ABC EVENING NEWS

260

Thursday, July 15, 1971

## Ways To Improve Progress in SALT Talks Discussed

SMITH: Here in Washington today there was a lot of discussion about ways to encourage progress in the US-Soviet talks on limiting nuclear weapons.

One of the potential Democratic Presidential candidates took the view that a temporary unilateral American halt in weapons deployment would help the SALT talks.

BILL ZIMMERMAN: Senator Hubert HUMPHREY proposed today that approved funds for multiple warhead missiles be placed in escrow to be released only if and when Congress and the President determine that developments in the Soviet Union warrant further MERV testing and deployment.

HUMPHREY made his proposal to Senator Edmund MUSKIE's Arms Control Subcommittee.

SENATOR HUMPHREY: But I believe there is an awakening between the two great powers that security is not to be found in just how many weapons that you have.

Or how big they are or how widely deployed they may be.

But security may come more in political accommodation.

Now we have arrived at a point of nuclear parity - we call it. nuclear sufficiency - this is the time, the place, and the hour it seems to me to make the great decisions of slowing down the arms race.

ZIMMERMAN: HUMPHREY's assertion of nuclear parity apparently is not shared by New York's James BUCKLEY.

In a Washington speech, BUCKLEY said, anti-militarism here is causing the US to lose ground to Soviet research and development.

BUCKLEY: We simply cannot afford to ignore the fact that the Soviet Union is currently spending three billion dollars per

year more than we are on military and space RND (?!) and that she is expanding that expenditure at the rate of 13% per annum while ours has been declining.

For us to continue to fall behind in this critical area is to invite a technological Pearl Harbor.

ZIMMERMAN: The Administration has urged more ABM and MERV development to be used as a bargaining chip in the current arms limitation talks.

And the news arms controversy seems to be just warming up.

WASHINGTON POST

15 July 1971 P1

# HHH Warns On Buildup In A-Arms

By Murrey Marder

Washington Post Staff Writer

Attempts by the Nixon administration to use new nuclear deployments as "bargaining chips" with the Soviet Union will only invite the Russians to "knock the chip off your shoulder," Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey (D-Minn.) warned yesterday.

The Soviet Union "will match us missile for missile, submarine for submarine," the former Vice President told the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Arms Control.

Strong bipartisan skepticism about the administration's "bargaining chip" argument for voting more funds to deploy more antiballistic missiles and more multiple warheads for existing missiles, was expressed before the subcommittee.

Instead of spending the requested money to try to gain bargaining leverage in the current U.S. Soviet strategic arms limitation talks, said Humphrey, the United States should "place in escrow" all funds for further testing and deployment of MIRVs (multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles, or clusters of warheads for land-based or submarine-launched missiles). the United States, said Humphrey, should seek "a mutual freeze" on testing and deploying both offensive and defensive nuclear weapons, "pending the outcome of the talks."

Support for such a new drive for a nuclear "freeze," narrowly defeated in the Senate in 1969, first on a 50-to-50 vote and finally on a 51-to-49 vote, was quickly expressed by Subcommittee Chairman Edmund S. Muskie (D-Maine). Muskie revived his 1970 idea for "freeze intervals of six months" to test Soviet reactions.

Sen. Clifford P. Case (N.J.) ranking Republican on the subcommittee, expressed his

own disbelief in the validity of the "bargaining chip" argument for continued nuclear deployments, which was presented Tuesday by Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard.

Case said that he cannot believe that the "bargaining chip" argument "is seriously meant by those who advocate it."

He said he suspects the underlying purpose may be fear that the American people will not support the search for a nuclear limitation accord unless U. S. force deployments continue. "It is so obvious," said Case, "that this is a transparency to build something just to demonstrate you have the will to do it."

Sen. John Sherman Cooper (R-Ky.) said he believes the question is "to what extent might we complicate these negotiations" by doing or not doing what the Nixon administration asks.

Prof. Marshall D. Shulman, director of the Russian institute at Columbia University, said it is already "clear that the effect of the 'bargaining chip' rationale for further armament measures by the United States has been the opposite of what was intended."

The Soviet leadership, said Shulman, "feels itself obligated to match each step with comparable measures, for it cannot allow itself, for both domestic and international reasons, to be pressured into an agreement on unfavorable terms."

"Perhaps the 'bargaining chip' theory may be sound diplomacy under some circumstances," said Shulman, "but it is clear that in the strategic weapons field it provides dynamism for the arms race."

"Since SALT (negotiations) began," said Shulman, "we've lost ground. The deployments are greater on both sides."

Admissions by the Defense Department's chief witnesses now show "that the United States can halt its MIRV deployment for several years without incurring any security risks," said another witness, Herbert Scoville Jr., former assistant director of science and technology for the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

The "Soviet MIRV program is many years behind that of the U.S." said Scoville, and "it would require several years of testing before they could deploy MIRVS which could

threaten Minuteman"—Minuteman III, the triple-headed, land-based, U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile.

Humphrey said that while the administration is asking for about $635 million in fiscal 1972 for the Minuteman III MIRV program and $530 million for the Poseidon (submarine-launched missiles, with a cluster of 10 warheads in a missile), the defense budget shows costs of $839 million and $803 million, respectively, for the two systems, and "the true figure . . . lies somewhere in-between."

Humphrey scoffed at what he called contentions that "our MIRVS are good guys and their MIRVS are bad guys," saying, "a MIRV is a MIRV."

The Soviet Union, said Humphrey, "has only one choice — catch up — and the game of catch-up is a vicious game — it is one endless circle."

"I like your freeze idea," said Sen. Jacob K. Javits (R-N.Y.).

When administration witnesses "say they need a tough bargaining position," said Humphrey, "that means they are going to get a tough response" because the Russians "are no patsies." He said "a tough bargaining position simply means you are going to get a tough response — somebody is going to knock the chip off your shoulder."

When Case asked why Humphrey suggested putting money in "escrow" instead of not, voting it at all, Humphrey said he was just being pragmatic; "I have not been sure that you could win the appropriation fight."

In another development, the formation of a new citizens' group called Task Force For the Nuclear Test Ban was announced yesterday. Co-chairmen are Betty Goetz Lall of Cornell University, formerly with the U.S. arms control agency, and Jo Pomerance, chairman of the Disarmament Issues Committee of the United Nations Association of the U.S.A. The group seeks a ban 'on all underground nuclear testing, to complete the present partial test ban treaty.

At an inaugural press conference, former U.N. Ambassador James J. Wadsworth said that when he was chief U.S. nuclear negotiator at Geneva, 1958 to 1960, several delegation members believed the Russians were prepared to sign a total test ban then, by making "the necessary concessions on inspection . . ."

262

NEW YORK TIMES 15 JULY 1971

# SALT's Auspicious Openings

Word from Helsinki indicates that the latest round of strategic arms limitation talks has got off to a good start, at least in the sense that serious discussions aimed at constructive results have taken place. The improved atmosphere was forecast last week by Pravda's commentary on SALT resumption, which read like an effort to begin preparing Soviet public opinion for an agreement.

Behind these encouraging developments is the Washington-Moscow accord announced in May to seek limitations on antimissile defenses as well as on "certain measures with respect to the limitation of offensive strategic weapons." Despite the ambiguity of the language, President Nixon judged this decision important enough to announce it personally over nationwide radio and television and to emphasize that it was a significant breakthrough reflecting political decisions at the highest level of both Governments.

The ambiguities in last May's announcement implied that hard bargaining still remained before any concrete agreements to limit defensive and/or offensive strategic weapons was reached. This conclusion has now been confirmed by Deputy Defense Secretary David Packard's statement before a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee that the United States needs "bargaining chips" for SALT progress. Mr. Packard sees these "chips" coming from further deployment of offensive and defensive missiles. As former Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul C. Warnke pointed out, however, Mr. Packard's reasoning turns SALT into a means of accelerating the atomic arms race rather than halting it. Mr. Packard's approach could only be of unwitting help to his opposite numbers in Moscow, who are making precisely the same argument to the chief Soviet policymakers.

The basic point is that there is now essential strategic parity between the United States and the Soviet Union. That parity will continue. It will continue in one of two ways: either the arms race will rage unchecked as each side escalates to evermore expensive and senseless levels of destruction capability, or both sides will accept the present parity and halt the futile marathon into military technology's wide blue yonder.

Every consideration of the real interests of the Soviet Union and of the United States, as well as of economic, political and military rationality, argues for an end to strategic weapons competition and for the consequent liberation of vast resources for the great unmet needs of the Soviet and American peoples.

BALTIMORE SUN 16 July 1971 P4

264

# Talks On Tactical Nuclear Arms
Limitation Urged

By ALBERT SEHLSTEDT, JR.

Washington Bureau of The Sun

Washington—Tactical nuclear weapons should be on the agenda of disarmament talks, it was suggested yesterday in a research paper prepared for a group of generally liberal Congressmen.

This advice, in line with the reported position of the Soviet Union but said to be at odds with the official American view, was contained in a report of tactical nuclear weapons prepared for Members of Congress for Peace Through Law.

The report was not individually endorsed by the approximately 30 senators and 90 House members in the group, but a consultant, Ronald L. Tammen, said he thought that "by and large" the members would endorse it. The report has been distributed to them.

Several presidential aspirants are in the group, including Senators Hubert H. Humphrey (D., Minn.), George McGovern (D., S.D.), and Edmund S. Muskie (D., Maine.).

## Comparatively Small

Tactical nuclear weapons may be generally classified as comparatively small atomic devices designed for use on the battlefield or in attacks of fairly short range.

Strategic weapons, the subject of current negotiations between the Soviet Union and the United States at Helsinki, are mightier weapons carried over longer ranges by bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and submarine-launched rockets—as well as the defensive systems deployed to intercept them.

It has been reported that the Soviet Union wants America's tactical nuclear weapons in Western Europe to be included in any agreement on arms limitation because those bombs could reach Russian territory.

However, Moscow is said to be opposed to including its own medium-range missiles in the agreement, although those weapons can reach Western Europe.

The report prepared for the congressmen's group reviewed many aspects of tactical nuclear

weaponry and concluded with several recommendations. In reference to arms control, the report said:

> "Concerted effort should be made to find ways of bringing tactical nuclear weapons into arms control talks. One possible forum would be the strategic arms limitation talks (SALT).

> "The Soviet Union reportedly has taken the position that the delivery systems—aircraft and missiles—of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe could reach into the Soviet Union and therefore should be included in SALT.

> "The U.S. reportedly has taken the position that these systems have very little capability against the Soviet Union and are a separate subject. One consid-

eration involved is whether bringing tactical weapons into SALT would involve NATO and the Warsaw Pact in these talks and whether this would be wise.

> "Another possible forum for discussing tactical nuclear weapons would be talks on mutually and balanced force reductions in Europe, in which both the U.S. and the Soviet Union have expressed interest."

The report, prepared by the office of Senator Gaylord Nelson (D., Wis.), quoted the Institute for Strategic Studies in London as estimating that there are about 7,000 nuclear warheads in the NATO countries, and about 3,000 in the Soviet Union's European theater.

265

LOS ANGELES TIMES 16 JULY 1971 (23)

# Arming to Disarm

There is an unreal quality to the Washington maneuvering on strategic offensive and defensive arms. The Pentagon talks about arming to disarm. A precision and utility are attributed to antiballistic missiles that they do not deserve. Congress is asked to add more than $1 billion to the ABM program when $6 billion is far from exhausted.

But these postures and pretenses are essential ingredients to a momentous opportunity to test the real intentions of the Soviet Union. Which is an overwhelming reason why the partisan tendencies of the Congress must somehow be controlled for a few more months.

President Nixon has persuasive evidence that his strategy is working. That evidence is the joint Soviet-American declaration of May 20 that they are going to reach an agreement to limit defensive missiles and some offensive strategic weapons.

In the face of that evidence, it would be a risky business to do to the strategic arms limitation talks (SALT) what Sen. Mike Mansfield tried but failed to do to the European troop reduction proposals.

Mansfield raised legitimate and serious doubts about the level of American troops assigned to NATO. But his unilateral troop cuts would have buried hopes for an important world security step, the mutual and balanced reduction of forces in Europe by both East and West.

Sens. Edmund S. Muskie and Hubert H. Humphrey have presented constructive proposals for limiting expansion of offensive and defensive missile installations, freezing Soviet and American actions pending the outcome of SALT, and putting in escrow funds for multiple warhead missile work. But these proposals at this time can only confuse the Soviet Union. And they are valid only if accepted by both sides, which requires a mutual agreement negotiated in SALT.

The Defense Department believes that a successful outcome of SALT will be jeopardized if Congress refuses to support additions to the Safeguard ABM system and continued development of offensive missile warheads. Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard put it this way: "Our existing and planned strategic systems represent bargaining chips, as, in our judgment,

do Soviet strategic systems."

It is an unusual game of poker. There are only two players. Each is adding to his stack of chips. But the aim of the game is for both to finish with as few chips as possible, and the same number.

No one outside the Kremlin can be sure why the Russians are willing to negotiate now. Humphrey may be correct in arguing that when the Americans "talk of a tough negotiating position they are going to get a tough response." No one really expects a soft response from Moscow. But the record so far supports Mr. Nixon's contention that firmness is leading towards results.

Strategic questions are not answered without dangers. Not the least of the present dangers is that the military of Moscow and Washington will use the encouragement of bigger and better arms to overwhelm the disarmament negotiators, accepting the risks of escalation rather than the risks of reduction.

Fortunately, there is the promise of a prompt reaction in the forum of SALT. The White House expects to know in the next three months whether the Soviet Union is ready for a first modest step in reducing strategic arms. It will not be too late then to have second thoughts about the Safeguard ABM expansion or new warhead development.

NEWSWEEK 19 JULY 1971 (13)

268

DISARMAMENT:

Sweet Talk at SALT

At the time, it was hailed by the Ad-
ministration as "a significant develop-
ment." And to many observers, the
agreement between Richard Nixon and
Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin on a
negotiating framework for the strategic
arms limitation talks (SALT) seemed to
signal a commitment to progress. But
that was nearly two months ago. And
when U.S. and Russian negotiators met
in Helsinki last week, the big question
was whether the spirit of that agreement
could be translated into substantive suc-
cess at the bargaining table.

The real answer, of course, was weeks
or, more probably, months away. But the
initial signs looked remarkably promising.
Even before the Helsinki session began,
a lengthy policy article in Pravda out-
lined the need for an accord curbing
anti-ballistic missiles, or ABM's. And
for the first time in the Soviet press, the
Kremlin even seemed to suggest that
Washington and Moscow were on the
verge of just such an agreement. At the
talks themselves, chief Soviet negotiator
Vladimir Semyonov appeared equally
confident, declaring: "The Soviet Gov-
ernment has given very clear instructions
to our delegation to work constructively
and to secure concrete results."

For their part, the U.S. negotiators exuded similar optimism about the chances for an ABM agreement. Almost to a man, they seemed convinced that the problem of defensive missile systems was "manageable." Given the complex, fixed sites used in ABM systems, the bargainers argued, the defensive missiles were easily identifiable in spy satellite photos—and therefore easily controlled. Indeed, some U.S. officials have predicted that the final shape of an ABM accord will include a freeze of the present systems—with the Soviets retaining their Galosh system around Moscow and the U.S. maintaining its two emplacements near Minuteman missile sites in North Dakota and Montana.

**Vague:** All the official optimism, however, could prove to be premature. For standing in the way of an ABM accord was the thorny question of offensive weapons. Although Washington and Moscow agreed in general last May that any partial SALT agreement must include measures limiting some offensive weapons, the specifics were left purposely

vague. In Helsinki, the Soviets were again
expected to argue for the virtual separa-
tion of agreements on the two types of
weapons systems. The U.S. negotiating
team, on the other hand, was under
mounting pressure from the Pentagon to
bring back an accord that sharply limited
the deployment of the Soviets' big SS-9
intercontinental ballistic missile. And
though it was still too early to tell just
how hard he would press the fight, chief
American negotiator Gerard Smith clear-
ly had the problem in mind last week
when he reminded the Soviets of the
necessity of "working out an agreement
on certain measures with respect to limi-
tation of offensive strategic weapons."

Still, sources close to the talks expect-
ed that some kind of substantive agree-
ment would be hammered out by next
spring, and perhaps as early as the end
of the year. For one thing, the Soviets
seemed to have recognized that, at least
as far as ABM's are concerned, the arms
race is not only costly but also only
marginally effective. For another, domes-
tic pressures may well force the U.S. to
accept something less than an ideal of-
fensive package. "The political pressures
of an election year will force the Presi-
dent's hand," said one observer. "Mr.
Nixon wants to sign an agreement in Mos-
cow next year. And he's not going to be
too fussy about details."

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR 21 JULY 1974

269

# Peking: invisible delegate at SALT talks in Helsinki

By Charlotte Saikowski

Staff correspondent of
The Christian Science Monitor

Helsinki

Communist China is an invisible presence in Helsinki these days.

As the fifth round of the strategic arms limitation talks gathers steam here, the question intriguing political observers is what effect President Nixon's planned journey to Peking will have on Soviet thinking and the course of the negotiations.

Will it accelerate a SALT agreement? Or slow it down? Or make no difference in the two nuclear powers' declared desire to reach an accord on curbing the arms race?

Neither Soviet nor American delegation members are accessible for comment on the President's heady diplomatic China offensive. The SALT talks are surrounded by the strictest secrecy and all mooting of this question is necessarily speculative.

Early signs, however, suggest that SALT was to have gone forward as intended by the two sides even before Mr. Nixon on July 15 announced his plans to visit Peking. China was not mentioned directly or indirectly at Tuesday's hour-and-a-half meeting between the Americans and the Russians — the first SALT meeting since that startling announcement.

As conference sources put it, there was no introduction of "extraneous issues." This is in keeping with the two sides' declared intentions from the very outset of SALT to keep the talks free of side political questions, such as Vietnam, the Middle East, or Berlin, and to stick scrupulously to the subject of strategic arms control.

SALT is still down to business with "serious deliberations," the sources add, and the talks continue to be "constructive."

The policy of keeping political issues isolated from the talks is expected to continue, though there is little doubt that China is never completely out of the thought of the negotiators, especially the Russians. In previous SALT rounds, there has in fact been reference to "third" countries, never named, within the context of the need to keep in mind their nuclear potential.

Some diplomatic observers suggest that the Russians, wary of a Chinese-American détente and displeased by what they regard as anti-Soviet American press reaction to Mr. Nixon's bold move, will be cautious in SALT. They believe the Russians want a limited agreement but will be careful to reserve their flexibility for the future in the face of growing Chinese independence.

Others think that the pending Nixon mission may actually speed a partial SALT agreement since the Russians may find it in their interest to consolidate their relationship with the United States before an improvement of Sino-American ties takes place.

While President Nixon may hope that his China gambit will help moderate Soviet attitudes generally, say diplomats, he has been careful not to give the suspicious Russians the feeling that his projected visit has an anti-Soviet cast. In the announcement itself, Mr. Nixon made a point of stating that his action is "not directed against any other nation."

Whatever the impact of Washington's new China diplomacy will prove to be here—and time alone will tell—conference sources retain the optimism they voiced when the SALT talks resumed here July 8 after a six-week recess. They say the negotiating climate is "good" and that the hopeful note

struck by the May 20 joint statement issued a week before the end of the previous SALT round in Vienna continues to be reflected in the fifth round.

In that statement, which Washington hailed as a breakthrough in the SALT deadlock, the two governments announced they would concentrate this year on hammering out an agreement to limit the deployment of antiballistic missiles (ABMs). At the same time they would agree on "certain measures with respect to the limitation of offensive strategic weapons."

What "certain measures" means is anyone's guess. But it is understood that in the next few weeks the two sides will bend their efforts primarily toward reaching an initial agreement on ABMs. As President Nixon has pointed out, an accord on these weapons will be more easily attainable because it would cover only one weapons system.

Offensive weapons, on the other hand, encompass a whole range of weaponry, including land-based ICBMs, bombers, and nuclear submarines. Agreement on these will be a longer and more intricate process.

## Prickly question

Conference sources stress, however, that negotiations over both defensive and offensive weapons go on "concurrently."

It is assumed that the two sides have set aside the prickly question of whether a SALT pact should include Europe-based American aircraft capable of dropping nuclear weapons on the Soviet Union as well as Soviet intermediate-range missiles capable of striking at Western Europe. This was reported to be one of the chief obstacles in the SALT negotiations.

Conference sources confidently speak of the possibility of a partial SALT agreement being reached before the end of the year. They note that both delegations arrived in Helsinki with instructions to work for "concrete" results and that the fifth round has made a good running start with ad hoc technical groups already working on the complex details involved in a specific treaty.

CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY

23 JULY 1971

270

## Soviet-U.S. Relations

Interpretations of the effect on U.S.-Soviet relations differed, though they did not necessarily conflict.

In one view, the warming in U.S.-Chinese relations was a setback for the Soviet Union: an historic event in which the Russians had no part and dramatic evidence that Soviet efforts to improve its own relations with both the United States and China had failed to forestall an East-West rapprochement which excluded Moscow.

According to other opinion, the trip to Peking posed
possible difficulties for the United States in its dealings
with the Soviet Union.

Former Ambassador W. Averell Harriman, ambassador to Moscow (1943-46), Under Secretary of State for political affairs (1963-65) and chief negotiator at the Paris peace talks in 1968, expressed the latter view.

There was no indication, he said, of what the Chinese were willing to do for the United States. Meanwhile the trip "will cause a lot of difficulty for us in other places," he said. "For instance, in Russia they will resent this highly. This I know, from my past experience.... How does it affect our SAIT (strategic arms limitation) talks? How does it affect our very important talks going on in Berlin, which are very critical to our situation there? I don't know what will happen. I think the American people are entitled to much more information...."

Several members of Congress expressed concern that the Chinese initiative would strain U.S. relations with the Soviet Union. Sen. Frank Church (D Idaho), just returned from a Moscow visit that included an interview with Soviet Premier Kosygin, said Russians showed "mixed feelings" about the planned trip.

Humphrey urged the President to visit Moscow on his way to or from Peking to reassure Soviet leaders that his China overtures are not aimed at them.

"The point of this suggestion is that we must be careful that the Russians do not misinterpret the purpose of the President's visit," Humphrey told Congressional Quarterly. "We all know that the Russians have serious concerns about the Chinese, and we cannot risk taking any action which would escalate this fundamental feeling of insecurity."

Muskie said the visit "must not be allowed to increase suspicion between the United States and the Soviet Union and must not decrease the chances of a comprehensive arms agreement between us."

Sen. Henry M. Jackson (D Wash.) said the United
States and Soviet Union should try to bring Mainland
China into arms control negotiations.

Bayh said the United States "must pursue improved relations with China in a way that is not calculated to stimulate Soviet suspicion and fear of a United States-China alignment against them." While better relations with China are important, Bayh said, "we have even more vital business to do with the Soviets."

"I would hope nothing develops which would affect
in negative fashion any possible progress in the SAIT
talks that are currently going on in Helsinki," said Sen.
Stuart Symington (D Mo.).

WASHINGTON STAR 28 JULY 1971 PAGE 14

Sense at SALT

The American proposals at the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks in Helsinki, as reported last Friday in the New York Times, are right on target. They are also a measure of the difficulty of the negotiations that lie ahead.

The essence of the proposals disclosed by American officials in Washington is a freeze — hopefully this year — on the construction of new land-based strategic missile sites and missile carrying submarines. At the same time, the Americans are proposing a ceiling of 300 anti-ballistic missiles deployed to protect offensive missile sites. If defensive missiles are deployed around population centers, the total allowed would be 100.

The ban on new missile and submarine construction, it is suggested, should be for a limited time — perhaps two years or less. The effect would be to put a stop to the continuing arms race while negotiations go on for a more comprehensive agreement limiting all offensive and defensive nuclear armaments.

The proposal is eminently fair. It would leave the Soviet Union and the United States in a position of rough nuclear parity, with the Russians ahead in total numbers of land-based missiles and explosive megatonnage, while the United States would hold the edge in nuclear bombs, missile warheads and missile submarines. The interim agreement would not bar either side from improving existing missiles with multiple warheads.

The proposal on defensive missiles may strike some people as one-sided in favor of the United States, since the Russians have deployed their ABM system near Moscow and the

American Safeguard is deployed to protect missile sites at three bases far removed from major population centers. But the difference is crucial. The American system is designed exclusively to protect the retaliatory power of the United States in the event that we are attacked first. The Soviet system could well be designed to protect the heartland of Russia against an American second strike.

Fair or not, however, it would be foolish to suppose that the Russians will buy the American proposals as they stand. Their own strategy at Helsinki has been to try to separate the issues of offensive and defensive weapons. Their latest suggestion is to limit ABM sites to 100 on each side and leave the whole problem of offensive missiles and submarines for later.

The reason for this Russian strategy is equally obvious. While the American nuclear arsenal has remained stable for several years, the Russians have been working feverishly to expand their own land and sea-based missile force. In the course of protracted negotiations, they could well expect to achieve a decisive superiority over the United States' both ICBMs and missile submarines.

The new American proposals show at least that our negotiators in Helsinki are thoroughly alert to the dangers of any one-sided agreement to limit defensive weapons. This is more than can be said for some of our softer-headed political figures who have been urging that we do just that. And it gives hope that the SALT talks may end in an agreement that we can all, in the most literal sense, live with.

CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY

30 JULY 1971

272

# ARMS CONTROL

The Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Arms Control, International Law and Organization held hearings June 16 and 17 and July 13, 14 and 23 on impact of Defense Department budget requests on arms control negotiations.

Testimony on June 16 and 17 dealt with the need for the existing U.S. "Triad" deterrent of land-based missiles, submarine-based missiles and manned bombers.

Hearings on July 13 and 14 considered the effects of the Nixon Administration's decisions to deploy an anti-ballistic missile system (ABM) and multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles (MIRVs).

The July 23 hearing concerned the Project Cannikin underground nuclear test scheduled for October on Amchitka Island, Alaska.

**Background.** As the United States and Soviet Union got down to negotiations on slowing down the nuclear arms race at the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), debate arose in the nation and in Congress over Nixon Administration proposals to continue development and deployment of nuclear weapons.

The Administration and congressional supporters of arms development argued that the United States must maintain sufficient military strength to deter aggression and provide bargaining points in negotiations with the Soviet Union.

Opponents argued that continued weapons development and deployment only complicate the task of reaching agreements to slow down the arms race.

**References.** SALT agreement, Weekly Report p. 1155; Senate arms freeze resolution, 1970 Almanac p. 301; fiscal 1971 defense authorization, 1970 Almanac p. 381; background on ABM, Congress and the Nation Vol. II p. 869.

## Testimony June 16

Dr. John S. Foster Jr., Defense Department director of research and engineering, said the United States must maintain its mix of nuclear forces as SALT negotiations continue:

> "We do not believe that our deterrent can be composed of a single force element and still maintain confidence in its viability. A single force could have vulnerabilities that, in the eyes of an aggressor, would justify concentrated effort to render it ineffective. A low risk way in which to enhance confidence is through redundancy of force elements.

> "Rather than reacting to Soviet moves after the evidence is clear, our best course of action is to anticipate their capabilities and to do the necessary R & D as a hedge against future Soviet deployments."

Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. security would continue to depend on strategic forces regardless of the SALT talks outcome:

> "Whatever the outcome of SALT, our strategic forces will continue to remain the cornerstone of the free world's deterrent against nuclear attack.

> "...As long as there is hope of a favorable outcome from SALT, restraint on our part in our reactions to these potential threats is in order. But, prudence demands that we take some appropriate actions now to hedge against the possibility of a breakdown in SALT and the continuation of an across the board build up of Soviet strategic power."

Dr. Carl Kaysen, director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, said a mix of nuclear forces is not necessary to national security:

> The U.S. "submarine-launched force alone appears to be sufficient to meet our over-all needs and...the land-based missiles and bombers add little or nothing...."

While reductions in bomber and land based missile strength should be negotiated at SALT, "...we would be making no

(CONTINUED)

273

compromise with our security and sustaining no deterioration
of the effectiveness of our deterrent posture if we forewent all
new developments and deployments of land-based ICBMs
and long-range bomber aircraft."

## June 17

Joseph S. Clark, former Senator (D) Pa. 1957-69) and president of World Federalists USA, urged that the United States press arms control negotiations and reduce its arms spending (Lobby affiliation, 1969 Almanac p. 1121):

"I am convinced that a negotiating position of using ever
increasing armaments as 'bargaining chips' in an inter-
national poker game is sure to fail....

"Under the circumstances, it would seem the part of common sense to offer to the Russians an immediate elimination of all land and air based strategic delivery systems. Pending further negotiations, we could keep our submarine systems.

"If this approach is adopted, the military budget for 1972 could readily be cut by $16-billion without adversely affecting our national security."

M.L. Goldberger, former chairman of the Department of Defense strategic weapons committee and chairman of the President's Science Advisory Committee Strategic Weapons Committee, 1960-70, opposed continued development of the proposed B1 supersonic bomber:

As both the United States and Russia developed offensive missiles, "the strategic bomber has passed from being the cornerstone of our deterrent force to being a kind of insurance."

Charles M. Herzfeld, former director of the Defense Department Advanced Research Projects Agency, 1965-67, and director of the International Telephone and Telegraph Corp. Defense-Space Group, urged maintenance of the Triad nuclear deterrent:

The Triad will be needed at least through the 1970s and perhaps much longer. Some new equipment is needed for each component, but the mix and size of the Triad could be changed in the next 10 to 20 years, depending on technology and the success of arms control negotiations.

## July 13

David Packard, Deputy Secretary of Defense, said deployment of the ABM and MIRV warheads was compatible with arms limitation negotiations.

Administration decisions on weapons deployment during 1969-71 "have helped the prospects for meaningful Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.... We have taken only those minimal steps we believe necessary to provide for essential security without damaging the prospects for SALT."

But "...a similar restraint has not been evidenced by the other side.... For example, we estimate that in the last three years, exclusive of research and development, the Soviet Union has been spending up to twice as much as we have on strategic forces."

Paul C. Warnke, former Assistant Secretary of Defense, opposed the Safeguard ABM system and MIRV deployment as unnecessary to U.S. security and perhaps harmful to arms limit negotiations (Law firm's lobby affiliation, Weekly Report p. 467):

Deployments that were unnecessary to maintain a deterrent should be avoided because experience with SALT suggested the difficulty of agreement to dismantle existing systems.

The possibility of U.S. deployment of a large area ABM system and accurate MIRV warheads would lead the Soviet Union to serious negotiations, but the actual deployment of unneeded capabilities would impede agreement because of reluctance to dismantle them.

## July 14

Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey (D) Minn. proposed that MIRV deployment be halted on a provisional basis:

A study by members of the military spending, arms control and disarmament committee of Members of Congress for Peace Through Law recommended the following steps:

* All funds approved by Congress for MIRV testing and deployment should be placed in escrow.

* The funds should not be released unless the President and Congress jointly determine that Soviet MIRV testing and deployment or other actions require further U.S. MIRV development.

* During the SALT talks, the United States should enter into a mutual freeze on the testing and deployment of both offensive and defensive nuclear weapons and seek by treaty a total ban or limit on ABM deployment.

Herbert Seaville Jr., former assistant director of science and technology for the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, said deployment of U.S. Minuteman III and Poseidon MIRV warheads should be stopped:

"In sum, even taking the DOD's own justifications, it is apparent that there is no present security requirement for U.S. deployment" of MIRVs.

## July 23

Sen. Mike Gravel (D Alaska) opposed Project Cannikin:

"First, there is no compelling necessity for this test.

"Second, eminent scientists who have studied problems of safety associated with high yield nuclear tests caution that because of potential risks, any decision to test must be based on the most compelling national necessity."

John Havelock-(D), Attorney General of Alaska, opposed Project Cannikin:

"The reference to the 'human' environment in the National Environmental Policy Act is one of its nicer features, not 'natural' environment, but 'human'. This distinction, among others, the Atomic Energy Commission has missed, or is perhaps incapable of sensing after a pinch of national security spice scents the policy stew....

"What are the people of Alaska to think when they really do not know what the test is for, yet the press and Congress itself debate the test question, pro and con, as if it were a fact that the test is part of the development of the first generation Spartan missile. Official secrecy has denied the general public the right to debate this issue except in a house of mirrors."

Dr. Carl Walske, assistant to the Secretary of Defense for atomic energy, defended continued nuclear testing:

"I have stated that a complete cessation of nuclear tests would inhibit the development of more advanced nuclear weapon systems and would slow their deployment. In particular, it would definitely have this effect on the defense program of the United States, possibly even more so than on that of the Soviet Union."

WASHINGTON STAR 1 AUGUST 1971 (2)

274

## Quiet Arms Talks
Reflect Optimism

By ANDREW BOROWIEC
Star Staff Writer

HELSINKI—The battery of Telex machines stands silent. The telephone booths are empty. Three bored secretaries listlessly preside over piles of background documents that no one seems to want.

Yes, there is an American press spokesman but he has nothing to say. No, there is no Russian spokesman but there was a Soviet journalist. Or perhaps that was last year.

There are tours of Finland for those reporters who want them—at reduced prices. There are boat trips, sauna and other distractions in lieu of news. But the takers are becoming fewer and fewer.

More than 300 newsmen assisted at the opening of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks between the United States and the Soviet Union in November, 1969. Fewer than 50 showed up for the fifth

### Deceiving Facade

But the silence of the types and the boredom in the elaborate press center in Helsinki's Marski Hotel are a deceiving facade indeed.

While reflecting a continuing determination of both sides to do nothing—including press briefings—that would mar the talks, they do not detact from the activity at the negotiating table which continues unabated, purposeful and apparently increasingly fruitful.

Regardless of political ups and downs in their respective capitals, American and Soviet nuclear experts are slowly reaching a significant milestone in their 20-month endeavor.

Despite official silence punctured by four news leaks in Washington which caused bitter Soviet protests, despite periodic warnings about the "parity" or "superiority" of nuclear death potential, one thing appears increasingly clear:

Some time this year—or at the latest early next spring—a preliminary agreement is expected to be reached by the two superpowers on the limitation of anti-ballistic missiles (ABM), networks of elaborate installations designed to intercept the enemy's nuclear strike.

It will not be a decisive pact that would remove once and for all the spectre of nuclear death from the face of the globe. But it will be the first tangible accomplishment of the talks and a demonstration of the desire of the two super-powers to continue the negotiations aimed eventually at halting the spiraling and costly race encompassing an array of weapons.

That much has filtered through over the past few

weeks. There are no official confirmations besides vaguely optimistic statements of the kind "there is a very definite feeling on both sides for an agreement" or "there is reason to believe that we may have something soon."

### Something in Works

Speculation centers on a scheme to limit, as the first step, the anti-missile missiles to about 100 in each country. It is not clear whether the figure would include land sites only or missile submarines as well. It is not even clear whether the proposal has been formulated in official documents or merely "kicked around" in countless unofficial exchanges which invariably follow the formal sessions.

But something definitely is in the works, demonstrating, after 75 sessions in Helsinki and Vienna, the overwhelming desire of the two countries to reach at least one decision, presumably to be followed by others.

This desire has not been hampered by their ideological and economic differences, by their verbal and political clashes in such widely dispersed areas of the world as Indo-china, Middle East or Eastern Europe.

From everything said or hinted here, it looks like no external factor has marred the highly professional negotiations. Regardless of the course of the U.S. policy in Vietnam, the increasing Soviet penetration of the Middle East and the Mediterranean and regardless of the recent Chinese American overtures, the nuclear talks have been proceeding as smoothly as possible for two powers diametrically opposed on almost everything.

### Polemics Abandoned

There have been no polemics, no ideological clashes and no diatribes that have so often marred the relations between the two countries.

Apparently, President Nixon's planned trip to China was merely mentioned informally and casually by members of the two delegations — and not in the course of a plenary session.

The first indication of a breakthrough came last May 20 with a simultaneous announcement by Nixon and Radio Moscow that the two sides "have agreed to concentrate this year on working out an agreement for the limitation of the deployment of anti-ballistic missile systems. limitation of offensive strategic weapons."

They have also agreed that, together with concluding an agreement to limit ABMs, they will agree on certain measures,

### Other Developments

This announcement, accompanied by a note of caution that "intensive negotiations would be required to translate this understanding into a concrete agreement," was enhanced by a number of other developments.

From Russia, there was a barrage of appeals for a reduction of forces between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Communist Warsaw Pact. This was followed by a decision of the NATO Ministerial Council meeting in Lisbon to cautiously explore Soviet intentions.

Moscow's initial reaction showed some disappointment at this caution but nevertheless, on June 11, Communist party leader Leonid Brezhnev further urged reduction of armed forces in Europe and on the world's oceans.

### Degree of Optimism

The latest round of arms talks on July 7 was greeted with some optimism in Moscow and Washington. This optimism was reflected in careful statements in Helsinki by Chief American Negotiator Gerard C. Smith and his Soviet counterpart, Vladimir Semyonov.

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

But, at the same time, there
have been warnings that the
United States is losing its nu-
clear superiority. In a testimo-
ny before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee last June
16, Adm. Thomas H. Moorer,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, said:

"Our comfortable lead has all but vanished and within the next five or six years we could actually find ourselves in a position of overall strategic inferiority."

The joint chiefs, Moorer
said, were in favor of a "sim-
ple, understandable and verifi-
able first step strategic arms
limitations agreement that
would make it easier to negoti-
ate further, more comprehen-
sive agreements."

The crucial talks are held at
a seemingly leisurely pace of
two sessions a week, shifting
between the Soviet and Ameri-
can embassies.

Pattern Rarely Varies

The pattern seldom varies:
The formal or plenary session
lasts roughly one hour an ten
minutes, including transla-
tions. It is attended by be-
tween nine to 12 men, depend-
ing on the subject discussed.
Invariably, it is followed by an
informal discussion over re-
freshments. In addition, there
are periodic meetings of ex-
perts.

In between, there are count-
less consultations with Wash-
ington and Moscow involving
the highly delicate matters of
national security.

The question, basically, nar-
rows down to how much can
be disclosed to the "enemy,"
and how much does he really
know from his intelligence
sources and air reconnais-

sance. Apparently quite a few
subjects officially labelled "se-
cret" have been traded here
and in Vienna.

Teams Well Acquainted

By now the two teams —
each supported roughly by a
staff of 40 secretaries, guards
and communications people —
have got to know one another
quite well. Joint outings and
receptions sponsored by the
Finnish and Austrian govern-
ments have considerably con-
tributed to the relaxation of
the atmosphere.

While apparently no friend-
ships between members of the
two teams have developed, the
experts have learned to work
well together.

In Helsinki, the American
delegation is housed in the
seaside Kalastajatorppa Hotel
and works in 3-mile distant
Otaniemi in a building that
served as a training center for
young bank executives.

"Fantastic Education"

The Soviets stay in a mod-
ern hotel in Haaga en route to
the airport. According to the
practice of Soviet diplomatic
missions throughout the world,
Semyonov's driver is a Rus-
sian. The United States dele-
gation uses cars and drivers
supplied by the Finnish for-
eign ministry.

The two delegations agree
that the talks "have been a
fantastic education for all of
us." Apparently it was an edu-
cation in more than one way.

Said one American official:

"We have swum and played
together, we have taken the
same trains and boats. As far
as I can remember, we have
never clashed. It has been a
perfectly civilized relation-
ship."

Said another:

"All I can tell you is that
both sides agree that these are
the most important negotia-
tions in the Twentieth Century
— either in their success or
failure."

275

276

WASHINGTON POST 10 August 1971 P8

# Harriman Urges Soviet Accord

By Bernard D. Nossiter
Washington Post Staff Writer

W. Averell Harriman, a principal Democratic architect of cold war strategy, declared yesterday that the world is ripe for far-reaching Soviet American agreements to cut back military spending.

The former ambassador to Moscow bluntly said that the threat of a Communist takeover in Western Europe "no longer exists." He forecast settlement of the knottiest post-war European problems, Berlin and the German borders. He spoke approvingly of internal Soviet changes that tend to make Moscow less of a threat.

Harriman, chairman of the Democratic Policy Council's International Affairs Committee, was sharply critical of the Nixon administration for what he considered a failure to exploit "opportunities" for new agreements.

He balmed this in part on "the very great influence of the Pentagon" in policy-making and said the military "should not be involved in political decision."

Harriman was the leadoff witness in three days of hearings before a Joint Economic Subcommittee. Under chairman William Proxmire (D-Wis.), the subcommittee is trying to determine whether American military spending is greater than the Soviet and Chinese threats require. Yesterday's testimony dealt exclusively with the Soviet challenge.

Harriman declared that the first priority in cutting arms outlays was to "end this tragic war" in Vietnam. Harriman, who served as President Johnson's chief negotiator in the Paris talks on the Vietnamese war, urged Congress "to force" Mr. Nixon to sign a peace treaty "by withholding funds" for the war. "That is the major area where Congress can exert its influence," he said.

Harriman was skeptical of the President's peace efforts and suggested that the United States was displaying a "beligerent attitude" and attempting to "impose a military government on South Vietnam."

"As long as we seek a military solution," he said, it will be difficult to gain Soviet agreement to disarm.

Harriman all but buried the cold war in Europe, declaring that it was "nonsense and, in fact dangerous to talk and act" as the United States did in the days of Stalin and Khruschev. Western Europe's unity, productivity and prosperity make it invulnerable to a Communist takeover, he said.

Harriman scored the Nixon administration for missing two further opportunities for agreement. He said the President has been too slow in responding to Soviet proposals for mutual balanced force reductions in Europe.

"What have we been doing for the last three years?" Harriman asked rhetorically. "Are we afraid to go forward?"

He urged Congress to press the administration to determine why the President has not "vigorously" pursued the Soviet offer for a European Security Conference on force cuts.

The second missed chance, according to Harriman, lies in the strategic arms area. If the Nixon regime had abstained from deploying anti-ballistic missiles (ABM) and multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles (MIRV), a comprehensive deal on limiting nuclear weapons could have emerged, Harriman said. Now, he predicted, only a limited agreement will come from the talks to limit strategic arms (SALT).

In general, Harriman said the Soviet Union will not accept "significant nuclear inferiority," and the current Washington goal of a "superfiency" of weapons is sound. This implies, he suggested, that restraint in enlarging American arms budgets will be matched by Soviet restraint.

Another witness, Wassily Leontief of Harvard, supported this view. A distinguished economist who designed an indispensable economic planning tool, input-output tables, Leontief argued that the Soviet Union is under strong domestic pressure to reduce arms and increase consumer goods.

Since both nations will try to spend roughly the same absolute amount on weapons, and since Soviet output is about half that of the United States, an equal cut in arms will mean a relatively greater increase in resources available for consumer goods in the Soviet Union. This, Leontief said, is an added inducement for a Soviet agreement to disarm.

His colleague, Abram Bergson of Harvard, was less sanguine on this point. An expert in analyzing Russian output, Bergson conceded that he could not affix a meaningful figure to Soviet arms spending. But he doubted that a unilateral cut in military spending here would be matched by one in Moscow.

For the current five-year plan through 1975, Bergson forecast a rise in Soviet spending on consumption and arms, coupled with a squeeze on investment outlays that would further slow down Russian economic growth.

["277", "BALTIMORE SUN 10 AUGUST 1971 P-1", "# Deplores Arms Testing", "By ADAM CLYMER", "Washington Bureau of The Sun", "Washington—American nucle-
ar-arms development under-
mines the strategic-arms limita-
tion talks and has wasted a ma-
jor opportunity for cutting mili-
tary spending here and in the\nSoviet Union, W. Averell Harri-\nman said yesterday.", "The former ambassador to\nMoscow who later negotiated\nthe limited nuclear test-ban\ntreaty said the Kremlin would\nhave followed Washington's lead\nif, in early 1969, President Nixon\nhad announced \"we would not\ntest or deploy any further so-\nphisticated nuclear weapons\"\nprovided the Soviet Union exer-\ncised \"parallel restraint.\"", "Refers To 1963 Case", "Such an approach worked in\n1963, he told Senator William\nProxmire's subcommittee of the\nJoint Congressional Economic\nCommittee, when President\nKennedy halted atmospheric\ntesting and the test-ban treaty\nfollowed soon after.", "Instead, he said, \"Both sides\nhave escalated the arms race at\nan unusually high rate,\" with\nthe Soviet Union deploying its\n\"giant SS-9's\" and the United\nStates developing and deploying\nits multiple nuclear warheads.", "\"Mr. Harriman said, \"I have\nbeen told directly that the\nSoviets consider our MIRV\nbreakthrough as giving us the\npotential of multiplying our war-\nheads fourfold.\" He added that\n\"both sides tend to exaggerate\nthe other's increasing efforts in\nthe race,\" and said this made\nagreements much more diffi-\ncult.", "Only So Far", "While calling for a prompt end\nto the Vietnam war and a halt to\nincreased military spending,\nMr. Harriman disagreed with a\nHarvard professor, Wassily\nLeontief, who told the subcom-\nmittee he believed that an\nAmerican initiative in cutting\ndefense spending would be imi-\ntated on the Soviet side.", "Professor Leontief, who was\nborn in Russia, argued that cur-\nrent arms spending is a heavier\nburden on the Soviet Union than\non the United States because of\nits smaller economy and greater\npopulation. \"Should this country\nembark on a program of grad-\nual but steady reduction of its\nmilitary expenditures, the\nSoviets can be expected to fol-\nlow suit,\" he said.", "Mr. Harriman, supporting in-\nstead negotiated arms cuts, con-\ntended that a unilateral arms\ncut here \"won't necessarily lead\nto a cut in the Soviet defense\nbudget.\" But he agreed with\nProfessor Leontief that an in-\ncrease in arms spending here\nwould exert strong pressure in\nthe Kremlin for an increase\nthere. And he assailed the Pen-\ntagon for \"provocative state-\nments,\" which, he said, in-\ncreased Soviet concern.", "Purpose Of Hearing", "Senator Proxmire said this\nweek's sessions are intended to\nexplore Soviet and Chinese mili-\ntary and economic strength, and\nto determine what level of\nAmerican defense spending is\nnecessary to deal with them.", "The senator, a frequent critic\nof the size of the defense budget,\nsaid the hearings would seek to\ndetermine \"whether we are\nspending too much or too little\nfor our national security\" and to\nanswer the question: \"Is the de-\nfense budget contributing unnec-\nessarily to the arms race?\"", "John P. Hardt, an economist\nfor the Research Analysis Cor-\nporation, foresaw increasing in-\nternal Soviet pressures for\ngreater emphasis on consumer\ngoods. But he, too, felt that\nwhile American arms-spending\nincreases lead to Soviet increas-\nes, \"the process may not work\nin reverse.\""]

278

# A Bold Soviet Move in the Subcontinent

The new Soviet-Indian treaty surely was spun from longterm geopolitical considerations on both sides but, since it has been announced at a moment when India and Pakistan are on the verge of war, the first reading must be in that context. Pakistan, straining to deflect criticism of its repressions in its Eastern wing, claims the treaty is intended to secure India's rear against Chinese attack so that Delhi can strike freely at Pakistan. Some Americans will find this explanation credible and certainly India has its share of jingoists who would like to exploit the treaty in just such a way.

It is more than likely, however, that for Delhi the treaty—at least its timing—reflects not a design for aggression but a passionate reaction to American support for Pakistan. Only the shock of seeing its traditional friend in Washington stand at the side of a regime condemned almost everywhere else could have toppled India out of the ranks of formal nonalignment at this hour.

For Moscow, our hunch is that the Kremlin has taken advantage of India's distress to consolidate its own position in Delhi: this long-standing Soviet quest, undertaken to check China and perhaps accelerated by the unfolding American dialogue with Peking, first became apparent in Premier Kosygin's mediation at Tashkent of the 1965 Indo-Pakistani war. In pursuing its quest further now, however, it appears the Kremlin has assured itself a measure of control over Indian policy—in the “mutual consultations” article and perhaps in understandings not made public. It would be reckless of any great-power to increase its risk in such an explosive situation on any other basis.

Whether restraint will prevail is, of course, impossible to say. Pakistan had previously announced it would try—and execute—Sheik Mujibur Rahman,

leader of the struggling autonomy-turned-secession movement in the East, and yesterday it announced the trial will begin tomorrow. This is throwing gas on the already-roaring fire of the resistance movement in "Bangla Desh." the name of the would-be Bengali state in East Pakistan. India's all but open political and military support of the Bangla Desh movement is further fanning the flames.

If the Russians—whatever their other purposes—have positioned themselves better to restrain India, then no similar stance has been taken by the United States. Indeed, American support for Pakistan is expanding, surpassing the apparent requirements of geopolitics and inevitably raising the question of what debt to Islamabad was incurred for its services in arranging the Kissinger Peking mission. Last week President Nixon went so far as to define the issue as a "problem of hunger." ignoring the root political issue of the Bengali secession movement. Without a word about the continuing shipments of American arms which have helped Pakistan turn some seven million of its own citizens into refugees, Mr. Nixon had the insensitivity to brag of American contributions to their relief.

U Thant is another story. If the United States, to its discredit, finds itself immobilized by political "realities," then why cannot Mr. Thant say the simple truth: The subcontinent is fraught with despair and the danger of a local war, which could well draw in other states, because of the deliberate policies of the Pakistani government. These policies constitute at once a violation of human rights and a threat to international peace. They must be stopped. The issue goes beyond the political calculus of the Soviet move in the subcontinent, as the Secretary General surely understands.

279

NEW YORK TIMES 10 August 1971

Soviet-Indian Pact

The Soviet-Indian friendship accord signed in New Delhi yesterday strengthens Soviet influence in the second most populous nation in Asia—and the world—at the expense of the United States. It could increase the danger of a local war leading to a big-power confrontation on the Indian subcontinent.

The decision of Moscow and New Delhi to cement their long-time cooperation with a fifteen-year treaty undoubtedly was influenced by apprehension in both capitals about the growing rapprochement between the United States and China. But the moving factor for the Indians is certainly their desperate sense of isolation as the Pakistani civil conflict threatens to spill over their borders—a conflict in which both Chinese and American policies appear to favor the Pakistani Government. The incredible United States decision to keep supplying arms and other aid to Pakistan in spite of the ruthless Pakistani crackdown on autonomy-seeking Bengalis, and especially on Bengali Hindus, has handed Moscow a major foreign policy coup.

The Soviet-Indian accord is clearly intended to discourage any attack on India by Pakistan, with Peking support; yet it does not necessarily serve the cause of peace. Although the Pakistani army might conceivably make a desperate lunge at India in an attempt to divert attention from its growing embarrassment in East Pakistan, such a confrontation with superior Indian forces

would be highly irrational. If war does come to the sub-continent, it is more likely to arise inadvertently out of guerrilla activities along the porous Indian-East Pakistani border.

The danger is that Moscow's backing may encourage the Indians to become bolder in their support for the Bengali Liberation Army and thus increase the danger of Indo-Pak clashes that could get out of hand. If peace is to be served, the Russians will have to use their new influence in the Indian capital to counsel restraint and promote accommodation.

But by signing a treaty with the Indians, the Kremlin has undermined any credit it still may have had in Islamabad, thus ruling itself out of the mediating role it played so successfully at Tashkent after the 1965 Indo-Pak conflict.

The United States Government is in no better position to serve as conciliator, having cast its lot so firmly with the Yahya regime. The wise course for Washington now is to use what influence it may have in Islamabad—and that does not appear to be much—to persuade President Yahya to put aside the secret military trial of Sheik Muji-bar Rahman, the Bengali political leader. If Mujib should be sentenced to death, as Yahya has threatened, the possibility of a political settlement in Pakistan would be virtually destroyed. War between India and Pakistan would be difficult to avoid, regardless of Washington's wishes—or Moscow's.

CQ

In
Committee

CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY

21 AUGUST 1971

DEFENSE: U.S. NEEDS VIS-A-VIS RUSSIA AND CHINA 280

The Joint Economic Subcommittee on Priorities and Economy in Government held hearings Aug. 9, 10 and 11 on the priority of defense needs in the federal budget.

### Testimony Aug. 9

Sen. William Proxmire (D Wis.), chairman, in an opening statement questioned the size of the defense budget:

> "In view of the new overtures made to the Chinese by President Nixon, the question we must face is what level of military spending do we need to protect our national security? Unless the relative economic and military strengths of the Chinese and Russians have greatly increased over the last two years, the Administration's request for an $80-billion military budget in fiscal year 1972 appears wholly inconsistent with either the real threat posed by Russia and China or the new relationships proposed by the President....The subcommittee is especially interested in the issue of whether there has indeed been any major shift in priorities within the United States." (The President in his budgets for fiscal years 1971 and 1972 claimed a shift in priorities from military to civilian programs in government spending.)

W. Averell Harriman, Under Secretary of State for political affairs (1963-65) and chief U.S. negotiator at the Paris peace talks in 1968, testified to the breakdown in monolithic Communism:

> "The monolithic structure of international Communism has been shattered not only by the rupture between Peking and Moscow but by Tito and by the increasing independence of Communist parties in different countries. It is noteworthy that both the Italian and French Communist parties criticized the Soviet Union for its invasion of Czechoslovakia."

John P. Hardt, Research Analysis Corporation, said Russia may be turning toward domestic economic problems:

> There is some evidence that Soviet leaders will decide or have already decided to return to the priority for modernizing their economy which prevailed under Khrushchev before the Cuban missile crisis. The potentiality and rationale for change may have been greatly enhanced, but the likelihood or evidence of change is not yet persuasive. Economic problems are apparently not sufficient to bring about a reordering of priorities in the economic system. But a similar combination of economic and political circumstances may be present, and change is more possible now.

Abram Bergson, Harvard University, warned against large military cuts:

> Opinions have been voiced that U.S. military expenditures are mordinately large and should be cut, perhaps more than would result directly from withdrawal from Vietnam. "I for one find little support" for this view. Debate has resolved around the advisability of a unilateral cut. There is little disagreement on the merit of defense limitations the United States and the Soviet Union might initiate by agreement.

Wassily Leontief, Harvard University, said the time is ripe for cuts in the military budget:

> Assuming that Russian military policies aim toward over all equality with the United States rather than superiority, it is reasonable to conclude that a gradual bilateral reduc-

tion in arms expenditures would be desirable from the Soviet point of view. "Should this country embark on a program of gradual but steady reduction of its military expenditures, the Soviets can be expected to follow suit. On the other hand, if we proceed to yield to the insatiable demands of our military, the Russians will also follow suit. Let us not doubt their capability to do so."

Aug. 10

Richard T. Davies, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European affairs, said Russia stands to gain more than the United States from disarmament:

Even if U.S. and Soviet expenditures for defense should be identical proportions of gross national product (total economic output), the expenditure would be more of a nuisance for the Soviet Union, with less than half the American national income, than for the United States. "Conversely, it is true that the gain from disarmament would be greater in the less affluent country than in the one that is better off."

George W. Rathjens, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, discussed U.S. and Soviet military strength:

> "I am concerned that Defense Department presentations may have conveyed an impression that our situation vis-a-vis the Soviet Union is worse than it is, and that we can estimate the level of Soviet expenditures for military R and D (research and development) and the relationship between expenditures and output with considerably more precision than I think possible."

Jerome Alan Cohen, Harvard Law School, said the Administrations fails to understand the leaders of Communist China:

> "President Nixon's professed belief that the United States will be able to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China while retaining diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan) may well represent the most recent example of persistent American failure to understand the outlook, experience and determination of China's Communist leaders....American policymakers should adopt a more realistic and less fearful assessment of China's capabilities and intentions. Mao's China has not been expansionist in the conventional border-crossing sense, its success in subverting other countries has been limited and its nuclear weapons are unlikely to pose a serious threat....The United States has frequently violated international law in its relations with China." It will be important to determine whether recent actions of the Administration represent a temporary gesture or a new policy of dealing with China on the basis of reciprocity and mutual respect.

Aug. 11

John K. Fairbank, Harvard University, discussed ways of staying out of an Asian war:

> "The intellectual resources needed for warfare are rather small compared to the intellectual resources needed for avoiding warfare and maintaining peace. Today we know enough to fight in East Asia. The question is whether we know enough to save ourselves from further fighting in the future. The Chinese are never going to threaten us in this country. The problem is how to stay in contact with East Asian peoples on their home ground. For this the requirements are less military than diplomatic, less material than psychological-intellectual."

COPYRIGHT 1971 CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY INC
Reproduction prohibited in whole or in part except by editorial use.

Aug. 21, 1971 - PAGE 1795

283

Joseph Alsop

BALTIMORE SUN

11 AUGUST 1971 P-11

U.S. Arms-Race Optimists
Playing At Russian Roulette

In all five of the great crises since the Second World War, the Soviet Union suffered from very serious military-strategic inferiority. Now that the Russians have attained parity with the U.S., you have a new ball game. You can't really tell what they will do, for you have no precedents."

The speaker was one of the senior Soviet experts, who have helped to guide the U.S. government, always with success to date, through all the fairly hair-raising Soviet-made challenges of the last quarter century-plus. There were only two things wrong with his formulation.

Like almost all the other Soviet experts, to begin with, the man quoted is one of those who hold that the masters of the Kremlin are always "cautious." But are they really so cautious?

Josef Stalin ordered the Berlin blockade when this country had a total nuclear monopoly. The North Korean aggression was sponsored by the Kremlin when the nuclear-strategic balance was far more than 100 to 1 in favor of the U.S. Nikita S. Khrushchev made his effort to sneak Soviet nuclear missiles into Cuba when the balance still favored this country by a factor of at least 5 to 1, and maybe 10 to 1.

These acts of the past do not

appear cautious. They appear, instead, to be based on a considered Soviet judgment that this large, powerful and wealthy country is also exceedingly torpid, slow to act. It was a sound judgment. If the present masters of the Kremlin have any brains at all, they must still be making the same judgment.

There is another fault in the sentence above-quoted, moreover, and it seems to me much more dangerous. The notion that the Russians have merely attained "parity" with the U.S. has been assiduously propagated by such diverse (but far from disinterested) persons as Melvin R. Laird, the Secretary of Defense, and a whole chorus of the more mush-headed U.S. liberals.

No subject is more complex or more disputed than the real state of the military-strategic balance between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. Estimating the state of the balance has long split what is called the intelligence community in the government almost exactly down the middle. Half of the experts say the Russians have merely attained "parity." half say, emphatically, that the Russians are attaining wide "superiority."

I do not know—no one can really know—which experts are right. But if the pessimistic experts are right, it can

mean the death, or at least the submission, of this republic. Resting the whole national future on the uncertain verdict of the more hopeful experts is therefore like playing Russian roulette with this nation's future. But it is like playing Russian roulette with three chambers of the pistol loaded, instead of only one.

I have long found, too, that wherever you turn over a stone in this particular area, you instantly find, not just a scorpion, but a whole nest of scorpions. Recently, for example, one of the more sober-minded Democratic leaders of Congress told me the Navy's new boss, Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, had just warned the congressional inner circle:

> "Before too long, I may have to tell the President I cannot defend the high seas. In relation to the new Soviet Navy, our Navy can too soon be hardly sufficient for defense of our offshore waters."

> If you think about the Sixth Fleet, the crucial importance of the Mediterranean and the present position of Israel, the admiral's reported warning, if correct, means that Israel's fate may eventually be decided in the Kremlin! But again, the great Princeton mathematician, Professor Eugene Wigner, has rather grimly spe-

cialized in studying the extremely efficient, expensive but basically simple Soviet civil defense system.

Professor Wigner estimated to me that the number of Russians this country now "holds as nuclear hostages" is not above five million. That is one quarter the number of Russians Stalin directly or indirectly sent to their deaths, with the active help of all the present Soviet leaders, in the peacetime, purely internal-political "great terror" of the years 1929-1939. The sponsor of the U.S. strategy of "assured destruction," Robert S. McNamara, the former Secretary of Defense, was informed of the Wigner estimate. "If true, it's not enough," was his reply.

Something has been published already concerning the unceasing Soviet preparations to deploy very large numbers of new offensive intercontinental missiles which go forward in tandem with the strategic arms limitation talks. No such easily observable preparations could be in progress at such a time, if the Soviet leaders did not consider this country to be, not merely torpid, but also deeply given to wishful thinking.

So who votes for (playing more Russian roulette?

284

WASHINGTON POST 14 AUGUST 1971 (16)

# More and Regular Summit Meetings May Be Answer

By Charles W. Yost

IT HAS often been suggested that the very different game styles of the Americans and the Russians create gross discrepancies of action and reaction which aggravate the already hazardous competition between them. The very words poker and chess convey the flavor of the difference, the style of each seeming both arcane and sinister to the player of the other.

Now the Americans—in a typical display of poker—have chosen further to complicate the competition by precipitating the direct involvement of a third incipient superpower

The writer is a former United States Ambassador to the United Nations.

and a third quite different game style—ping pong or mahjong. It remains to be seen whether this gamble—brilliantly executed and plausible though it was—will serve long range U.S. interest any more effective than did that other recent spectacular American gamble—massive involvement in Vietnam.

Of course the participation and assimilation of Communist China into the world community, the removal of the U.S. veto to her presence in the United Nations, and the establishment of somewhat more normal and relaxed U.S.-China relations were long overdue. If the United States had moved to bring them about in the early 1960s, as Adlai Stevenson for example urged, the course of the Vietnam affair might have run quite differently—though presumably with much the same ultimate outcome. In any case President Nixon deserves great credit for bringing up to date, despite his own past associations with it, a policy toward China which had become a serious obstacle to the intelligent conduct of our own foreign relations and those of some of our principal allies.

Whether the objectives he had in mind in shifting the policy in so melodramatic a fashion were as reasonable as the shift per se is another question. If the intention was to give Hanoi an impression of Peking's unreliability and hence induce the former to make a settlement acceptable to us, both Hanoi and Peking have unequivocally and publicly blasted this illusion. If the intention was to establish an electoral image of a successful peacemaker for 1972, it is doubtful either that the Chinese will be accommodating enough to make this plausible that long or that, even if they should, the American electorate will cast their votes one way or the other because they approve or disapprove a policy toward China. If the intention was to worry the Soviets and persuade them to make concessions in Europe or the Middle East, this was almost certainly a miscalculation. The Soviets, like ourselves, make concessions when they are relaxed, not when they are worried.

ONE OF the chief current complaints of the Russians about the Americans is of what they call the 'zizzags' of our policy, what seems to them its unreliability and unpre

dictability. They exaggerate because they misunderstand and are confused; this is the reaction of the chess player to poker. Similarly we are upset by the seeming dogmatic consistency of their policy—the master plan for checkmate and world domination which we attribute so simplistically to them. Actually, if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, we should be pleased, since the current phase of Soviet foreign and military policy mimics remarkably ours of the past two decades—the ICBM buildup, the ever wider naval deployments, the massive military and economic aid to Third World countries. One wonders how long it will take the Russians, like ourselves, to learn their lessons the hard way, to be constrained by events into their versions of military "sufficiency" and the Nixon Doctrine.

In any case it is far from clear how and how much the vertiginous agility, the cool steady pressure, of the ping pong player will further disturb and unbalance the powers already trying to match chess with poker. Certainly the Chinese, with so much going for them, will not give up a single one of the long range objectives nor, with so many courting them, make things particularly easy for any one of the courtiers. On the other hand, they will presumably, for a whole series of pragmatic reasons, curb for a time their national and ideological appetites outside their boundaries—and display their traditional urbanity and patience in the United Nations. Having observed the progress of Japan and Germany, they may perhaps anticipate that the three main losers of World War II might before too long supersede the victors in leading the world.

THIS conjecture leads to two concluding reflections.

First, there is the unanswered riddle of the Japanese, the second of the incipient superpowers. With their customary discipline and concentration they have, by economic means this time, conquered a far wider co-prosperity sphere than they aimed at in the early 1940s but, in so doing, they have balanced on the point of a needle far more of their assets than the medieval scholastics did angels, for they could in a dozen ways be suddenly denied vital means of livelihood.

In light of their traumatic experience with their own militarism, they have voluntarily eschewed any significant military role and apparatus and relied on the United States for their protection. Now President Nixon has confronted them with a most unexpected and frightening "zigzag," appearing to leave them diplomatically and ideologically naked. How will they react? Will they race ahead of the Americans to Peking? Will they edge closer to the Russians, as they already are doing economically? Will they, with a revived concern either for their vulnerability or their mission, rearm and compete again for military predominance in East Asia? They are too serious and tense to invent new games, but they sometimes play other people's extremely well.

The second concluding reflection inspired by ping pong and its sequel relates to the meaning and value of summit meetings with one's adversaries. American administrations for the past 20 years have been allergic to them, on the grounds that they were likely

to produce few achievements but many illusions. They feared that the semblance of détente, even without the substance, would dissuade tax-weary democracies from carrying the necessary burden of armaments, and that summits with the Soviets should in principle be held only when they could ceremoniously endorse what had already been agreed.

I have always thought this was a serious mistake and that, given the deep and dangerous gap in understanding between players of poker and chess, U.S.-Soviet summits should be held at least once a year. While the first one or two would no doubt arouse false hopes, they would before long become as routine and unspectacular as meetings of NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

IN THE present case, however, American inhibitions about summits with long-standing antagonists were thrown jubilantly to the winds. I welcome the U.S.-China summit but I doubt very much whether it has been, or before May 1972 can be, as well prepared, in terms of concrete and significant understandings agreed beforehand, as one with the Soviets might have been. Indeed that may be the most disturbing feature of the whole exercise — to appear too rudely to be playing one adversary off against another, for that is a ploy which, though admired in poker, makes no sense in either chess or ping pong.

Now that the die is cast, however, the part of wisdom is probably to multiply and regularize summits over coming years, proceeding next with the Russians and the Japanese. On the other hand, it is imperative to quiet the fears of the rest of the world that their fate will be settled behind their backs by a directorate of superpowers, even a most incongruous one. For this reason summits among superpowers should normally be held within the framework of the United Nations, preferably in close association with its Security Council. With Peking in the United Nations this should be easier.

The symbolic game there might be volleyball and of course the victor, if there were one, the side that could keep the ball in the air longest.

BALTIMORE SUN

15 August 1971

Pg 13

RUSSIA'S POWER
CALLED SUPERIOR

Soviet Build-Up Is Biggest
In History, Goldwater Says

San Diego (P)-Senator Barry M. Goldwater (R., Ariz.) said yesterday that the world balance of military power has shifted to the Soviet Union to such an extent that international nuclear blackmail is no longer impossible.

Mr. Goldwater said that while the Soviet Union is engaging in strategic arms limitation talks with the United States in Helsinki, it is "quietly but urgently engaging in the most massive military build-up the world has ever known."

He added, "The greater danger in the SALT talks is that we might let our hopes for worldwide peace lead us into a carefully designed Soviet trap,"

Superior Defenses

Mr. Goldwater commented in a speech prepared for the 10th annual reunion of the American Fighter Aces Association.

He said the Soviet Union now has superior defenses, is pushing its offensive capability to a point of massive superiority and is "driving to build the world's finest technological base from which to expand their military research and development programs..."

"I am saying we are no longer in a position of parity with the Soviet," Mr. Goldwater said. "I am saying that the United States is well on its way to becoming a second-rate power incapable of assuring the future security and freedom of its people."

285

WASHINGTON POST 20 AUGUST 1971 P-4

U.S., Russia 'Even'
In Nuclear Field

MOSCOW, Aug. 19 (AP)—The chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Glenn T. Seaborg, concluded a tour of Russian atomic energy installations today and said America and the Soviet Union are about even in the field.

"I would put them pretty much on the same level," the Nobel Prize-winning physicist said. "We're ahead in some things and they're ahead in other things. The scope is also comparable."

Seaborg and nine other American physicists spent two weeks visiting atomic energy plants in Minsk, Leningrad, Ulyanovsky, Novosibirsk, Tashkent, Yerevan, Tbilisi and Shevchnko.

"We were very pleased with our visit," Seaborg said at a news conference. "our hosts

have been very forthcoming. They took us to all the places we requested. In all the places every question we asked was answered."

The American scientists were repaying a visit made to the United States last April by representatives of the Soviet State Committee for the Study of Atomic Energy.

Such visits are provided for under a memorandum on cooperation in the peaceful uses of atomic energy. The Atomic Energy Commission sent its first delegation to the Soviet Union in 1963.

Seaborg reported that he conferred with the president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Mstislav V. Keldysh, on how the United States and the Soviet Union might coordinate their research programs.

286

# WHY NOT INVITE BREZHNEV TO VISIT THE UNITED STATES?

## BY DAVID LAWRENCE

U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT

23 AUGUST 1971 (18)

PRESIDENT NIXON no doubt realizes that the condition of the world today depends to no small extent on the policies being followed by the Government in Moscow. If there were a close understanding with the Soviet Union and if it had a sympathetic attitude towards the goals that the United States seeks to attain, world peace would have a better chance of being maintained for many years to come.

Mr. Nixon could invite Leonid I. Brezhnev, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, who is the real head of the Government of the Soviet Union, to come to Washington to discuss methods of assuring world peace. The trip could be made either before or after Mr. Nixon's visit to Red China. But the sooner a joint effort is begun to remove the causes of friction and to improve relations between the two countries, the greater will be the impact of such a conference.

The U. S. Commerce Department, with the approval of President Nixon, recently licensed exports of foundry equipment to the Soviet Union, and there are other steps which can be taken to bring about more contacts and trade with Communist nations.

But basically the need is for manifestations to the head of the Soviet Government that the American people have no hostile intentions and would like to live in a world in which the Soviet Union and the United States are good friends. This status, however, cannot be achieved if the present coolness continues.

President Nixon would have an opportunity through a visit here by the leader of the Communist Party in Russia to explore ways of reducing military expenses and especially of abating the growth of nuclear weaponry.

The people of the United States do not want to see any nuclear war. They believe the Soviet people think the same way. Signs on both sides indicate a willingness to find the road to lasting peace. The leaders of the two countries can generate a feeling of mutual friendship. There is no better means of getting started than by having the two men meet in Washington and discuss programs of cooperation for the future.

It is obvious from the reports in the press that the Soviet Union has been busily engaged in supplying arms to many nations and building up military alliances throughout the world. This has caused some anxiety in our midst and also a belief that the United

States and the Soviet Union are continuing to operate as potential enemies.

Recent disclosures of the military assistance given by the Soviets to foreign countries cover nations in Asia, in Africa and in Latin America. It has just been announced, for instance, that a treaty has been signed by Russia with India assuring military aid in the event of an attack by Pakistan or by Red China. Likewise, 13 out of the 24 countries of Latin America have relations with the Soviet Government, and several are working in close harmony with Moscow in trade and technical development.

There is no doubt that under the Monroe Doctrine the United States would regard as an unfriendly act the virtual establishment in Cuba of a submarine base by the Soviets. Also, general opposition prevails to the extensive influence which the Soviets have exerted in the affairs of Central and South America. Lots of complaints have been made during the last decade or more about agents who have stirred up subversive movements inside this country and who have allegedly been financed by Communist sources.

The hour has come for a frank exchange of views and a genuine effort to reach an understanding so that this country will be relieved of much of its expense on the defense side and the Soviet Union will have money available for its own people that now is being used for military expansion.

The United States has no desire for territory anywhere in the world. Its policies have been set forth again and again—respect for the principles in the United Nations Charter and in the North Atlantic Treaty and the Southeast Asia Treaty. The purpose in every case has been merely to safeguard nations against aggression.

The Soviet Union and the United States are the two major nuclear powers. They are having conferences about limiting strategic weapons in the future. What they ought to be doing is trying to agree on a plan to abolish nuclear arms altogether.

The heads of the two most powerful countries in the world should at least be conferring about possible solutions to their mutual problems. President Nixon, therefore, would be acting in the interest of all peoples if he invited Mr. Brezhnev to come to Washington and then make a tour of the United States to get acquainted with the American people. It is a time to end enmities and build up real friendships.

Friday, September 3, 1971

28

## NBC NIGHTLY NEWS NBC-TV 6:30

### Russians Busy Building Strategic Weapons Since SALT Started

**JOHN CHANCELLOR:** The Institute For Strategic Studies, which assembles every year the most accurate public figures on world military strength, came out with its annual report today.

And it shows that since we began talking with the Russians in 1969 on limiting strategic weapons the Russians have been busy building strategic weapons.

In 1969 when these talks began both sides had an almost equal number of missile launchers. Today the Russians have increasd their launcher arsenal by almost 50 percent.

In 1969 the US had a 4 to 1 lead in missile launching submarines. And today the Russians have tripled their fleet and are still building.

The Institute says, however, that the number of launchers built by the Russians may not be as important as the number of warheads built into each missile on each side. And the US is well ahead of the Russians in that department.

So that in terms of killing power warheads on targets, there is not much imbalance between the two super powers.

This is public information, but there had been disclosures of private information in this field. And that has had a sharp affect on the Washington bureaucracy.

**RICHARD VALERIANI:** FBI Agents have been investigating the State Dept. and other government agencies to find the sources of unauthorized leaks to newsmen.

It's understood the principal source of concern to the Administration was story which appeared in the New York Times last July. The story reported the American negotiating position at the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks with the Soviet Union.

The US and Russia have agreed to keep details of the negotiations secret.

At least four State Department officers were asked to take lie detector tests. The test reportedly showed they were not the source of the leak.

In addition to the investigation Department officials have been advised generally to be more discreet in their dealings with newsmen.

And Sec. of State Rogers has issued an order severely limiting the number of people within the Department with access to classified information.

The affect of these measures on the Department has been chilling. As one foreign service officer put it, "I'm shocked and demoralized."

**CHANCELLOR:** The recent disclosures in the Pentagon Papers offended the men around the President. The leak on the American position on the SALT Talks made them angry. It also made them worry about the American reputation for keeping secrets.

Part of this investigation is to prove to other countries that we can

288

NATION MAGAZINE 6 SEPT 1971 (8)

A Leaf from Metternich

While applauding President Nixon's breakaway from
two decades of unreality in regard to China, it is desper-
ately important to keep in mind that peace, and a peace-
able world, depend in the first instance on what kind of
arrangements we can work out with the Soviet Union.
And the great danger is that, regardless of his motives,
if Mr. Nixon is not both exceptionally adroit and lucky
his overtures to Peking will produce a devastating re-
action from the USSR.

Already, the Kremlin's chief Washington watcher, Yuri
Arbatov, has warned that the Administration's move "is
a matter of grave consequence for the Soviet people, for
world socialism, for the entire international situation, for
world peace." But one should not be deceived by the
comparatively mild wording of the Arbatov article in
Pravda of August 10. There simply is no way to overstate
the seriousness with which Moscow views American-
Chinese relations. If there has been one dominant motif
above all others in Soviet foreign policy thinking of the
past three years, it is the fear and suspicion of Washing-
ton-Peking collusion. Again and again, with increasing
emphasis, the Russians have returned to this theme in
conversations both here and in the Soviet Union. Three
years ago—even three or four months ago—it seemed
ridiculous to the point of fantasy.

The perception of foreign policies by others makes its
own reality. In a way, that Moscow should think the
Nixon approach to China to be aimed at the USSR is
more important than whether or not Mr. Nixon so intends
it. At the moment, it is almost certain, Moscow suspects
an anti-Soviet ploy.

The danger of a Soviet reaction is so obvious that
one is tempted to assume the Nixon foreign policy makers
must be aware of it. But on that score the history of
Western relations with the Soviet Union is not reassuring.
Time and again, almost from the Bolshevik revolution,
the West has made diplomatic thrusts at the Soviet Union
—at least moves Moscow was bound to interpret as
thrusts—only to be confounded when there followed not
only a deft Soviet parry but also a sharp Soviet counter-
thrust. Consider, for example, the cordon sanitaire, fol-
lowed by Rapallo; Munich, followed by the Nazi-Soviet
Pact; the whole series of our moves in postwar Germany,
followed by Soviet initiatives; NATO, followed by the
Warsaw Pact; our refusal of a proffered arms embargo
in the Middle East, followed by all-out Soviet support for
the Arabs; and so on.

The whole suicidal buildup of nuclear arsenals has
assumed such a pattern, and that is one area where a
possible Soviet reaction should now be considered. But
Moscow does not lack for other opportunities. Its response
might be merely a general hardening of attitude, reflected
in the Middle East or the SALT talks and forestalling any
neutralization arrangements to halt its great-power naval
expansion. It might take the form of a drastic move, say
in Berlin or Romania (which country's egg-walking inde-
pendent actions plus close relations with China may well
be regarded now as threatening rather than merely
menacing). Or it might be a decision to end Soviet re-
straint on the restive but generally quiescent Communist
parties of the world—not excluding Latin America. The
new Soviet-Indian accord indicates the diplomatic possi-
bilities. The limbo in which our approach to China has left
Japan clearly offers another significant opportunity. In
any event, the question is likely to be not whether Moscow
will react to the new China policy but how, where and
when.

Putting it that way, of course, implies that the Admin-
istration really does not intend its approach to China as
an anti-Soviet move. But can one be so sure? Even if
Mr. Nixon's strong penchant for cold-war concepts did
not have a steady anti-Soviet focus, a move to play off
China against the USSR would not be alien to the think-
ing of his chief foreign policy adviser. Dr. Kissinger has
written admiringly of how Metternich plotted and planned
to play off Czarist Russia against Napoleonic France
in just such a fashion. In all probability, the dramatic
approach to China sprang from Dr. Kissinger's fertile
brain. In the age of Metternich such a gambit as the
Austrian Chancellor tried with France and Russia could
win applause from the galleries and might even be success-
ful. If it is being used now—in the hope, for example,
of pressuring the Soviet Union on Berlin, Germany, the
Middle East or SALT—it is almost certain to fail.

If the White House imagines that it can always placate
Moscow by drawing back, it may be reckoning without
the Chinese, whose long history contains lessons in diplo-
matic cunning from which even Metternich could have
 profited. If Mr. Nixon thinks to use the Chinese for what-
ever he has afoot, what could be more likely than for
the Chinese to try to use the Americans for their own
ends? In this connection, the reported plans of Chou En-lai
to visit the Balkans could be ominous. The first and most
unconditional goal of Soviet foreign policy is to maintain
a dominant position in Eastern Europe. The earlier will-
ingness of Peking to fish in these troubled waters, evi-
denced by Chou's visit after the Hungarian revolution,
was probably a much more important factor in the Sino-
Soviet split than most Western observers have believed.
To repeat it now could only be regarded by Moscow as a
direct challenge to its most important core interest. And
Moscow is sure to read it against the backdrop of the
dramatic developments in American-Chinese relations.

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

289

It goes without saying that if the Nixon Administration could rebuild relations with China and at the same time work out a rapprochement with the Soviet Union, this would constitute a diplomatic coup of the first magnitude. But while we may hope for these ends, there is reason to fear that neither will be achieved. It is quite possible that adroit diplomatic footwork and double talk can work out arrangements for the United Nations, and even for Taiwan, acceptable to both Washington and Peking. Whether the Chinese Communists would accept a continued strong American military presence on the Asian mainland—even if the war in Vietnam should somehow be completely Vietnamized—is something else again. All indications are that this consideration is really foremost in Chinese thinking. But unless Mr. Nixon is suddenly prepared to jettison everything he has believed in this regard, maintenance of just such a military presence is a “must” in his foreign policy. In such case, the greatly heralded visit to China would be apt to produce little that is positive, and might produce a great deal that is negative, while at the same time damaging our relations with Moscow.

One result of this could be a drastic heating up of the cold war. Could it be possible that certain minds in the Administration, puzzling over how to win an election, would regard this as less than an unmitigated evil? Some might well see it as at least putting them again on familiar territory.

"The acid test of a policy," Dr. Kissinger wrote in his book on Metternich, "is its ability to obtain domestic support," and that, he held, includes "harmonizing it with the national experience." The main American experience in international affairs is the cold war. It takes a devious and conspiratorial turn of mind—like Metternich's—to imagine many of these things. Alas, the minds of many Americans have been forced to take just such a turn.

FRED WARNER NEAL