CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

MONITOR 4 JAN 71

# How much Pentagon economy?

That eternal vigilance is the price of economy at the Pentagon, Congress is well aware. Hopefully, it will not forget this when the Pentagon's new budget is carried up Capitol Hill early next year, with a requested spending boost of perhaps $3 billion.

Already the Department of Defense is putting forth suggestions that its capacity for economizing is pretty well exhausted — that the nation's allegedly short-changed defenses will suffer seriously if the trend is not reversed. Any such declarations should be ruthlessly examined, at a time when the United States is annually spending some $75 billion of its treasure on defense.

The other day the Pentagon's comptroller said that inflation, plus pay increases, already had eaten up much of that "peace dividend" which was supposed to result from the winding down of the war in Vietnam. Vietnam costs have been cut back by about $10 billion so far. But undeniably pay raises for military and civilian workers have eaten up $4.6 billion of this. Add in the inflated costs for new hardware and the $10 billion just about vanishes.

One should credit the general efforts of President Nixon and Defense Secretary Laird to pare the defense budget. The size

of the armed forces has been reduced from 3.5 million, when Mr. Nixon took office, to about 2.9 million. There will be a further drop to perhaps 2.5 million. Meanwhile defense officials have postponed some new weapons: the new manned bomber and the new super-Polaris submarine

But the Pentagon is arguing that there has to be more money in the new budget for research and development, and for sprucing up the nonnuclear deterrent. And that there must be more money for foreign military aid, to implement the Nixon doctrine—i.e., to help other countries man their own defenses.

Credit all of these arguments, and there is still reason to ask: How much money is going into weapons systems that will yet be discarded? How seriously has Washington modified its overstrenuous objective of being able to fight two major wars and one minor war, all at the same time? And how much waste has been squeezed out of defense contracting?

Congress and the public expect to see Pentagon spending continue its downward trend. They expect to see a legitimate "peace dividend" derived from Vietnam. The Pentagon will have a lot of explaining to do if it spoils these expectations.

Aside from the serious impact which the TFX program has had upon our national security and aside from the obvious waste of scarce resources, the TFX case also has affected public confidence in our defense establishment. As this report makes clear, the primary cause of the TFX fiasco was mismanagement. A series of management blunders made for various reasons, compounded errors with more errors and caused the failure of the program. The management blunders were made at the highest echelons of the government. Top presidential appointees in the Dept. of Defense during the McNamara era overrode expert advice to impose personal judgments on complex matters beyond their expertise. These same officials then made extraordinary efforts to conceal the results of their errors in the TFX case. These efforts included deliberate attempts to deceive the Congress, the press, and the American people. Undersandably, this sorry record has done nothing to enhance public confidence in the integrity and competence of the people who are charged with preserving the national security. Nor has it improved the public image of the Dept. of Defense.

What should be done to correct these conditions? Announcements have already been made of greater decentralization of the management system within the Pentagon so that technical aspects of weapons development programs would be managed where they should be—by the individual services which eventually will be responsible for using in combat the weapons that they develop. There is stated to be increased awareness of the need for current and valid assessments of program status and progress. There also is stated to be concern with the problems of conducting research and development concurrent with early production.

The subcommittee believes that these trends in management policies, if diligently followed, could lead to improvements in the weapons acquisition process and in management effectiveness within the Pentagon.

The subcommittee is hopeful that the civilians who now run the Dept. of Defense, as well as those who will follow, will be committed to a policy of candor and truthfulness in their relations with the press, the public, and the Congress.

Such a policy, if observed, should do much to improve public confidence in the credibility of the Pentagon.

It would be foolhardy, however, to assume that such errors as are exemplified in the TFX program could not be repeated. A major lesson of the TFX case is that the Congress must not hesitate, in the exercise of its oversight function, to examine major procurement procedures, decisions, and programs, particularly whenever there is obvious deviation from established practices. The Congress must be even watchful, because there could be recurrences of the serious and damaging mismanagement that attended the TFX program from its inception, as reflected in the subcommittee's hearings and as summarized in this report.

WASHINGTON POST - 9 JANUARY 1971

# Soviets Propose
BM Limit

Chalmers M. Roberts

Washington Post Staff Writer

The Soviet Union has proposed a limited, first-step strategic arms agreement that would bar rival antimissile (ABM) systems other than for the protection of Washington and Moscow.

This would leave until later an agreement on limiting rival land and sea-based missiles.

The Soviet proposal came toward the end of round three of the SALT talks that wound up in Helsinki last Dec. 18, it has now been learned.

But the Nixon administration opposes an ABM-only agreement despite the fact that the United States, under President Johnson, originally sought the SALT talks in order to curb ABMs. It was the Soviet Union that insisted on including offensive nuclear weapons as well as defensive systems before Moscow would agree to SALT.

The reversal of position on Moscow's part came about this way:

ing the Helsinki round, Nov. 2 to Dec. 18, the Soviet delegation placed major emphasis on a 'demand that in any overall agreement covering both offensive and defensive weapons, the United States must include its aircraft in Western Europe and aboard carriers in both the Atlantic-Mediterranean area and in the Pacific, since such planes can deliver nuclear weapons to Soviet soil.

But the American delegation was under presidential instruction to reject the inclusion of what are known as

FBS, forward based systems. In essence, the United States stood pat on its proposal put forward at the Vienna round last July 24.

In turn, the Soviets refused to put forward a counterproposal covering both offensive and defensive weapons until the United States agreed in principle to include FBS. But finally, in December, in the face of this deadlock the Soviets suggested breaking out the ABM issue from the larger package.

Gerard C. Smith, the chief American negotiator, was forbidden by Washington to consider this proposal. Hence the Helsinki session ended in disappointment with the next round due to open in Vienna on March 15.

It is now conceded within the administration that pressure can be expected from the new Congress, especially in the Senate, to accept the idea of an ABM-only agreement as a first SALT step. The Federation of American Scientists recently called for just such a step.

The argument here is that the two destabilizing steps in the arms race are the creation of rival ABM systems and the development and deployment of multiple warheads, MIRVs. It is generally agreed that control of MIRVs is now impossible, given their deployment by the United States and testing with a view to deployment by the Soviet Union.

The Pentagon said yesterday that the Air Force has completed installation of the

first 50 Minuteman III intercontinental missiles with MIRV warheads. The installation began last June at Minot Air Force Base, S.D.

The unit is designated as the 741st Strategic Missile Squadron, part of the 91st Strategic Missile Wing. Each of the 50 missiles carries three warheads, and each of these a nuclear punch of around 170 kilotons compared to the 20-kiloton warhead of the Hiroshima bomb. About half the 1,000 Minutemen are due to be converted to MIRV warheads.

In addition, the first American Poseidon submarine with up to 14 missiles, each with an 18-kiloton punch, is due to become operational in a few days. The Soviet MIRV program is thought to be about a year and a half behind the American development.

Thus with MIRVs so far developed and deployed that control is rated next to impossible, there is bound to be increased pressure in Washington to control the other destabilizing development, the ABMs.

But thus far the Nixon administration flatly opposes an AMB-only agreement. The desire, and still the hope, is that a way can be found around the FBS issue so that an AMB limitation can be linked in a SALT treaty to a numerical

limitation on rival missile systems, including a sub-ceiling on the giant Soviet SS-9s.

In proposing an AMB-only agreement, the Soviets offered to give details on how it might be done if the United States would accept the principle. But since Smith was foreclosed on that, the details were not forthcoming at Helsinki.

Defense Secretary Melvin R. Laird on Dec. 16 announced that Moscow had begun to slow its SS-9 program, an announcement that followed Soviet hints that this somewhat was related to SALT. The Soviets also have complained that the United States missed their "signal" in late 1969, at the start of SALT, when they first halted SS-9 construction.

However, in order to win Senate approval for phase two of the Safeguard ABM system last August, the administration argued that continuation of the program would be a "bargaining chip" in winning Soviet agreement to an SS-9 limitation by treaty.

Between now and March 15 the administration will have to decide whether to go back to the Johnson administration position, which was an AMB-only agreement, or to find some solution to the FBS issue in order to get a formal SS-9 limitation agreement.

WALL STREET JOURNAL - 11 JANUARY 1971 P-4

# Pentagon's Fiscal 1972 Budget

By RICHARD J. LEVINE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

WASHINGTON—The new Pentagon budget, in the final stages of preparation, is likely to anger Congressional defense critics publicly and to worry military men privately.

The reason: The budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 will call for higher spending after two years of cutbacks, but will provide smaller military forces.

As has been anticipated here for several months, the fiscal 1972 defense budget will be slightly larger than this year's. Although there's still some work to do, Pentagon insiders indicate that they expect fiscal 1972 defense spending to be between $75 billion and $76 billion, compared with a recently increased figure of $74.5 billion for the current year.

At the same time, however, these officials stress, inflation combined with higher pay pointing toward an all-volunteer armed force will dictate continued reductions in the size of the Army, Navy and Air Force. With U.S. forces withdrawing from Vietnam "there will be fewer men, divisions, ships and air wings" in fiscal 1972, says one Pentagon official. "We aren't going to get any more muscle" for the additional dollars spent.

Military manpower currently is 2.9 million and is expected to drop another 200,000 in the next six months. Officials anticipate that at the end of fiscal 1972—18 months from now—unformed strength will be down to 2.4 million men. Yet despite such cutbacks, manpower costs (the price of paying, feeding, clothing, housing and otherwise taking care of service-men and Pentagon civilians) will rise to 53% or 54% of the Pentagon budget next year, up from 49% in the current fiscal year.

## "Hold the Line" on Purchasing

For defense contractors hurt by sharp cut-backs in Pentagon purchases in recent years, the new budget will mean that business won't worsen. On the other hand, the budget for fiscal 1972 doesn't indicate that a big turnaround in defense business is in sight. At best, says one defense planner, the new budget represents an attempt to "hold the line on purchasing power."

There will, however, be sizable increases in research and development. "The idea is not to get behind (the Russians) technologically," says an official who predicts that the R&D budget will rise about $800 million from this year's $7 billion.

Included in this jump will be increases for two new offensive nuclear weapons: The Air Force's B1 strategic bomber and the Navy's new long-range missile-firing submarine, known as ULMS.

The Pentagon is expected to request about $350 million for continued development of the B1, a North American Rockwell Corp. project. This year, Congress appropriated $75 million. Spending, using the past year's funds, is estimated at $180 million. For the ULM submarine, in an earlier stage than the B1 bomber, the Pentagon is likely to request a little over $100 million, up from the $44 million it received this year and the $10 million it got the year before.

The increases for bomber and submarine development work, a Pentagon official says, represent "orderly progress" and aren't "a crash program." At the Pentagon, the official line is that a decision on whether to produce these weapons is linked to the outcome of the

Strategic Arms Limitation Talks with the Soviets, currently in recess.

A SALT agreement "could make it unnecessary for us to proceed" with new offensive strategic weapons, Defense Secretary Laird has said repeatedly. Yet senior military men hint at the possibility that the ULMS and the B1 might be built eventually, even if there is a SALT agreement, simply as replacements for the aging B52 and the Polaris-Poseidon submarine. To do so would be extremely expensive, with the most modest estimates putting the cost of the program at about $10 million each.

While most public attention has been focused on new strategic weapons, Mr. Laird recently has placed increasing emphasis on the need to improve conventional forces as part of a "realistic deterrent." Modernization of conventional weapons suffered because of the Vietnam war, he asserts.

As a result, the new Pentagon budget will provide substantial funds for such projects as the Navy's F14 fighter and the Air Force's F15 fighter, as well as a new destroyer and attack-submarine program started by the Nixon Administration. Still, these programs are in relatively early stages and the heaviest funding years remain farther down the road.

Mr. Laird also has made clear that the coming year will see increased military aid for U.S. allies, especially in Asia, to enable them to assume increased defense responsibility as American manpower is withdrawn.

For his critics on Capitol Hill, Mr. Laird's budget will be a target for cutting both in committee and on the floor of the House and Senate. Sen. Proxmire, the Wisconsin Democrat and leading defense critic, already has fired the opening shots.

## "No Excuse" for an Increase

Soon after the Pentagon boss gave the first firm indication in a November speech that defense spending would rise in fiscal 1972, Mr. Proxmire declared: "I expect to do all I can to cut military spending sharply in the coming year. . . . Unless the world situation changes dramatically there will be no excuse for an increased military budget."

Top Pentagon officials concede they have a tough political problem on their hands in defending an increased budget as the war in Asia winds down, but they aren't overly pessimistic. "We will be attacked because the budget will be up," says one insider. "All we can say is that the force structure will be down."

Moreover, Pentagon planners comment that although Congress has pared some military programs in recent years, the military hasn't lost a major project to Capitol Hill's budget cutters. "The basic support for defense is still there," argues a defense official.

Congress' $2.1 billion cut in the fiscal 1971 defense money bill will require reductions in the Pentagon's current-year spending of about $800 million. But two pay raises and an increase in military assistance funds means that total spending will be up some $2.7 billion from the Pentagon's original fiscal 1971 estimate of $71.8 billion, according to informed officials. In fiscal 1970, military spending was $77.8 billion and fiscal 1969 it reached $78.7 billion.

For senior military men, worried about what they refer to as growing Soviet military "capabilities," the fiscal 1972 Pentagon budget will undoubtedly be viewed as on the border line of acceptable risk.

BALTIMORE SUN 30 JAN 1971 (1F) p8

# The Military Is Shrinking, But Defense Budget Rises

By CHARLES W. CORDRY

Washington Bureau of The Sun

Washington, Jan. 29—President Nixon's new defense budget increases military spending by $1.5 billion but slashes manpower by 375,000, thus cutting the forces to their 1961 level and indicating a steady withdrawal from the Vietnam conflict.

The defense-spending plan for the year starting next July 1 sent to Congress today, calls for an outlay of $76 billion compared with $74.5 billion in the current fiscal year. The administration's first defense budget a year ago asked for a lower amount compared to previous years.

## Inflation A Factor

It is no oddity that the forces are going down drastically in manpower while their cost is going up, defense officials said.

The chief reason is both routine pay increases and special benefits intended to make service more attractive and eventually make an all-volunteer force possible. Also, the cost of weapons suffers from inflation.

Of the total intended defense outlay for fiscal 1972, $3.6 billion is for civilian and military pay raises and inducements to volunteers. Without that item, the defense budget would be smaller than this year's.

Essentially, the military forces envisioned in the new Nixon budget are to be made up of combat formations—both nuclear and conventional—of approximately the same numbers and capabilities as those that will exist toward the end of this fiscal year.

This leveling-off process follows a series of reductions—mainly through withdrawals from Indochina and elsewhere in Asia—that shortly will leave the armed services at their pre-Vietnam strength.

Such is the effect of wage and price inflation, however, that the cost of maintaining these forces is 50 per cent greater than in 1964—up from $50.8 billion to $75 billion. (The further $1 billion in the new total is for foreign military assistance.)

The administration's contention, therefore, is that it is now waging America's fast-diminishing part of the war with what

amounts to a pre-war defense budget and what soon will be pre-war size forces.

The revised manpower figures revealed in the budget show that the forces will drop from a present level of 2,880,000 men to 2,699,000 by next June 30, and to 2,505,000 by June 30, 1972. That adds up to a reduction of about 1,000,000 men from the 1968 war-time peak and leaves the forces at the 1961 level.

## Down To 50,000

Implicit in these figures, defense authorities say, is the fact that by the summer of 1972 American forces in Vietnam will be down very close to the level envisioned as a continuing military assistance group—something on the order of 50,000 men or fewer—and some Air Force units with additional thousands.

Mr. Nixon's next budget holds a steady course on strategic nuclear arms, maintaining missile forces at present levels, slightly reducing the numbers of older bombers, and expanding research and development on a supersonic bomber and a longer-range submarine-based missile. The Safeguard anti-ballistic missile system is to be carried

forward at a "minimum" level of $1.3 billion with details to be spelled out later for Congress.

Limitation or reduction of strategic arms is the continuing goal of negotiation with the Russians, Mr. Nixon said, "but in the absence of an agreement we must proceed with planned improvements to assure the effectiveness of our strategic forces.

In the field of conventional, or Soviet capability."

## Modern Weaponry Stressed

In the field of conventional, or general purpose, forces, the emphasis is on smaller but rapidly modernized formation—on making up for delays caused by the Vietnam war.

Contracting authority for shipbuilding, a grave concern in view of Soviet naval expansion, for example, is to be increased to $3.3 billion from this year's $2.5 billion.

The budget request is for 5 additional nuclear attack submarines, one nuclear-powered guided-missile frigate, seven of a new kind of destroyer, an oiler, 2 submarine tenders and 3 rescue and salvage vessels.

Six more missile submarines are to be converted to carry the multiple-warhead Poseidon rockets, and 2 guided-missile frigates and a survey ship are to be modernized.

By Chalmers M. Roberts
Washington Post Staff Writer

The chief American negotiator at the strategic arms limitation talks (SALT) yesterday gave the Senate Foreign Relations Committee what was described as a "very negative" response to the idea of an agreement confined to limiting rival anti-missile (ABM) systems.

Gerard C. Smith appeared behind closed doors for about two and a half hours. While Smith was firm on the ABM proposal, made last winter by the Soviet Union, he said that an other SALT issues he has as yet had no guidance from President Nixon.

Smith's appearance coincided, by chance, with the first public Soviet statement on a specific issue on the SALT table since the Soviet-American talks began nearly 15 months ago.

This was the disclosure in a Pravda article that the Kremlin will not agree to a treaty unless it covers fighter-bombers, based in Western Europe and on carriers, that can deliver nuclear weapons to Soviet soil.

American officials had been warned in advance that the Soviets were irritated by accounts in the U.S. press about SALT details and that the United States therefore could expect a Moscow response. More of the same is anticipated before the next SALT round begins in Vienna on March 15.

Smith's negative attitude on the Soviet ABM proposal, a proposal not mentioned in the Pravda article, was paralleled in comments some days ago by Henry A. Kissinger, the President's foreign policy aide, during a closed door meeting in Cambridge, Mass.

However, Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) and others pressed Smith yesterday on the idea of accepting an ABM agreement as a first step toward a larger pact to include offensive weapons systems as well.

Church suggested that an ABM agreement might even be made contingent, within a set time, on the larger agreement. But Smith's response was that the United States prefers an agreement limiting both ABMs and rival missile

systems in order to put a ceiling on the huge Soviet SS-9 missiles.

## Standing Pat

The net result of Smith's testimony and of other information is a strong indication that the United States will go to Vienna standing pat on its past proposal, waiting to see whether the Soviets will have anything new to offer or whether the Communist Party's 20th Congress will produce changes that could affect SALT. That Congress begins on March 30.

Soviet sources are adamant that there can be no larger agreement unless the forward-based aircraft are included. So, they say, why not start with ABMs only, and they have been pressing hard on this idea in Washington.

The Soviets have some definite ideas about the details of an ABM agreement, for instance the physical area that would be permitted under a pact limiting each side to protection of its national capital.

The paper they gave the Americans at Helsinki in December left blank places for such figures. The Soviets said they would be glad to provide them if the Americans would agree in principle but President Nixon forbade Smith to do so.

The Soviets are insistent that only the Washington and Moscow areas could be covered. They specifically exclude a substitute U.S. system in the Rocky Mountain area, headquarters of the North American Defense Command, as has been suggested by some Pentagon planners.

The Soviets profess to see no problem about large radars, necessary for ABM systems, that are already located in other areas for other purposes. But these are a source of concern in Washington on the grounds that such radars in the Soviet Union could be quickly hitched to ABM missiles, thus leaving the United States at a disadvantage that would take years to overcome.

The Soviets also are now saying for the first time that there is no longer a chance of agreement to limit multiple warheads (MIRVs) as U.S. officials some time ago concluded.

WASHINGTON POST - 4 FEBRUARY 1971

# U.S. Negotiator Testifies on Limiting ABMs

WASHINGTON POST

4 February 1971 P11

Proxmire
Hits Budget
Of Military

From News Dispatches

Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wis.) said yesterday that any hopes for a federal fiscal dividend from the wind-down of the Vietnam war have been dashed by a rising Pentagon budget.

He also called top administration officials to Capitol Hill beginning Friday to defend their new economic game plan, about which he said he has grave doubts.

White House persuasion failed on another economic front yesterday when Rep. John W. Byrnes (Wis.), the No. 1 Republican on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, indicated he was unmoved by a pep talk on revenue sharing from President Nixon's aides.

"I would like to go along with the President ... I don't find myself in a comfortable position," Byrnes said. "But I can't accept the assumption that Uncle Sam can perform the miracle of the loaves and fishes."

Byrnes takes essentially the same stand against no-strings sharing of federal revenues with states and cities as does Ways and Means Chairman Wilbur D. Mills (D-Ark.). Byrnes said that revenue for the program simply isn't there, that economic growth won't provide the necessary surplus, and that the fiscal pressures on the federal gov-

ernment are just as great as on the lower levels.

He did say he would support, as does Mills, Mr. Nixon's proposal for converting $10 billion categorical grants-in-aid to block grants for general purposes that would give the states greater latitude in how the money is spent.

Byrnes had met privately with John D. Ehrlichman, Mr. Nixon's top adviser on domestic affairs, and other White House aides after they briefed the conference of all Republican House members.

Proxmire, chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, said, "I have read the President's Economic Report and must report that I cannot share the optimism reflected in that report."

"His program will not reduce unemployment quickly and sufficiently slow the sharp rate of inflation that afflicts us."

Proxmire's committee, which has already conducted six days of hearings on the state of the economy, will take testimony from the Council of Economic Advisers Friday, the Secretary of Treasury next Monday, and George P. Shultz, director of the Office of Management and Budget, on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON POST 27 February 1971 P12

# Democrats Urge U.S.-Soviet Agreement on ABMs

By Marilyn Berger

Washington Post Staff Writer

Democratic leaders yesterday urged the administration to conclude a pact with the Soviet Union limiting defensive strategic weapons as a first step toward a broader agreement.

The chairman of the Democratic Policy Council's Committee on Arms Control and Defense Policy, Paul C. Warnke, suggested that such a limit on antiballistic missiles (ABMs) "could be expressly conditioned on mutual restraint, and preferably a complete freeze on the further deployment of offensive missile systems while negotiations continue."

Warnke thus conceded the link between offensive and defensive systems that President Nixon emphasized in his State of the World message.

But where the President clearly leaned toward rejecting, at least for now, the Soviet proposal to limit defensive weapons only, Warnke, speaking for the Democrats, urged acceptance with the aim of making the strategic arms talks "an instrument for mutual restraint."

The administration already has left itself room for maneuver on this issue while stressing what both the President, and his national security advisor Henry A. Kissinger, have called the "relationship" between offensive and defensive weapons.

Kissinger, in an interview on the CBS morning news yesterday, said the government was now considering whether any partial limitation makes it harder to get a more comprehensive agreement.

"These are the questions we are now studying in the government and will be discussing with the Soviet Union," said Kissinger, "I don't want to prejudge them in an interval between the two negotiations (sessions at SALT) and before we have reassembled with the Soviet Union."

The next SALT session is scheduled for March 15 in Vienna where U.S. officials have said they hope to get more details on the Soviet position, which has not been spelled out as clearly as Washington would wish.

Until the Russian position is fully ascertained informed officials considered it unlikely that the U.S. would shift its negotiating stance, which calls for an agreement that would cover both offensive and defensive weapons.

Both sides are, in effect, in a negotiating sequence in which neither has flatly turned down the other side's

proposals.

Democratic leaders announced the President's State of the World message as "180 pages of uninformative rhetoric... filled with unstinting self-praise, an absence of candor and a distortion of results." Warnke, at a press conference at the National Press Building, pronounced himself preplexed about the President's assertion that multiple warheads on U.S. missiles contributed to stability.

"I'm troubled by the statement that our MIRV's are destabilizing while their's (the Russian's) are destabilizing," Warnke said. "Both are destabilizing... both raise the possibility of a first strike."

He also hit at the President's reference to "strong So-

viet defensive forces." Said Warnke: "The only ABM defense of which there is any indication is the Galosh system (around Moscow). That was obsolete when construction began."

Warnke said that since the U.S. MIRV's were more advanced than Soviet multiple warheads "now is the time to bring about a freeze."

Following the press conference Warnke, who headed the Pentagon's International Security Affairs office in the Johnson administration, also expressed deep dismay with the President's brief reference in his foreign policy message to developing a means of selective nuclear response, which he said seemed based on the concept of a limited nuclear attack.

"By thus equating nuclear weapons with conventional weapons," Warnke said, "you make their use more plausible... This creates a climate in which nuclear weapons are thinkable... it lowers the nuclear threshold."

Administration officials, however, argue that instead of lowering the threshold, a capability for limited nuclear response raises the threshold and increases deterrence. They say it could prevent a situation in which the Russians can confront the United States with a choice between surrender and mass destruction on both sides.

The Democrats generally recommended the administration's European policy, particularly the decision to maintain U.S. troop strength within the North Atlantic Alliance.

NEW YORK POST 13 MARCH 71 (15)
The Pentagon's Budget Offensive

WASHINGTON POST 11 March 1971 P1

# Moorer Cautions On Soviet A-Lead

By Michael Getler

Washington Post Staff Writer

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned Congress yesterday that the Soviet Union could gain nuclear superiority over the United States "within the next five or six years"—a situation to be "avoided at all costs."

"Aside from the military implications," Adm. Thomas H. Moorer told the House Armed Services Committee, Soviet superiority would destroy the confidence of this country's allies and weaken U.S. diplomacy "even were that superiority to have no practical effect on the outcome of an all-out nuclear exchange."

Despite the apparent slowdown in silo construction for the Soviet Union's three front-line ICBMs, Moorer estimated that force would continue to expand from its present 1,440 missiles to about 1,500 by mid-1971.

He also pointed to fresh evidence—now widely publicized—that the Kremlin has started building new silos for what may be still another ICBM. Furthermore, he raised the possibly that even one more variety of globe-spanning missile may be in the offing.

"There remains the possibility," Moorer said, "that the Soviets may develop and deploy a mobile ICBM" in the next several years.

Sen. Stuart Symington (D-Mo.) criticized the Pentagon's assessment and the airing of secret intelligence on the new Soviet missile silos on national television just before the defense budget went to Congress.

"Here we go again," said Symington in a Senate statement.

Among the inevitable signs of a Washington spring, he listed "proposed higher defense budgets and warnings of grave new dangers . . . because of new developments in Soviet weaponry."

Symington is a member of

the Senate Armed Services Committee along with Sen. Henry M. Jackson (D-Wash.). It was Jackson who revealed the new silo information on TV last Sunday.

"Last week," Symington said, "in a session secret to the point where no record was kept, the Senate Armed Services Committee was briefed about Soviet missile plans. This briefing included for the first time purported details of new Soviet missilery which was not known about when the Joint Atomic Energy Committee was briefed the previous week on the same subject by the same people."

In a possible swipe at Jackson, Symington said he was asked by reporters about this new Soviet threat last Sunday, but "based on the secrecy of the briefing, I avoided answering." He then asked that news stories following the TV show be printed in the Congressional Record.

On the estimates themselves, Symington said "one cannot fail to remember several comparable spring announcements of previous years—in the early 1950s those thousands of new long-range bombers the Soviets were going to build, but never built; in the late 1950s, those hundreds upon hundreds of long-range missiles the Soviets were going to build, but never built."

"As a result of these and other inaccurate intelligence reports," Symington claimed, "the American taxpayer is currently hearing the burden of tens of billions of dollars of additional weaponry we now know is not needed for his and our security."

Intoning the dark forebodings that seem traditional at defense budget hearings, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has solemnly warned Congress that a threatening Soviet nuclear superiority must be "avoided at all costs." He was apparently referring to the profits of doom.

The case made out by Admiral Thomas H. Moorer was admittedly somewhat speculative in that he anticipated a five- or six-year "lead time" for the alleged superiority. What is more, he argued—somewhat feebly, it seemed—that an increase in the Russian overkill capability would undermine U. S. diplomacy and intimidate Western allies.

But with a $76 billion Defense appropriations request pending, any alarmist testimony is apparently admissible, no matter how contrived and regardless of its effect on the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.

Thus, the Pentagon's protests were still echoing yesterday as President Nixon handed chief disarmament negotiator Gerard C. Smith his sealed instructions for the Vienna conferences. We trust they contain something more than the conventional expressions of apprehension and panic-mongering of the kind embodied in the Moorer statement; real progress in disarmament depends on joint action by chiefs of state, not the Joint Chiefs of Staff. For the great question remains: how much overkill will ever be enough?