, the words of the communique that far reaching and
deep conversations took place, are of very profound significance, and in
the next phase of discussions, difficulties cannot be caused by mis-
apprehensions about each other's general intentions and general perceptions
of the nature of the strategic environment.

And thirdly, there were a series of agreements, about most of which
you have already been briefed in the field of cooperative relationships.

With respect to arms control, let me cover first the agreements that
have been made and then let me talk about the strategic arms limitation
talks.

With respect to the agreements that have been made, there are three:
the agreement that neither side will build the second ABM site, the
agreement on the limited threshold test ban and thirdly, the agreement to
begin negotiations on environmental warfare.

With respect to the first agreement in which both sides forego the
second ABM site, you remember that the permanent agreement of defensive
weapons signed in Moscow in 1972, permitted each of the two countries to
maintain two ABM sites, one to defend its capital, the second to defend
an ICBM field provided that field was no closer than 1,300 kilometers to
the capital.

The United States at that time opted for a defense of an ICBM field.
The Soviet Union opted for a defense of its capital. There were
provisions of the number of interceptors and radars that could be main-
tained at each site, but there is no point in going through these.

PR #283

The significance of this agreement is that it reinforces the original
decision implicit in 1972, in fact, explicit in 1972, that neither side
would maintain ABM defenses. It makes it even more difficult, if not
impossible, to break out of the agreement rapidly, and in turn, the
decision to forego ABM defenses has profound strategic consequences which
are sometimes lost sight of.

The ABM agreement reinforces the element of strategic stability that
was inherent in the original ABM agreement made in 1972. The second agree-
ment on the threshold test ban prohibits underground nuclear explosions
above the 150 kilotons and will therefore have the tendency to concentrate
competition in the ranges of the lower yield weapons. The date for its
going into effect has been put into the future because a number of additional
agreements remain to be worked out.

There remains to have an agreement on the peaceful uses of nuclear
explosions in which adequate assurance will be given that they will not
be used to circumvent the intention of the agreement and there is an agree-
ment in principle that the inspection of peaceful nuclear explosion, among
other things, will involve prior notification precise definition of the
time and place, and the presence of observers which is a major step forward
in our discussions.

The third area in which an agreement was reached was to begin discussions
on the dangers of environmental warfare from the point of view of over-
coming these dangers. This is a form of warfare that is in its infancy, the
nature of which is not properly understood and which obviously, by definition,
can have profound consequences for the future of mankind.

PR #283

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Secondly, there is a protocol for offensive weapons which discusses dismantling and replacement procedure under the provisions of the interim agreement where all land-based missiles can be traded in for modern sea-based missiles and where older submarine-launched nuclear missiles can be traded in for newer submarine launched sea-based missiles.

It must be understood that it was the assignment from the beginning of the Standing Consultative Commission to work out precise provisions for replacement and dismantling, that for that purpose they had to go into greater technical detail than was the case in the agreement and that two protocols will be signed, one to implement the defensive provisions, the other to implement the offensive provisions.

They break no new ground, they change no provisions. If I may say so, they close no loopholes, they deal only with the technical implementation of agreements previously reached. They will be submitted to Congressional committees. They are not policy documents. They are technical documents, in implementation of the 1972 agreement, and they are being signed now as a result of work extending over a period of 18 months because it is only now that the replacement provisions are becoming effective due to the fact that the missiles, the ICBM's, did not have to be dismantled until the submarines containing the 741st missile on the Soviet side underwent sea trial.

Now let me say a word about strategic arms limitation talks. As I pointed out, prior to our coming here, the Administration considers the problem of strategic arms limitation one of the central issues of our time. It is one of the central issues because if it runs unchecked the number of warheads will reach proportions astronomical compared to the time when Armageddon seemed near, when there were something less than 1,000 warheads on both sides.

PR #283

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accelerating arms race.

Now the problem we face in these discussions is that under the interim agreement the Soviet Union possesses more missiles, though if you add together the total number of launchers that is to say, strategic bombers, there is no significant gap, and after all, it was not the Soviet Union that made us build bombers, that was our own decision and therefore, an attempt has been made to establish a correlation between the number of MIRV missiles and the numbers of launchers in which perhaps to some extent the larger numbers of missiles on one side can be offset by a larger number of MIRV's on the other.

With respect to the review of the international situation implicit in the communique, I think I will confine myself to a few observations and primarily answer you questions.

In Europe, the principal focus were two subjects: the European Security Conference and the mutual balanced force reductions.

With respect to the European Security Conference, the United States repeated its position, which is that we are prepared to have that security conference and at the summit level if the results of the conference warrant it, and that we would believe that such a conference, with adequate results, could make a contribution to European security.

PR #283

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Finally the communique lists the area of bilateral relations that have already been covered in previous briefings on which separate agreements were signed. In addition to the ones that have been signed, there will be additional cooperation in space and technology of high-speed transportation and in the area of environmental protection where both sides will create biosphere areas; that is, areas which are kept free of the encroachment of modern technology to use for purposes of comparison with areas in which major environmental problems are posed.

Now, these are the main outlines of the Conference, and of the agreements that have been signed. They should be seen in the context of what is now and what will remain for the decades ahead, the problem of preserving the peace; namely, that the United States and the Soviet Union make every honorable effort to avoid the catastrophe of war, and every endeavor to improve the lot of humanity, and that for this purpose the regular meeting of their leaders -- which the communique points out can be supplemented for special occasions between the yearly intervals that have been set -- performs an essential role.

**QUESTION:** Mr. Secretary, doesn't your Middle East section suggest a change in U.S. policy, and doesn't it now advocate the seating of the Palestinians at the Geneva Peace Conference as the Soviets wanted?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** Absolutely not.

**QUESTION:** What does it mean then?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** What it means is that this sentence about the problem of the participation of others from the Middle East is verbatim, drawn from the original letter of invitation to the Geneva Conference, and it adds not one word to the original letter in which the invitation was extended to the parties that are now at the Geneva Conference.

PR #283

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**QUESTION:** Dr. Kissinger, two questions. One, how did you arrive at the date 1985 on the SALT business as a concluding date or terminating date?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** Because we couldn't pick 1984. (Laughter)

**QUESTION:** That is what I thought, but I know you will give a more serious answer in a minute. And secondly, what is the nature of the instruction that will be going out to the delegation that will reconvene in Geneva, and approximately when will they start?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** We would expect them to start around August 1, give or take two weeks. The date 1985 was picked for the following reasons:

We had been thinking in terms of extending the interim agreement by perhaps two or three years and at the same time coupling with it some MIRV limitations. This presented a number of extraordinarily difficult problems, because we would be pressed in terms of quantity, since a numbers of our new programs such as Trident are going to be deployed starting around 1978, 1979, and on the other hand, the Soviet Union would be pressed in terms of quality because their deployment of MIRV's is only now starting and the difficulty of making an agreement with a cut off date of 1979 is when you have gone through all the agony, you have not put a cap on the rate of deployment, most of which will be occurring after 1978, 1979.

**QUESTION:** Could I follow that, because it seems important. You talked about the technological explosion in Brussels, I think. Does this not suggest that in the period between now and 1985 you will have one hell of an arms race going on?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** No. It depends when the agreement is made. As I said in Brussels, and I maintain, that we have about 18 months to gain control of the multiple warheads, control not in the sense of