Editorial in *Atlanta Constitution*, March 15, 1969.

Lacks focus, but seems to rest on open-ended
cost argument, citing possible eventual cost
of $50 billion.

"Acting against the advice of scientists and politicians, President Richard Nixon has given the order to proceed with the deployment of the Sentrinel antiballistic missile.

"His thinking seemed to be muddled ...

"The confusion created by his reasoning processes becomes more painful when you consider the fact that the program will cost $6 billion to $7 billion but will not provide protection from fallout if an enemy power decides to launch a massive attack against the country...

"Nixon's decision to go ahead with Sentinel missiles nevertheless can do nothing but increase the spiral toward more weapons in Russia and Communist China. Nobody wants the President to trust those nations, the most devious in the world, to disarm themselves. But as he admitted, the Sentinel really will not protect us from them....

"The United States does not need to spend $50 billion on this project (which it could cost eventually) without the widest participation of knowledgeable civilians in the decision-making process."

-22-

Column by James Reston in *N.Y. Times*, March 16, 1969.

President Nixon decided the ABM question along basically domestic political lines. It appears unlikely that he will "deal with the really big questions of arms control, peace in Vietnam, ..."

"The control of military arms is undoubtedly the most important political question in the world today, for the arms race devours the money and influences all other questions of poverty, race, jobs and housing, both here and abroad.

"This is why there was such intense interest in what President Nixon would do about putting $6 billion or $7 billion into an antiballistic missile system. Would he see and face the presiding issue of world politics, or evade it? The answer is fairly clear, he evaded it.

"He dealt with it politicall and nationally, and within this frame, he was not only effective but brilliant. He did not reverse the Johnson Administration's decision to build an antiballistic missile system, but modified it ...

"In short, he confused and disarmed his critics with a mystifying clarification of his policy, but he didn't really deal with the major issue of disarmament ...

"Washington is an intensely personal and political city. At the beginning of a new Administration, it is more interested in the character and personality of the new President than in his policies. It watches him under pressure to see whether he will be bold enough to take a different course - to deal with the realities instead of the politics of life - or merely modify the old courses with a different style; and on the ABM issue, Mr. Nixon obviously followed the traditional political pattern.

"This has worried watchful people in the capital. They are confused about what to do about the ABM and can see the argument for and against Mr. Nixon's compromise, but they are asking some fundamental questions.

"If the President decides to go along with the powers at the Pentagon and Congress who want a controversial ABM system, despite its cost, what will he do about the much more difficult question of making peace in Vietnam against the opposition of these same forces on Capitol Hill and at the Pentagon?

-23-

Reston column, March 16, 1969, continued.

...The public posture of amiability and compromise with everybody, which President Nixon has dramatized, may actually be a cover for a policy which will deal with really big questions of arms control, peace in Vietnam, and a new policy and new priorities for the American cities. But very few people here see this as the future of the Administration at the present time.

"The ABM decision has convinced most observers here that President Nixon is going to see the world in domestic political terms, that he is going to rely on good manners, good public relations, and good luck to bring about fundamental changes at home and abroad; but the most thoughtful people here have their doubts.

"They are not particularly concerned about Mr. Nixon's decision to go ahead in the country with the ABM, but they are concerned about him ... Mr. Nixon's first big decision indicated not a bold or a philosophic approach to his problems, but a narrow, tactical and public relations view of the world."

-24-

Editorial in *Chicago Sun-Times*, March 16, 1969.

Praises Nixon for making the best of a bad decision,
but cites reliability, effectivenss, and cost-prior-
ities arguments in reiterating opposition.

"Our antagonism goward any form of the Sentinel system remains unabated - the nuclear numbers game is still the nuclear numbers game.

"Yet Mr. Nixon must be given full credit for touching all pos-
sible bases before making his controversial decision.

"He met the urban fear of nuclear emplacements by choosing
not to deploy Sentinel-system missiles near cities ...

"(He) also congronted the arms-escalation issue when he said
the Soviet Union understands that the Sentinel is a defensive
measure only.

"More important, perhaps, the President said the program would
proceed in phases ...

"All elements of the missile decision which must be marked on
the plus side for Mr. Nixon do not, however, erase the very real
questions which still exist. They are:

an

"Will the system work, even against/unsophisticated Red Chinese
attack? Wil it become obsolete before it is deployed? Is it
worth the $6 billion to $7 billion estimated cost at a time when
domestic human needs are going unmet? ..."

-25-

Editorial in the Houston Chronicle, March 18, 1969.

Doubts effectiveness, sees open-ended cost,
new arms race spiral; also cites pressing
domestic needs.

"What we are about to do is embark on another hugely expensive military project, and at this point no one knows for sure whether it will be of any value whatsoever. In the next several years it supposedly will cost $5 billion to $6 billion, but projects like this one invariably cost many times more before its over. This is merely the meagerest of beginnings. Once we get started in earnest, an ABM system may go as high as $50 billion...

"Even if (ABM) can (function), it will be easy for the Russians to improve their offensive weapons as rapidly as we can improve our defensive ones. Since both nations already have the ability to destroy each other many times over, it looks like we're simply headed for a higher, more expensive order of nuclear stalemate. Meanwhile, the domestic needs of both Russia and Ameerica go unsatisfied for lack of money...

"Mr. Nixon announced his decision just after the Senate had finally approved the treaty to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. The ABM decision surely will take much of the edge off the Senate's action. Instead of slowing down the arms race, we're speeding it up ..."

-26-

Editorial in *St. Louis Post-Dispatch*, August 3, 1969.

More about the military-industrial complex.

"What is involved here goes beyond a Senate debate. The push for the ABM represents pressure by the military-industrial complex for a continuing program that would provide profitable contracts for years ahead, a continuing weapons escalation. A vote for ABM would be in a sense recognition of the power of this lobby, and the Soviets would understand it as such. On the contrary, a substantial defeat for ABM would suggest that the American people are prepared to turn away from the nuclear arms race that has brought a perversion of national ideals. It would mean Congress has had enough of free-wheeling Pentagon spending."

-27-

Comments by Dr. Wolfgang Panofsky to Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on International Organization and Disarmament Affairs, March 28, 1968.

## Criticism of Engineering of Hardpoint Defense

"I want to turn now to serious criticism of an engineering nature in connection with those installations which are intended to protect the Minuteman force. My point is that an economical hardpoint defense - that is a defense of sites which have already been hardened to withstand impact of megaton weapons at relatively close distances - requires a design greatly different from a defense of soft targets such as cities. Let me show the next chart.

"I note the Sentinel System was originally designed to defend soft targets but now essentially the same components have been taken over for a completely different purpose. The only exception is that some additional faces have been added to the MSR radars. Let me, however, elaborate on the difference in requirements.

"I would like to point out that a city defense and a hard point defense has completely different technical specifications, and technical requirements; therefore making a policy decision which uses the same components for a very different purpose is necessarily a very poor engineering decision. Let me summarize.

1. A hardpoint defense radar can be much simpler and cheaper than one intended for city defense since it is permissible to intercept the incoming missiles at very much lower altitudes where the atmosphere has done most of the job in filtering out decoys or any innocuous material accompanying the warhead. Therefore much less traffic has to be handled by the radar.

2. The defense installation should be extremely hard itself if it is going to be able to defend a set of hard targets. The MSR radars can withstand an overpressure of less than one-tenth of what can be tolerated by the missiles they are to defend. Clearly an enemy in planning a first strike would attack primarily the more vulnerable radar and thereby deny the effectiveness of defense.

3. For the hardpoint mission the short-range missiles required for terminal intercept could be much smaller and simpler than the Sprints which cost about $2 million each.

-28-

4. In the city defense we are interested in giving total protection, that is, complete elimination of incoming missiles. In the hardpoint target defense we wish to protect our deterrence only; some attrition of incoming missiles therefore is necessary to enable some of our deterrence to survive.

5. Since the target which is to be protected in city defense is tremendously valuable, the cost of the antimissile could be very high. On the other hand for a hard point defense the cost of the antimissiles should have some reasonable relationship to the cost of the missile to be protected, because otherwise from the cost point of view it would be very much cheaper to protect the deterrence by increasing the size of the deterrence rather than to protect it.

6. And the last point is that the number of antimissiles which should be available should be sufficiently large that the enemy could not simply exhaust them by its attack against our retaliatory force itself. Now one can always give the usual "but it is better than nothing and we need it now" argument. Here I again disagree. The defense as described here is still very imperfect. To maintain their present threat to Minuteman the Soviets could defeat the present system with its relatively small number of antimissiles by increasing their offensive forces correspondingly.

* So, what I have shown here on this chart, Mr. Chairman, is that the technical requirements for a reasonably well-designed defense which meets the stated objective of the President; namely, to defend the Minuteman site and the technical requirements of a defense which was for cities, which is not the current objective, are very different, and therefore, necessarily a simple reconfiguration of the city defense component would give a design which from an engineering point of view is very far from optimum.*

-29-

Comments by Dr. George Kistiakowsky to Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on International Organization and Disarmament Affairs, March 11, 1969.

## Reasons for Technical Doubts

"Let me give you a few examples from the past to illustrate the reasons for my technical doubts.

"Two highly competent and well-informed individuals, Drs. R. L. Garwin and H. A. Bethe, have described in some detail in the *Scientific American* magazine, volume 218, March 1968, several penetration aids that might be used at a comparatively low cost to the attacker. They conclude that the present type of ABM systems could easily fail in such an environment, and I understand that Dr. Bethe has presented the same points to your committee.

"The anticipation of the future tactics of an enemy is an extremely difficult task. Perhaps obliquely this can be illustrated by the degree of surprise achieved in the Tet Vietcong offensive of a year ago or in the capture of the intelligence ship Pueblo.

"We may also note that the difficulties in programming the computers of the SAGE (semi-automatic ground environment) anti-aircraft defense system turned out to be so great that a separate large organization was eventually set up to the programming.

"Finally, the performance of complex military systems is frequently lower than promised by the contractors, even after modifications have been made upon field trials, as evidenced by the statistical data reported in an article of Bernard D. Nossiter, *Washington Post*, January 26, 1969. The F-111B aircraft is a specific recent example.

-30-

Comments by Dr. George Rathjens to Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on International Organization and Disarmament Affairs, March 28, 1969.

Threat to Our Retaliatory Capability

"Other witnesses who have appeared before you have testified on the question of the reliability of such complex systems as ABMs. Their testimony in itself should cause us all to have serious doubts about the wisdom of the decision. The administration is asking great forebearance on the part of the American public when it attempts to persuade them that our retaliatory capability is in jeopardy, and then offers as a solution to the problem a system in which they can have no more confidence than in Sentinel."

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly that perhaps the most disturbing quality on an ABM system is the extraordinary uncertainty that must apply to estimates of its performance. This has been well brought out in the testimony you have heard, and by comparison of that testimony with the administration and contractor claims about expected performance. The sad fact is that while we can have no confidence in an ABM system's working, an adversary can have almost no confidence that it will not work. Thus, we must expect the Soviet Union to react to even a "light" or "thin" deployment as we have to their Moscow defenses by very substantially improving offensive capabilities, not because an ABM system will be effective and not because it will be expanded, but simply as a conservative hedge against these possibilities. The result will almost certainly be an expensive expansion in the arms race with no increase in protection, and, indeed, possibly with a diminution in security for both sides."

-31-

Comments by Dr. Herbert York to Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on International Organization and Disarmament Affairs, March 11, 1969.

## Capability of Defense System Doubted

"I should like now to turn to a technical problem that pertains to all the forms of ABM so far proposed, but which unfortunately is not so simple to discuss nor so easy to quantify as those brought to your attention last week."

"Any active defense system such as the ABM must sit in readiness for 2 or 4 or 8 years and then fire at the precisely correct second following a warning time of only a few minutes. This warning time is so short that systems designers usually attempt to eliminate human decisionmakers, even at low command levels, from the decisionmaking system. Further, the precision needed for the firing time is so fine that machines must be used to choose the precise instant of firing no matter how the decision to fire is made. In the case of offensive missiles the situation is different in an essential way: Although maintaining readiness throughout a long, indefinite period is necessary, the moment of firing is not so precisely controlled in general and, hence human decisionmakers, including even those at high levels, can be permitted to play a part in the decisionmaking process. Thus, the trigger of any ABM, unlike the trigger of the ICBM's and Polarises, must be continuously sentitive and ready, in short a "hair trigger", for indefinitely long periods of time."

"Perhaps the worst arms control implication of the ABM is the possibility that the people and the Congress would be deceived into believing that at long last we are on the track of a technical solution to the dilemma of the steady decrease in our national security which has accompanied the steady increase in our military power over the last two decades..."

"It is frequently said that the ABM, or at least some version of it, does not have serious arms control implications, the reasons advanced having to do with its intrinsically defensive character. In my opinion such a belief is based on an error which may be called the fallacy of the last move. It is indeed true, in some cases, that if the last move that was ever made in the arms race were that of deploying the ABM would by definition not have any arms race implications. But in the real world in which there currently is constant change in both the technology and the deployed numbers of all kinds of strategic systems, ABMs do have disarmament implications. In support of this notion, let me turn to a relevant bit of real recent history."

-32-

"At the beginning of this decade, we began to hear about a possible
Soviet ABM and we became concerned about its possible effects on
our ICBM and Polaris systems. It was then that we began to consider
seriously various penetration aid ideas among which was the notion
of placing more than one warhead on a single offensive missile.
This original idea has since grown in complexity, as these things
do, and has resulted in the MIRV concept (multiple independent
reentry vehicles). There are now additional justifications for MIRV
besides penetration, but that is how it all started. As others have
pointed out, the MIRV concept is a very important element in the
arms race, and potentially serious destabilizing. In fact, the
possibility of a Soviet MIRV is used as one of the main arguments in
support of the idea of hard-point defense and thus we have come one
full turn around the arms race spiral. But no one in 1960-61
thought through the potential destabilizing effects of multiple
warheads an certainly no one did, or even could have, predicted
that the inexorable logic of the arms race would carry us directly
from Soviet talk in 1960 about defending Moscow against missiles,
to a requirement for hard-point defense of offensive missile sites
in the United States in 1969. Similarly no one today can outline
in detail what kind of chain reaction a Sentinel or hard-point
defense deployment would lead to. But we all know of the propen-
sity of scientists and engineers to respond to technical challenge
with further technical complexity and we have seen the willingness
of both sides to pay for the supposed technical solutions at almost
any cost."

"Thus, although I cannot be sure the mechanism, I believe that either hard-point defense or Sentinel would produce further acceleration of the arms race. It is possible that the deployment of these ABMs would lead to a new round of penetration aid developments with further consequences of the magnitude of those produced by MIRV. It is indeed probable that deployment of these ABM would lead to greater numbers of deployed offensive warheads on both sides."

"We may expect deployment of these ABMs would lead to the persistent
query, "but how do you know it really works?" and the pressures
now applied against the current partial test ban treaty would be
multiplied. It is certain that deployment of these ABMs would
lead to more steps in that awesome direction of placing greater
reliance on automatic devices for making that ultimate decision as
to whether or not doomsday had arrived.

"It thus appears that as a specific part of a well thought out and
well-defined arms control agreement, deployment of hard-point
defense might play a positive role, but otherwise it would be just
one more step away from national security."

-33-

Excerpts from "The Effect of ABM on US-Soviet Relations" by Professor Marshall Shulman, in ABM: An Evaluation of the Decision to Deploy an Antiballistic Missile System.

"The quest for superiority by each country and the appearance of a new generation of technological innovations now threaten to undermine that tenuous stability. By and large, the United States has been the pace setter, and the Soviet Union has been making a strenuous effort in recent years to catch up."

"To a much greater extent than either side would care to admit, psychological apprehensions and bureaucratic politics tent to determine defense policies. Rational doctrine comes along as an afterthought. The interplay of forces and interests operating on the decision-making process within each country is affected by that on the other side. And the end result has been a reciprocal process of stimulation. However, there is often a lag in time involved, during which ideas are diffused, sink in and get translated into action. This means that we have often not recognized a reaction for what it is, but have taken it as a new initiative, reflecting a change in intentions."

"The rise in publicized hostility between the Soviet Union and Communist China is a factor that may operate in several contradictory directions. The Soviet Union definitely appears more interested in a period of quiescence in its relations with the United States since its intensified conflicts on the Chinese border began ... On the other hand, the Chinese border conflicts also serve to increase Soviet defense requirements, which complicates its efforts to reach an even de facto agreement with the United States.

"As of this moment, Moscow's attitude toward the new Administration in Washington is tentatively hopeful. Soviet fingers are crossed. The Soviet press and leadership, despite past feelings about the new President and anxiety about pressures toward the militarization of American society, appear to believe that "objective circumstances" ...together with the practicality of the President, may create a fresh opportunity for moderating the strategic arms race."

"I believe the deployment of Safeguard should be put on 'hold.' At the same time, US research and development of various anti-ballistic missile systems should continue. There are risks to deferrment. But I believe they are less than the risks and costs of stimulating the upward spiral of the strategic arms race. And they are certainly less than the risks involved in delaying and complicating a leveling-off of that race.

"Even more important would be a serious effort on our part to

-34-

begin negotiations with the Soviet Union aimed at curtailing
the strategic arms race as soon as possible. What is needed
is a clear indication of the seriousness of our intention to
achieve stability, leveling-off, and, when possible, arms
reduction. One essential mark of our seriousness would be
our willingness to exercise restraint in further deployment
of Poseidon, Minuteman III, and other advanced offensive
weapons. There are also risks to this course, but if our
security is best advanced by a stable deterrent balance at
a moderate level, such risks are neither disproportionate
nor irretrievable."

"It follows from this that while the Administration should be
commended for its effort to move ahead on a number of pol-
itical issues with the Soviet Union, the missile talks should
not depend upon the successful outcome of these efforts. If
we make arms negotiations conditional on the settlement of
other issues, we will invest the missile talks with a political
significance that will seriously complicate our relations with
our allies."

"I would not argue that every level of antiballistic missile deployment under every circumstance is necessarily destabilizing. I can conceive of circumstances arising, once the negotiations have begun, in which the Soviet Union might indicate it would not wish to contemplate the dismantling of its ABM installations, whether because of the Chinese or for whatever reason. Similarly, if we then chose to deploy some moderate level of ABM protection ... I believe the Soviet Union might be able to accept such a deployment. But it would be absolutely essential to make clear, by Presidential declaration and by physical disposition of ABM facilities, that they will not be used as a building block of a thick ABM system and a first-strike capability on our part. None of these circumstances applies to a present deployment of the Safeguard system. It is not well suited for the task of protecting missile sites. It is designed for area defense. And, finally, it is to be deployed in the context of continuing advances in US offensive systems.

"These several observations all point toward one final signifi-
cant conclusion. The present moment offers an unusual oppor-
tunity for stabilizing the strategic balance between the Soviet
Union and United States. In spite of the pressures within
each country for puffing up, I believe the Soviet leadership
has a present interest in exploratory arms negotiations..."

-35-

Excerpts from "The Politics of ABM," by Aaron Wildavsky, in
*Commentary*, November 1969.

"Some elements of the opposition to ABM have talked themselves into believing that the 1972 Presidential campaign should be run on the basis of opposition to the power of the military in the United States. One thin, however, is clear: it all began when an always precarious nuclear balance between the United States and the Soviet Union was apparently threatened by new weapons."

"Proponents of ABM argued that by the mid-1970's the Soviet Union could have a sufficient number of MIRV's ... to destroy about 950 of the 1,000 Minutemen. Opponents argued that the Soviet Union would be able to destroy only a much smaller number and that a sufficient proportion of Minutemen would be left to wreak unacceptable damage. The debate is hard going for even the most informed observers, and one wishes the protagonists would confront each other directly so that the differences in their assumptions ... could be exposed.

"My purpose ... is not to make a case for or against the ABM, or even to give a complete account of the multitude of considerations raised by each side. The books and Congressional hearings on which this essay is based contain enough of that to satisfy anyone. Now that the Senate has decided by one vote to approve initial deployment of the ABM, rehashing the debate would in any case be anticlimactic and no more informative than it was at the time. We can learn something, I believe, by asking not who was right but why the participants adopted the positions they dis ..."

"By now, the nature of the discussion should be clear to everyone. If you believe in the desirability of the ABM for other reasons, then you believe it will, must, and can be made to wori. If you decide for other reasons that the ABM is undesirable, then you attempt to show that it cannot and will not work."

"Argument by authority is not helpful in public, however, because there are so many eminent men on both sides. So the disputants search for historical experience that will appear relevant and accessible to laymen. What does history teach?"

"Throughout the debate on the ABM there has been a swirl of contention about the relative costs of offense and defense. The point has been made, for instance, that the Soviet Union could always build more offensive missile to negate the defensive value of the ABM. But the point is irrelevant; if enough money is spent, any offense can overcome a defense, and any defense an offense. The question remains, how much each will cost, and -- even more critical -- what is the presumed advantage of offense over defense per dollar spent."

-36-

“Another reason given for rejecting ABM is that it would make a future
arms-control agreement more difficult. ABM would add another item
to be negotiated, thus increasing the complexity of an already
tortuous series of negotiations. As the Russians already have an
ABM, however, it is hard to see how this matter can be left out of
the negotiations. And in any case, one might think that opponents
of the ABM, having insisted that it is too complex to work, should
have no reason to believe that the Soviet Union would feel com-
pelled to take countermeasures against it. But ABM opponents say
that the Russians will have to believe that the system might work
and therefore will take precautions against it by increasing the
size of their missile force, thus further inhibiting the prospects
of an arms-control agreement.”

“My own conclusion is that deploying the Safeguard ABM would compli-
cate the arms-control negotiations in some ways and make them easier
in others, and that it is not easy to draw the balance. The kind
of decision required may be illustrated by analogy to problems
concerned with the nuclear test-ban treaty. The unrelenting march
of technology always makes it possible for someone to claim that new
developments will invalidate the safeguards that exist and hence the
value of the agreement, and the fact that there are already dangers
that presently cannot be guarded against reduces the prospect of
agreement still further.”

“People on both sides of the debate have succumbed to the "funny numbers" syndrome. These are arguments that are constructed in such a way that neither the ABM nor any other system could ever be rejected or, alternatively, approved on the basis of them.”

“There are, of course, many different phenomena that go under the name of the Military-Industrial Complex. There is reason to be concerned about the large number of ex-Pentagon employees who work for defense contractors, and the difficulties inherent in close and intelligent Congressional supervision of military programs are deserving of scrutiny and debate. More serious still in my opinion, though never mentioned, is the fascination of the general public with hardware and technological solutions to complex human problems.”

“The way in which the ABM issue arose gave its detractors a special
political opportunity. After the Sentinel ABM was proposed, and
immediate efforts were undertaken to select sites for deployment
of the Sprint and Spartan missiles near major cities, there was a
political uproar reminiscent of the debate over civil defense in
President Kennedy's time. In those days the Left was outraged at
increasing militarism and the ludicrous idea that a defense was
possible against nuclear weapons. The Right was briefly interested,
but eventually decided that the whole thing was cowardly and that
offense rather than defense would be emphasized. Despite the con-
viction expressed at the time that industrial firms, which stood
to make billions from having us all burrow underground, would
therefore secure a decision to proceed, virtually no support materi-
alized for civil defense and it died.”

-37-

The Sentinel ABM apparently generated just such a negative reaction among the people it was supposedly designed to protect. Hence it began to appear that there would be wider political opposition to the Sentinel than would normally be the case in matters of military policy and that ABM, therefore, might become an issue on which to take a stand against militarism. Just as many people began to get committed to turning the proposed ABM into a major political issue, however, the Nixon administration changed its line; the program was renamed Safeguard and was directed toward defense of the Minuteman deterrent force. By removing the ABM sites from the cities, where they caused alarm and could be criticized as an attempt to protect the populace prior to an attack on the Soviet Union, the administration reduced the opportunity to make a good political issue out of ABM. By that time, however, the opponents were both angry and committed and began to pick up every rock they could find to throw at the proposal.

The most apparent rationale for opposing the Safeguard ABM is lack of trust in the military. It is perhaps not surprising that an organization like Women Strike for Peace should commit itself "to defeat the ABM and to attempt to turn the country away from the tide of militarism before it is too late." But when the Governor of North Dakota says, "...our nation is swept along by contrived hysteria to keep the pipeline of the defense industries full," the defense establishment is obviously in trouble. Evidently, the lesson learned from the Vietnam was has been that the judgment of the military (even when supported by the President) should be questioned everywhere. One should always be as skeptical of the claims of government as of declarations of love, promises of eternal peace, assurances of investment profits, or any other relationship where ego, self-interest, and uncertainty are involved."

"The climate of opinion in the United States, however, is still such that arguments have to be phrased in terms of advocacy of national defense. No one can win broad support by saying he wants to leave the nation defenseless. So the opponents of ABM must worry about our nuclear deterrent and they must have alternatives to ABM in case the deterrent should be threatened. In order to avoid what they consider the overriding present evil -- a useless ABM that will divert billions from domestic uses and strengthen the military politically -- they are easily led into excessive reliance on a strategy of assured destruction."

"We come now to perhaps the most interesting question of all: why did the ABM debate turn into one of the major domestic issues of the decade? The principal reason, in my opinion, is that the debate lent itself to manipulation by people whose primary political interests lay elsewhere -- specifically, in bringing the Vietnam war to an end and in opposing on general grounds high defense expenditures."

"The ABM debate has followed Gresham's law: bad arguments drive out good ones. There is still time, however, to talk about critical issues like halting deployment of MIRV in an arms-control agreement and sharply reducing expenditures of the general purpose forces. Most important of all, the nation's current strategic doctrine -- assured destruction -- should be given the closest scrutiny..."

-38-

Comments of Senator Frank Church during hearings
of Disarmament Affairs Subcommittee, March 21, 1969.

"Let's put ourselves in the place of the Russians ... If I were in the position of the Russians trying to decide whether or not to use these big ICBM's with their tremendous warheads to make a first strike against the United States, considering the enormous destruction that these warheads would inflict if they penetrated, and I watched the United States build an ABM system around its missile bases, the reliability of which, according to much of our testimony, is at least open to considerable question, I would conclude that the United States was attempting to build a system designed to protect these bases against a first strike. I might have very little confidence as a Russian, in our defense system, even as we seem now to have very little confidence in theirs...

"It seems to me that this system won't necessarily contribute to the strengthening of the credibility of our deterrent, but rather might tend to weaken its credibility for this reason: If the Russians knew that if they ever launched a strike -- and I agree it is going to be a massive strike if they ever launch it, not a powder puff affair as someone commented this morning -- if I were in the position of the Russians and were going to launch a massive strike, and I knew that the United States stood prepared, upon the first evidence of an incoming strike to loose her Minutemen against the Russian population, reserving, of course, the right to disarm them, if necessary, in the event of a miscalculation; but if I were the Russians and knew that an immediate counterlaunch of Minutemen would be the American response to any first strike against the United States, I would be far more reluctant to launch the attack than if I thought the United States might rely upon a defensive system in which I, as a Russian, had contempt. In other words, it seems to me that the very defensive system might even lead the Russians to conclude that they might hazard a first strike. Whereas their certain knowledge that a full-scale retaliation by the Minuteman would occur, upon the first evidence of their incoming attack, would certainly constitute, in my judgment, a far greater deterrent upon them...

"Deployment of such a defense system might lead the Russians to conclude that we might try to absorb a first attack. If they were so to conclude, this could have a weakening effect upon our deterrent rather than a strengthening effect...

"The better deterrent is a certain knowledge that a massive attack upon the United States would immediately touch off an utterly devastating retaliation. I just don't see how you strengthen that certain knowledge in the Russian mind by starting to build an ABM system ..."

-39-

Comments of Senator Edward Kennedy on Senate floor, August 5, 1969

"As we approach the conclusion of this discussion, it may be well to review where this complex issue now stands. With all respect to those who have so ably presented the case in favor of deployment, there remain three principal unanswered questions: First, will the Safeguard ABM strengthen our national security? Second, will the Safeguard ABM heat up the arms race? Third, will the Safeguard ABM unnecessarily drain billions of dollars from other pressing needs?

"First, the amendment would put the United States on record against starting another lap in the arms race. It is self-evident that no one can really win the arms race, instead, we and our adversaries are forced to run around and around the track, spurring each other on by each new tactic, strategy, or weapon. One basic tenet of today's war planning is that the best defense is a good offense, because the attacker has so many advantages over the defender. We have no evidence that the Soviets can destroy or seriously damage our diverse and dispersed nuclear forces. Nor do we have any convincing evidence that they will have the ability to do so in the reasonably foreseeable future.

"Second, it would put the Pentagon on notice that it no longer had a blank check from Congress, for far too long, we have acted as if we believed the Pentagon had an exclusive license on knowledge and judgment in matters relating to national security. Our vast Pentagon budget; our overly large foreign commitments; our crazy-quilt draft laws -- these are some of the legacies of our uncritical acceptance of Pentagon recommendations and practices.

"Third, it would indicate to those disenchanted with our present inattention to our domestic needs that the Congress both recognizes these needs and intends to do something about them. So long as we support marginal military projects, we will be woefully short of funds to help relieve the pressures here at home.

"Fourth, it would put the Congress on record against premature deployment of complex electronic weapons systems. The cost overruns, overoptimism, and specification shortfalls in these systems are more and more shocking as more and more specific information becomes available.

"Fifth, it would put the Congress on record as seeking real value for its defense dollars. Even if Safeguard worked as designed, a number of studies -- both classified and unclassified, both from within the Pentagon and from outside it -- have demonstrated that the Soviets could easily neutralize it.

"Thus, while Safeguard might work in a technical sense, it would not protect. This is one of the key points on which we must all be absolutely clear. If we spend the billions to construct phase I of Safeguard -- placing defensive missiles around one-third of our Minuteman force -- we have not bought an effective defense of those Minutemen because the Soviets can easily overwhelm it.

-40-

“ It has been argued here in the Senate that should the Soviets choose to counter our ABM by building more offensive missiles, then we could despond by adding more defensive missiles, thus nullifying their counter step. But if this is our intended response, then it seems to me we are deploying not a thin ABM, but the foundation of a much larger, thick ABM. If this is so, then we should be debating an ABM of far different dimensions and far larger cost than the one presented to us.

“ Sixth, the Congress would indicate its concern over a continuing reliance for our strategic deterrent upon a land-based, fixed-site missile.

“ Seventh, it would go far toward making the Department of Defense more candid in its dealings with the Congress. Traditionally, we are aware only of the tip of the iceberg in defense matters. Only grudgingly has the Pentagon filled out the record with the Congress on such items as the chemical and biological warfare program, the Cheyenne helicopter, the C-5A, the main battle tank, cost overruns, and of course the ABM. In each of these cases, the industry of an individual Senator or Congressman brought the facts out into the open, and serious abuses -- actual or potential-- were corrected.

“ I have listed seven possible implications of Senate acceptance of the Cooper-Hart amendment. There are of course more. But even the ones I have listed, it seems to me, argue in favor of postponing the deployment decision while pressing ahead with ballistic missile defense research and development, and while concurrently seeking to get the long-stalled arms control talks with the Soviet Union back on the track to consummation. We are just 3 weeks short of a year from the date once set for announcement of arms control talks. Yet there appears no urgency on our part to reopen those negotiations. Instead, we push MIRV testing and ABM deployment -- all factors detrimental to the climate of cooperation so essential to successful talks.

OVERVIEW

The issue of US-Soviet trade in 1969 was subsumed in the
larger issue of East-West trade, which generated a modest
amount of criticism of and opposition to Administration
policies and positions.

The two were not frequently differentiated; this was because in 1969 debate revolved around legislation (Export Control Act of 1949 and proposed successor) which governed exports to both the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites.

But moreover, the arguments raised for trade liberalization
with the Communists in 1969 did not need to differentiate:
the differences between trade with the Soviets and trade
with their allies, which manifested themselves a few years
later, were not foreseen in 1969. The assumptions governing
liberal notions on US-Soviet trade were the same as those
regarding US trade with Eastern Europe.

As in the ABM debate, many of the liberal arguments for
expanded trade with the Communist bloc were doctrinal and
interpretive. If one had to synthesize the range of assump-
tions, suppositions and proposals into one, it might have
been "The Cold War is over if the US wants it to be."
This general proposition subsumed the following:

a) Times and conditions had changed since 1949; the United States was no longer confronted by a monolithic, implacably hostile bloc of Communist states;

b) Restrictive trade policies toward Communist countries had been ineffective as a foreign policy tool; we had been unable to influence either the internal policies of the Soviets and their allies, their foreign policies, or the intra-bloc cohesion;

c) The obverse of (c): expanded trade might be effective in that regard, i.e., it might reinforce any nascent trends toward internal liberalization, less aggressive foreign policies, and intra-bloc disintegration;

-2-

d) Although a wide ideological gulf between East and West remained, and probably would for the foreseeable future, Cold War tensions had subsided, facilitating and expanded trade relationship as the natural counterpart to the hoped-for political detente.

The above arguments all revolve around the Cold War, i.e., they derive from the political tensions and hostilities between the United States and the Eastern bloc. The following adjunct argument, however, was not political, yet was an integral part of the liberal position:

e) Restrictive trade laws had hurt the American businessman; our Western European allies were doing a brisk business with Eastern Europe in products that were also made in the US. Relaxed export rules would benefit not only American businessmen, but also the US balance of payments position.

The above distinction has been made for purposes of future reference. For in a relatively short amount of time - three years - the political argument had changed. Whereas in 1969 linkage was rejected by the liberals as illogical, by 1972, and certainly 1973 the opposition was charging that not enough linkage had been applied, that the US was "giving away aid" in the form of trade without extracting enough political concessions from the Communists. And at this point, the businessmen departed company from the liberals, for argument (e) was still as valid as it had been in 1969.

## 1968 BACKGROUND

None of the above arguments were evinced for the first time in 1968. Pressure from the liberal community for relaxation of trade laws had begun the previous year, well before the Republican victory in November was even considered probable.

-- Former presidential assistant Theodore Sorensen launched the debate with his article, "Why We Should Trade With the Soviets," in the April issue of *Foreign Affairs*. Sorensen argued that expanded trade need not await the end of the Vietnam War, and that trade in itself promoted peace by increasing contacts between peoples and making the prospect of war more costly.

-3-

-- Well-publicized hearings were held in June and July by Senator Muskie's Subcommittee on International Finance, under the stewardship of Senator Mondale. Prominent witnesses such as George Ball were heard in support of expanded East-Trade; witnesses against such a policy were also heard.

-- Although the word "linkage" was not yet part of the lexicon of US-Soviet relations, the liberal position opposed what would eventually be "linkage;" it held that trade should be expanded independent of other political considerations.

-- When US-Soviet trade was differentiated from the larger question of East-West trade, the following expectations emerged:

-- Economic benefits would be relatively easy to achieve, and quick in coming; a substantial market potential was envisioned in the Soviet economy for US goods and technology; the balance of payments effect would be favorable.

-- Political benefits would be intangible and slow in coming. Expanded trade would hopefully induce a less belligerent Soviet foreign policy; a weekend Warsaw Pact; a strengthened NATO.

But unfortunately for the proponents of expanded trade, the Republican Party came to power following the November election. So whereas under a Democratic administration trade laws might been relaxed somewhat, with greater ease, under the Nixon Administration the liberals in the Senate had to fight, backed up only occasionally by an editorial in the *New York Times*.

Another significant event also occurred in the year between the 1968 and 1969 hearings: the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. It appeared to have little effect on the liberal position; if anything, it was cited as evidence in support of the position that modernizing economies in Eastern Europe were a potential force for intra-bloc disintegration, and that expanded US trade might even hasten the eventual demise of the Iron Curtain.

The liberals' opportunity in 1969 lay in the upcoming expiration of the Export Control Act of 1969. It should be noted here that in that regard, only the export side of US-Soviet trade was directly challenged in 1969; although occasional comments were made in support of granting MFN status to certain Communist countries, the issue of MFN status for the USSR and its allies did not come up for a couple of years.

-4-

1969 - CHRONOLOGY

The issue of US-Soviet trade in 1969, as noted previously, revolved around legislation. The Export Control Act of 1949 was due to expire on June 30.

<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>March 10</td>
      <td>Senator Walter Mondale said that he would seek Congressional support to ease restrictions on the export of nonstrategic goods to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Mondale said the curbs punished no one except American business-ment, and also called for easing curbs on Export-Import Bank financing of exports to Communist bloc countries.<br>The Administration at this time had not yet an-nounced its position.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>April 19</td>
      <td>Senators Muskie and Mondale announced their in-tention to submit a bill which would (a) increase Presidential authority to expand trade with Communist countries, and (b) reduce the number of commodities forbidden as exports to those countries. Muskie said he would schedule hearings beginning April 23 before the Subcommittee on International Finance, which he chaired.<br>The Administration at this point had still not yet announced its position; a review by the National Security Council of East-West trade policy in the context of overall national secur-ity policy was still being conducted by Henry Kissinger.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>April 23</td>
      <td>Muskie subcommittee holds first hearing on S. 1940, Export Expansion and Regulation Bill, with former presidential assistant Theodore Sorensen testifying. Additional hearings held April 24, 28, 29, 30, and May 1, hearing testi-mony in support of bill from well-known persons including Nicholas de B. Katzenbach and W. Michael Blumenthal.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>May 28</td>
      <td>Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Joseph Greenwald, in statement to Muskie subcommittee, announces Administration position</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

-5-

May 28 opposing expanded trade with Communist bloc countries, favoring extension of 1949 law for five more years. Greenwald says Administration policy will be to facilitate but not encourage US participation in nonstrategic trade with Communist countries. Position was arrived at by President Nixon following NSC meeting previous week.

June 18 Senate Subcommittee on International Finance approves S. 2696, Export Expansion and Regulation Bill; new bill is compromise, slightly less expansionist than predecessor, S. 1940.

July 24 Full Senate Banking and Currency Committee reports (approves) S. 2696.

September 10 International Trade Subcommittee of House of Representatives Banking and Currency Committee votes for extension of 1949 Act for two years, despite support of Chairman Thomas Ashley (D-Ohio) for liberalized law.

September 17 Full House Banking and Currency Committee reports HR 4293, extending 1949 Act for two years.

October 16 House of Representatives passes HR 4293, extending 1949 Act to June 30, 1971.

October 22 Senate passes HR 4293, but only after amendment substituting language of S. 2696.

November 6 Senate-House conference approves compromise bill based largely on Senate version.

November 14 Senate approves compromise bill.

December 10 House disagrees to compromise bill, 238-157.

December 14 New York Times reports Senate leaders intend to let Export Control Act of 1949 expire without succeeding legislation; export controls would presumably continue under Trading With the Enemy Act.

December 16 Second Senate-House conference begins in attempt to resolve differences.

December 23 House and Senate pass compromise bill, extending

-6-

December 23 essentially 1949 Act, but stipulating that commodity control list be revised in accordance with new policy declaration that trade with countries with which we have diplomatic relations should be encouraged. New policy declaration also limits restriction of exports only to goods and technology which would make a contribution to military potential of unfriendly countries (old Act included military & economic potential).

New act - Export Administration Act of 1969 -
to run until June 30, 1971

December 30 President Nixon signs Export Administration Act of 1969.

-7-

New York Times, March 11, 1969:

BID SET TO EASE CURBS ON TRADE

Senator Walter Mondale said that the restrictions on non-strategic exports "contribute nothing to our national security and punish nobody except American businessmen."

The controls act, first enacted in the early states of the cold war, requires licensing by the Department of Commerce of exports whose "potential military and economic significance may adversely affect the national security of the United States." The regulations, as applied, have limited sales of nonstrategic, or peaceful goods to East-bloc countries.

"These restrictions," Senator Mondale asserted, "hold back economic growth in the United States, not in Eastern Europe." He added that "the time is long past" when American production was "superior enough, or exclusive enough to make withholding it a matter of concern to anybody except those who want to sell it."

In its present form, he said, the export control law "simply gives a great deal of good business to our Western European friends and competitors."

Mr. Mondale said he favored controls only on strategic and military goods. He also called for an easing of restrictions on Export-Import Bank financing of exports to bloc countries, and establishment of a special office in the Commerce Department to promote trade with Eastern Europe.

-8-

Telegram from Averill Harriman to Senator Edmund Muskie,
April 15, 1969.

Draft of export control bill which you sent me with letter
of April 7 seems constructive on basis of limited study
here on Florida vacation. However, as you state in your
letter, I am concerned with development of sound East-
West trade in nonstrategic goods. This trade is now
handicapped by so-called crippling amendments to other
legislation which rigidly limit export-import corporation
credits and guarantees to certain countries and otherwise
handicap trade. They deprive the President of authority to
judge our national interest. In addition, restrictions on
possibility of negotiating most-favored-nation treatment
severely restrict development of desirable exports. These
matters should, I believe, be given urgent consideration
by the Congress if we are to have meaningful quantity of
east-west trade ...

-9-

Remarks of Senators Muskie Mondale on introduction of S. 1940, Export Expansion and Regulation Bill, April 22, 1969.

"Much has happened since 1949. The Soviet Union has rebuilt its economy so that its technological and industrial level is greater than ever. Thus, it can now produce many products which it formerly might have sought from the United States.

"Also, our relations with the Soviet Union and other nations of Eastern Europe have changed ... we have moved to the belief that our problems and differences can, and ultimately must be solved by constant attempts to effect a meeting of the minds. We must make these attempts over the conference table and in the market place - wherever and whenever we can meet with our East European counterparts ... to discuss our mutual interests and concerns. In order to expand this dialog, it is necessary for us to actively seek ways and means to increase our contacts and dealings with Eastern Europe. By taking advantage of every opportunity to meet, talk and deal, we should be able to accelerate what is going to be a long and laborious process to eventual understanding and accord.

"There are other circumstances which have changes since the original passage of the Export Control Act which affect its current effectiveness ... To deny the Soviets access to our goods and technology was at one time an effective way to minimize the threat to us. For at that time, the denied goods and technology were available nowhere else... There are now very few US products which cannot be approximated or duplicated by one or more of our allies. Moreover, our allies have not imposed the severe restrictions on themselves that we have upon ourselves ... Consequently, at this date, a vast majority of products which cannot be obtained by Eastern Europe from this country ... can be easily obtained from one or more of our allies. In many other instances, goods which could be obtained from this country even under the current restrictions are bought elsewhere merely because of the nuisance and delays caused by excessive red tape made necessary by current US regulations.

"Thus, in short, restricte US trade practices formerly served to deny products to Eastern Europe. In most instances, they now serve only to deny sales to American business."

-10-

Remarks by Senator Muskie at opening of hearings,
April 23, 1969.

"At this time the United States is constantly seeking ways and means to expand its dialog with the nations of Eastern Europe so that it can eventually reach an understanding and accord with them in increasing numbers of areas of mutual interest. We are also engaged in the struggle to improve our trade balance, which directly affects our precarious balance-or-payments situation.

"Under these circumstances, I think it is most appropriate at this time to explore various suggestions by which we can continue to afford maximum protection to our national security, increase our contacts, and perhaps make more amicable our relations with Eastern Europe and allow more American commerce maximum access to a market which the other nations of the free world are enjoying today. This is the purpose of these hearings."

-11-

Excerpt from statement by Senator Walter Mondale
to International Finance Subcommittee, April 23,
1969.

"Our entire system of export controls reflects political relationships. We refuse to trade at all with some Communist nations; within Eastern Europe, Poland and Rumania are treated more liberally than Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Russia, and all of these trade with us under better conditions than does East Germany.

"S. 1940 would eliminate differences in the application of export controls by country within Eastern Europe by requiring that the rules and regulations promulgated under the act 'shall be uniformly applied to all countries trading with the United States.'"

-12-

Statement of Theodore C. Sorensen to Senate International
Finance Subcommittee, April 23, 1969.

"The present law was enacted in 1949 as a temporary measure inspired in part by the rapidly lowering temperature of the cold war. Western Europe, still economically weak from the ravages of the Second World War, appeared to the Congress to be in realistic danger of attack from a mono-lithic Sino-Soviet bloc under the leadership of Joseph Stalin; and it was further believed, comparing our industrial might with that of both Eastern and Western Europe at that time, that goods witheld from the Soviets by means of controls on American goods could not be elsewhere obtained.

"Now, 20 years later, those underlying premises have dras-
tically changed, and only the Export Control Act remains,
unsupported by either fact or logic in its restrictions on
nonstrategic goods.

"Such restrictions cost the Communist nations virtually nothin; inasmuch as most of the goods so restricted can be otherwise acquired; but they cost American businessmen hundreds of millions of dollars in lost opportunities. We can ill afford that cost at a time when our balance of payments needs all the exports we can possibly sell, our labor force needs all the jobs it can possibly find, and our Government needs all the taxes on profits it can possibly collect."

"It is precisely because these controls on nonstrategic exports do not serve our interests and do damage to them in at least five different ways that I am urging you today to scrap the 1949 law.

"First, the present system, if it works at all, has encouraged the Communist nations to become more self-sufficient, more inward-looking ... and more dependent upon the Soviet Union. Our interests would have been better served by the opposite development in all ... cases...

"Second, the present system has sorely aggravated our relations with our Western allies ...

"Third, the present system has effectively excluded the United States from influencing the current evolution in East European economies ...

"Fourth, the present system prevents us from engaging the Soviet Union in the kinds of contact, exchange and experience

-13-

Sorensen statement, 4/23/69, continued.

that would make more difficult the severing of relations
required to wage open warfare against us, make more plausible
our contention that we are not bent on the eradication of all
Communist nations, and make more possible an atmosphere of
increased communication and decreased tension in which dan-
gerous miscalculations are less likely and successful nego-
tiations are more likely. The more channels we can keep
open to Moscow, the less likely we will have to find out
whether those ABM's really work.

"Fifth, I do not support this bill as a means of increasing our gifts to Communist countries. I want to increase our sales. They will have to pay for these peaceful goods, either by diverting gold and foreign exchange to these purposes or by diverting resources into the production of items desired in hard-currency countries. Either way, their military sector loses at least a potential step on their civilian sector, and our own economy ... will have gained as well. Trade, in short, is not aid; it is good business."

-14-

Comments by Nicholas deB. Katzenbach to Senate
International Finance Subcommittee, April 30, 1969.

"Obviously, these changes (from S. 1940) would be desirable from a trading point of view. American firms would be placed on the same competitive vasis as Western European or Japanese firms with respect to those goods not controlled. While the trade potential of East European countries should not be exaggerated ... their trade is, nonetheless, expanding. In the past 15 years, trade between Eastern and Western Europe has expanded several times over ... If (the law) is not amended, trading opportunities for the United States will be lost.

"But I do not think, in considering these amendments, this committee should do so primarily on trade terms. Our control over exports to Eastern Europe should be modified only if we are confident that it is in the interest of US foreign policy and national security to do so.

"I have long believed that it is.

"This was the view of the past administration. It was also the view of the distinguished committee of business, labor and academic leaders ... which studied the problem in 1965."

"From the viewpoint of national security, it is hard for me to see how the export of nonstrategic goods could either directly or indirectly strengthen the military capacity of Communist countries of Eastern Europe. Larger imports from the United States would almost certainly expand the consumer sector, not the military. These countries would have to pay for increased imports, either with gold or be increase exports - and to do this would require diversion of resources to produce...

"The most important aspect of East-West trade is, of course, its foreign policy implications. I do not believe that even the tragedy of Czechoslovakia can be viewed as reversing the political and economic trends which have been developing in Eastern Europe.

"Indeed, the fact that the Soviet Union was forced to invade Czechoslovakia, and brutally repress new freedoms, is proof to me that we have been correct in our assessment in the past.

-15-

Katzenbach comments, 4/30/69, continued.

"By acting on these changes we can advance our own interest and the prospects of peace. Through trade, we can increase their contacts with American businessmen and tourists. Through trade, we can encourage their participation in international institutions, and thus international responsibilities. Through trade, we can increase their stake in peaceful relations with the West.

"I do not think it difficult to find rational solutions to problems of trade with Communist countries. But I think it is often difficult to be rational in our analysis. Particularly as the war in Vietnam goes on, it is difficult to get public understanding of the rather difficult and subtle issues involved.

"All of us are aware of citizen groups who have sought to embargo Communist merchandise in the United States ..."

"In sum, I believe that S. 1940 protects our national security interests and enhances our foreign policy. By its explicit prohibition with respect to goods having "significant military application," it confines export controls to the appropriate category of goods. By explicitly recognizing foreign policy considerations, it gives the Executive the maximum flexibility to use trade in support of foreign policy objectives. By limiting the strategic control list to the goods with respect to which embargo can be effective, it simplifies administration and, if anything, tightens up control.

"For all of these reasons, I would support S. 1940."

-16-

Statement by John T. Connor to Senate
International Finance Subcommittee, April 30, 1969.

Speaker is future leader of Common Cause. Note
last paragraph.

"The approach taken in S. 1940 is a great improvement over the existing Export Control Act and would enable the US to participate more fully in the rapidly expanding Eastern European marketplace.

"Nevertheless, I don't think even S. 1940 goes far enough in the direction of encouraging broader international trade relations and strengthening our trade position. A bold step is needed to reduce international pressures and strains. Freeing international trade from many of the current restraints and inhibitions now contained in numerous statutes and regulations administered by at least seven different departments or agencies would be such a step.

"For one thing we should no longer try to influence foreign nations by economic restraints designed to force them to change their internal policies to conform to our desires."

-17-

Statement of W. Michael Blumenthal to Senate
International Finance Subcommittee, April 28, 1969.

"I appear before your subcommittee to express strong support for a liberalization of US policies regarding trade with Communist countries. We consider provisions of the present Export Control Act of 1949 to be unduly restrictive and inadequate to today's needs. We favor the more liberal approach embodied in S. 1940 and strongly urge its adoption."

"Allow me to cite one specific example to illustrate the difficulties which confront us under present law. Several months ago we received a Soviet order for precision measuring and gaging equipment for production-line gaging of auto parts. This equipment is to be used in connection with truck engine productions at the Lihachev Moscow Auto Works. Our application for an export license and other necessary documentation was submitted to the Commerce Dept. in early January of this year. Almost 4 months have elapsed and our application remains pending. It is still uncertain whether such permission will be forthcoming, and, if so, when. Obviously our customer will not wait forever...

"Meanwhile, time is passing, and it is obvious that development of a viable export market under these conditions is well nigh impossible. We may or may not lose the order we presently have. It is highly problematical whether we will get additional business on this basis.

"The point I am trying to make is that what is urgently needed here is a complete review and overhaul of all the present rules and regulations in this area. Enactment of S. 1940 would be just one step ... in this direction. But we need more than alimited revision of our policies.

"On political grounds we have also missed opportunities. The Communist world today is no longer a monolithic political or economic whole. For some years now an interesting movement toward a degree of liberalization of the internal economic structure has been underway in ... Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Rumania ...

-18-

Blumenthal statement, 4/28/69, continued.

"As a logical consequence of these economic reforms of the mid-1960's, a desire for external trade reforms has now arisen. There is increased emphasis on trading with the West, on buying and selling in accord with existing worldwide market conditions. Recognition of cost and price realities inside these countries is being accompanied quite logically by a desire for greater freedom in international trade matters.

"It is in our political as well as our economic interest to follow policies which strengthen these tendencies. A restrictive US policy turns these countries inward and plays into the hands of precisely those elements which we have last reason to encourage."

-19-

New York Times Editorial, June 3, 1969, "Clear it With Everett."

"Few cold war policies have proved more self defeating than the imposition by the United States of curbs on trade with the Soviet Union and other Communist countries. Furthermore, such limitations are inconsistent with the Nixon Administration's theory that it is time to move from an era of confrontation into one of negotiation and cooperation.

"Two decades of these trade controls have failed to block a vast expansion in Soviet military and economic power. Their clearest discernible effect has been to put American businessmen at a serious disadvantage in competing with Western European and Japanese industrialists whose governments erect no barriers to selling Communist nations most of the goods on Washington's prohibited list.

"This background makes almost inexplicable President Nixon's decision to inform Congress that he wants simple extension of the expiring Export Control Act without liberalizing amendments. the obvious need, to give the President a freer hand in any East-West negotiations that may lie ahead, is for the kind of flexibility that would increase Mr. Nixon's area of discretion on trade ..."

-20-

New York Times Editorial, June 25, 1969.

"A Senate Subcommittee has given President Nixon a second chance in the area of East-West trade to live up to his promise that 'after a period of confrontation we are entering a period of negotiation.'

Despite this remark, the President opted last month to prolong economic confrontation with the Soviet Union by asking an extension of the restrictive, 25-year old Export Control Law. The subcommittee voted to recommend liberalization of controls on US exports to the Soviet Union and other Communist countries of Europe.

Since the bill leaves considerable discretion in the hands of the President on the timing of any liberalizing moves, it is difficult to see how the Administration could object to the Subcommittee version. At the very least, it offers Mr. Nixon a valuable additional gambit in his projected negotiations with the USSR."

-21-

Article in *New York Times*, June 27, 1969,
"Fulbright Critical of Red Trade Curbs."

The Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said today that he understood the Nixon Administration favored tightening restrictions on trade with Eastern Europe. He asserted that this would add to East-West tensions.

Senator J.W. Fulbright, Democrat of Arkansas, said there had been a consensus between the Senate and previous administration to relax trade rules with such nations as Rumania and Bulgaria.

"I thought it was a matter of course until I heard
recently it would not be continued by this Administration,"
Mr. Fulbright said.

"I regret it. I think it adds to suspicions and tensions."

The Senate passed today and sent to the House a 60-day
extension of the Export Control Act that would enable
committees to work on proposals to liberalize the act to
permit more United States trade with Communist nations.

-22-

Comments by Marshall Shulman to IISS Conference, September 1969, "The Future of Soviet-American Competition."

Relations with United States, perhaps more than ang other aspect of Soviet foreign policy, reflect the interplay of opposing tendencies. From the point of view of those who see the strengthening and modernization of the Soviet economy as the primary requirement for Soviet power in the future, the present need is to reduce the drain on re-sources from military expenditures with the West. This pragmatic judgment is expressed in statements of interest in strategic arms talks with United States and in a pol-icy of reduced tension.

On the other hand, from the point of view of the orthodox wing of the Party bureaucracy, any slackening of opposition to the United States presents serious operational difficulties. Times of reduced tension and increased contacts with the West invariably complicate matters for the Party orthodoxy by encouraging non-conformist thought among intellectuals, artists, scientists, economists and the youth, not only at home but also in Eastern Europe. This apprehension is reflected in drum-fire campaigns by the Party in liaison with the police against "bourgeois ideology" and "subversive ideas from the West." It is also reflected in campaigns in liaison with some sections of the military leadership to trumpet the threat of 'aggressive American imperialism' preparing for another world war, to express resistance to arms limitations and support for further military appropriations. (It is only fair to observe that this tactic has its analogue in the United States.) There is no doubt that the intensification of the American involvement in Vietnam after 1964 and the military buildup associated with that war, contributed greatly to the Soviet perception of the United States as militant and imperialistic, and served to strengthen the military pressures in the Soviet Union.

What all this suggests is that any effort to project the future state of Soviet-American relations must take account of the uncertainty as to which tendency is likely to prevail in the Soviet Union, for each is accompanied by different perceptions of the United States and of Soviet interests. So long as the Party orthodoxy remains the dominant consideration, the Soviet Union is likely to accept higher economic and political strains rather than to exercise restraints against her military interests groups; to push naval and conventional forces in the anticipation of contests for influence in remote areas; to accept relatively higher risks in the Mediterranean and the Middle East in

-23-

Comments by Marshall Shulman, continued.

the hope of getting a dominant influence in the Arab
world. Also, she would be more likely to heighten the
political rivalry by pressing an "anti-imperialist"
campaign to contest American influence in various parts
of the world, and by asserting her revolutionary zeal
in responding defensively to polemical charges from the
Chinese.

If, however, this policy direction proves unsuccessful
and the view comes to prevail that Soviet interests will
be best advanced over the long run by the enhanced power
of a strengthened and modernized economy, we can more
hopefully anticipate restraint in the arms race and in the
political rivalry and perhaps some measures of limited
cooperation. It is worth emphasizing here the point sug-
gested earlier that the workings of Soviet internal pol-
itics are influenced in some degree by developments within
the United States. Trends toward moderation in Soviet
policy could be inhibited either by bellicosity and an un-
restrained military spiral in the United States, or by a
collapse of American strength and will.

-24-

Comments by Senator Charles Percy on Senate
floor, October 22, 1969 (day of passage of
S. 2696).

"It is for both sound commercial and political reasons that I rise in support of the bill. As business witnesses testified before the Committee on Banking and Currency, a market exists in eastern Europe for non-strategic peaceful goods which the United States has now cut off, for all practical purposes. Germany, Italy, France, Britain, Japan and other developed countries on the other hand are busy making export sales to Eastern Europe and thus are strengthening their trade balance and their balance of payments.

"The United States is desperately in need of improving its balance of payments, in fact more desperately in need than any single Western European country I have mentioned..."

"Beyond strictly commercial interests, I think a political point can be raised. To alleviate tensions among the various countries, one of the most important policies that can be followed is to have continuing contacts. Trade relations are one such contact. The normal flow of trade and business can only help provide these contacts. If we cut ourselves off from the normal everyday flow of trade, how can we expect to normalize political and diplomatic relations when we will not trade?...

"I am not naive enough to believe that Eastern European countries would not try to take every conceivable advantage of us that they could. Of course, they want to buy strategic materials. Of course, they want to know all our computer technology. Of course they want to have full knowledge of our chemical plants. But if its strategic we will not sell it to them. But on peaceful non-strategic goods, if they cannot get them from us, they will get identical goods from Western Europe, and as long as they can get identical goods from Japan, they will do so.

"It is not so much the trading balance we need, but international liquidity that trade brings, the very thing that they are able to provide and do provide...

"We should try to perforate the Iron Curtain. They put it up. We have been trying to perforate it and drag it down every place we can...

-25-

Comments of Senator Percy, 10/22/69,
continued.

"A great deal of the dissatisfaction which has occurred in Eastern European countries has come about as a result of comparing themselves adversely with the standards established in the Western European countries. They know about those standards through trade.

"We should encourage, not just facilitate, trade. This is the great debate that we had in the Committee on Banking and Currency...

"I feel very strongly that this mdest, small start toward getting into business, and doing business with Eastern Europe and perforating and continuing to take down the iron curtain of the Eastern European countries is in the national interest. It strengthens us, not weakens us. We strengthen ourselves by trading. We weaken ourselves when we give up and let the Germans, the Japanese and everybody else do business that we simply turn down. We should be accepting the business and doing it so long as it is in the national interest, so long as it is in peace-ful nonstrategic goods, and so long as we have the language written into the bill that is on the floor today, that the President has the authority 'to restrict the export of goods and technology which would make a significant contribution to the military potential of any other nation or nations which would prove detrimental to the national security of the United States.'

"That would seem to me adequate protection for the interests of the United States."

-26-

Comments by Senator Walter Mondale on Senate
floor, October 22, 1969.

"Trade with Communist nations is not a form of aid. All imports must be paid for, and the money for imports can come only through exports developed by investment in the production of items for export. No nation can gain through imports the economic advancement it is not capable of providing for itself; trade quickens the economic growth of both trading partners. In the world of 1969 US denial of exports to Eastern Europe on the ground that they contribute to the 'economic potential' of these nations is an act of self-denial restricting only the markets and sales open to American business."

"I am convinced that the days of Joseph Stalin have ended. I am not endorsing everything I see in Eastern Europe, but I do see many developments there that are quite encouraging. I see trade as an indispensable part of the process in developing stable countries in charge of their own affairs, and in the movement toward economic independence in Eastern Europe."

"And I see trade as an indispensable opportunity for broadening understanding between our people and theirs. Through trade we can increase Eastern contacts with American businessmen. Through trade we can increase Eastern participation in international institutions and responsibilities. Through trade we can increase the stakes of both East and West in peaceful relations."

OVERVIEW

Opposition to Administration policy on MIRV in 1969 produced
a substantial amount of activity within limited confines.
It was far from the mass-appeal public issue of Vietnam; it
was not nearly as visible an issue as ABM, despite the ack-
nowledgement of many ABM critics that MIRV was the real threat
to stability. Yet in Washington and elite circles it was
another issue which seemed to draw a line between the Ad-
ministration and its opponents.

not
As a facet of US-Soviet relations, MIRV did/compare with ABM; the discussion it generated did not evoke the wide range of assumptions and suppositions which underlay public attitudes toward the Soviet Union. It did, however, deal with several of the same questions as did ABM: its effect on the upcoming arms limitation talks; future Soviet strategic capabilities; the effect on Soviet strategic planners; the effect on the US-Soviet strategic balance.

Although most of the activity over MIRV took place in Congress, MIRV was not essentially a legislative issue, i.e., Congress did not have, as in the case of ABM, the opportunity of forcing its will on the Administration via a piece of legislation. The main issue over MIRV was that of testing, or rather, continued testing. Funds for the testing of MIRVed missiles had been appropriated for the period in question, and the opposition was forced to rely only on its powers of persuasion, which manifested themselves in the following:

a) Congressional activity: committee hearings in both houses, resolutions in the Senate;

b) Criticism and opposition from scientific/academic sectors;

c) Newspaper editorials, magazine articles;

d) Statements by assorted concerned persons and groups.

The argument over MIRV was essentially twofold. The opposi-
tion maintained that continued testing by the US would make
it difficult to obtain an agreement with the Soviets on a
mutual moratorium. The great fear was that the US would com-
plete testing before such a moratorium; this was held tanta-
mount to eventual deployment, because the Russians would not
be ablt to verify whether we had or had not installed the
warheads in the missiles. A fully MIRVed, or even partially
MIRVed missile force was foreseen to be of grave consequence
for world peace and stability. Specifically, a MIRVed force
was held to be:

-2-

-- An unnecessary countermeasure against an existing or future Soviet ABM system;

-- An unnecessary reinforcement of US second-strike capability;

-- A provocation to the Soviets, indicative to them of a first-strike nuclear strategy, and in fact a potential first-strike weapon;

-- A potentially destabilizing element in the strategic balance.

As mentioned previously, MIRV was not as highly visible an issue as ABM. This was due to various factors, among them: (a) the issue of the effect of continued testing was too abstract to generate wide concern beyond Congress and the scientific/academic community; and (b) the opposition in Congress and the country had its hands full trying to forestall the deployment of ABM, a more immediate concern.

between

It is interesting to note the differences / the MIRV debate and ABM:

-- Unlike ABM, there was no debate over MIRV's reliability. It was, in fact, thought to be too reliable, so accurate that it was destabilizing.

-- There was no argument over effectiveness and Soviet countermeasures. The opposition instead charged the opposite: that MIRV was an unnecessary countermeasure to the Soviet ABM.

-- Cost was not an issue, nor that of "national priorities."

-- The rhetoric over MIRV was largely devoid of references to the military-industrial complex.

Yet more interesting than the differences in the issues is the one striking similarity: the main argument against continued testing of MIRV, and probably the most common argument against ABM, was that each would make it more difficult to reach an arms limitation agreement with the Soviet Union. The common assumption in each seemed to be that the Soviet

-3-

Union was the willing partner in the arms talks, the US the unwilling partner, and that US policy and posture were provocative -- ample grounds for any Soviet strategic planner to conclude that the US was not seriously interested in an agreement; ample grounds for the Soviets to continue their strategic buildup.

## CONGRESSIONAL ACTIVITY

Congressional opposition to MIRV was manifested on two particularly noteworthy instances:

1. 45 members of Congress on June 5 signed a statement on military posture, which included the following reference to MIRV:

> "Once testing has passed the point where deployment is possible, we can no longer have a self-policing arms agreement with the Russians.

> "Once large-scale ABM deployment begins and MIRV testing has been complete, the nuclear genie will be out of the bottle, and it is unlikely that the stability we now enjoy will ever return again."

2. On June 17, 39 Senators - 27 Democrats and 12 Republicans - led by Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, joined together as cosponsors of a proposed resolution, S. 211, urging the President to seek agreement with the Soviet Union on ending MIRV testing. The resolution also declared that the US should announce its intention to refrain from further testing as long as the Soviets did so -- an unofficial moratorium.

(See Tab B, page 10)

Several leading liberal Democratic Senators took anti-MIRV stands: Muskie, Kennedy, Fulbright. Senator Muskie on October 21 called on the President to unilaterally halt testing in the face of the upcoming (November 17) opening round of SALT talks.

On the House side, the Foreign Affairs National Security Policy Subcommittee, under Clement Zablocki of Wisconsin, held hearings from July 15 to August 5, hearing testimony for and against MIRV from several well-known persons, in-

-4-

cluding Dr. George Kistiakowsky (against), Thomas W. Wolfe of the Rand Corporation (against), and Philip J. Farley, Deputy Director of ACDA (both for and against).

Kistiakowsky supported a unilateral US abstention from further testing, maintaining that the US was sufficiently ahead of the Russians in development, but cautioning that "far more" tests were needed until the warhead was reliable. Those tests would inject a "new element of instability" into the arms race, said Kistiakowsky, who also challenged Secretary Laird's view of the SS-9, maintaining that it was a retaliatory, city-oriented, rather than first-strike, counterforce weapon.

Wolfe warned that once MIRVs were deployed, on-site inspection would be required to police any agreement, something neither side could be expected to agree upon.

Farley presented both sides in a closed-door session July 24. He said that while the US might have to deploy MIRVs in order to maintain the credibility of its deterrent, "they can be a threat to retaliatory capability, and thus to the maintenance of a stable state of mutual deterrence."

## SCIENTIFIC/ACADEMIC OPPOSITION

The "Union of Concerned Scientists," of Cambridge, Massachusetts, published a handbook for laymen's purposes, simply entitled *MIRV*. Their conclusions were fourfold:

1) MIRV was unnecessary; our existing forces would be strong enough to retaliate after any attack, for a long time to come;

2) MIRV was dangerous; continued testing and deployment would spur the Russians to do likewise. Mutual deployment would result in both sides being less secure, because of the premium MIRV placed on striking first;

3) MIRV was avoidable; a mutual moratorium with the Russians - such a rational, logical course of action to the concerned scientists - was viewed as not difficult. But pending such an agreement, the scientists concluded that

4) MIRV was "imminent," and the US should cease testing immediately.
(See Tab B, page 28).

Dr. George Rathjens, in "The Dynamics of the Arms Race," in

-5-

the April, 1969 issue of *Scientific American*, looked at MIRV in conjunction with ABM. Rathjens held that the possession of a joint MIRV-ABM strategic force would be extremely destabilizing, especially in a crisis, because of the temptation to strike first. (see Tab B, 26).

THE NEW YORK TIMES

As one might expect, the *New York Times* was strongly against the deployment of MIRV, and hence thought the US should make a unilateral declaration of abstention from testing pending a formal agreement with the Soviets. The *Times* addressed a series of editorials to the subject. Among the points the newspaper raised were:

-- Continued US testing encouraged the Soviets to deploy what would eventually be a counter-force threat (June 12) (see Tab B, page 14). eventually

-- Mutual deployment would/render the US Minute-man force obsolete (June 20) (see Tab B, page 16)

-- The comprehensive review by the Administration of its SALT positions and global strategy was taking a "leisurely nine-month pace" which was unjustified (July 29) (see Tab B, page 18).

-- The military habit of erring on the side of too much, rather than too little arms, was "irrational" in the nucelar era (November 3) (see Tab B, page 23).

-6-

CHRONOLOGY

<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>April 21</td>
      <td>Secretary of State Rogers reports to Associated Press luncheon that Soviets have test-fired SS-9 with multiple warhead.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>May 1</td>
      <td>New York Times reports that NSC has received first half of comprehensive review of US strategic posture and global strategy, including 5 missile force options.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>May 22</td>
      <td>President of Ripon Society, Jeremy Stone, urges Nixon to defer procurement of MIRV.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>May 30</td>
      <td>N.Y. Times reports arms control talks with Soviets have been delayed until late summer, when US will have completed one year of MIRV testing.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>June 3</td>
      <td>Senator Edward Brooke circulates proposed resolution urging Nixon to propose to Soviets immediate mutual moratorium on flight testing of MIRV.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>June 5</td>
      <td>45 members of Congress sign statement on military policy, which includes section on MIRV holding that once testing has passed point where deployment is possible, a self-policing agreement with Soviets will be impossible.<br>Secretary of State Rogers, in news conference, says Administration is resolved to continue MIRV testing despite Congressional warnings.<br>Senator Clifford Case says he will offer amendment to supplemental appropriations bill, containing resolution calling on President Nixon to enter into moratorium with Soviets on MIRV testing.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>June 6</td>
      <td>Secretary of State Rogers, in closed-door session with Senate Foreign Relations Committee, concedes continued MIRV testing over next few months could complicate negotiations with Soviets, but doubts it would block an agreement if the Soviets are interested.<br>Senate Appropriations Committee rejects Case amendment; Case says he intends to offer the amendment again when the bill reaches the Senate floor.</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

-7-

<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>June 9</td>
      <td>N.Y. Times reports Defense Department intelligence analysts believe Soviets are now testing MIRV warheads, capable of destroying 3 widely separated US missile silos; previous tests were believed to be only of MRVs.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>June 10</td>
      <td>Pravda notes Soviet displeasure over Nixon Administration plans to proceed with Safeguard and MIRV; second Soviet publication says development of new systems would further complicate arms control talks.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>June 13</td>
      <td>Director of Defense Research &amp; Engineering John Foster tells Senate Appropriations Committee Defense Department plans to test and deploy Minuteman III and Poseidon missiles with MIRV warheads.<br/>Senator Case says he will not press proposal to suspend MIRV testing pending agreement with Soviets.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>June 15</td>
      <td>Senator Thomas Eagleton urges Nixon to halt all MIRV research.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>June 16</td>
      <td>Congressman John Anderson, chairman of House Republican Conference, in speech on House floor urges Administration to halt MIRV testing pending arms control talks with Soviets.<br/>Senator Clifford Case introduces resolution calling on President Nixon to take initiative in suspending test flights of MIRVs, and continue moratorium as long as Soviets do so.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>June 17</td>
      <td>Senator Edward Brooke offers resolution co-sponsored by 27 Democrats and 11 other Republicans urging President Nixon to seek an agreement with Soviets on halting MIRV testing.<br/>N.Y. Times reports U.S. Intelligence Board has concluded that although Soviets are probably seeking more than parity in missile strength, they are not now striving for first-strike capability.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>June 19</td>
      <td>President Nixon, at news conference, says US might suspend MIRV testing if Soviets reciprocate, but bars unilateral suspension; says he</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

-8-

is considering possibility of moratorium as part of any arms control agreement; calls Brooke resolution constructive.

June 26
Congressman William Moorhead (D-Pennsylvania) discloses Air Force has awarded $ 87 million contract to General Electric for 68 MIRVs, without any public announcement; calls move "willful concealment."

July 15 - August 5
House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on National Security Policy, chaired by Rep. Clement J. Zablocki, holds hearings in MIRV testing; hears George Kistiakowsky, Adrian Fisher, G. Donald Brennan, Thomas W. Wolfe (Rand Corp.), and Philip J. Farley (Dep. Dir. ACDA).

Farley tells subcommittee July 24 MIRV development may have passed point where moratorium is feasible or in US interests.

Defense Research-Engineering Director John Foster tells subcommittee August 5 Soviet MIRVs are capable of attacking 3 US Minuteman silos, and may be installed in latter half of 1970.

July 16
Dr. Herbert York tells Senate Foreign Relations Committee MIRV testing should be halted in order not to jeopardize arms control talks.

August 20
N.Y. Times reports Administration divided over proposal for moratorium; ACDA and State Dept. reportedly favor such a proposal, Defense opposes.

October 21
Senator Edmund Muskie, in speech in honor of 25th anniversary of Weizmann Institute, calls for unilateral suspension of MIRV tests.

November 11
N.Y. Times reports Administration has adopted compromise plan for SALT talks; cautious, non-committal attitude will include willingness to discuss mutual moratorium on MIRV testing.

November 13
Senator Muskie reiterates call for unilateral US moratorium.

November 17
First SALT talks with Soviets begin in Helsinki.

-10-

Text of Senate Resolution 211, submitted by
Senator Edward Brooke, June 17, 1977.

"Whereas the competition to develop and deploy strategic weapons has reached a new and dangerous phase, which threatens to frustrate attempts to negotiate significant arms limitations and weaken the stability of nuclear deterrence as a barrier to war; and

Whereas development of multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles by both the United States and the Soviet Union represents a fundamental and radical challenge to such stability; and

Whereas the possibility of agreed controls over strategic forces appears likely to diminish greatly if testing and deployment of multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles proceed; and

Whereas a suspension of flight tests of multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles promises to forestall deployment of such provocative weapons; and

Whereas a suspension of such tests could contribute substantially to the success of prospective strategic arms negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union; Now therefore be it

Resolved, That the Government of the United States should seek prompt negotiations with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to reach agreement on limiting both offensive and defensive strategic weapons; and

Resolved further, That it is the sense of the Senate that the President should urgently propose to the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics an immediate suspension by the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of flight tests of multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles, subject to national verification or such other measures of observation and inspection as may be appropriate; and

Resolved further, That the Government of the United States should declare its intention to refrain from additional flight tests of multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles so long as the Soviet Union does so."

-12-

Remarks by Senator Edward Brooke on Senate
floor, June 17, 1969, introducing S. 211.

"Let me begin by stating briefly the main contentions on which this resolution is grounded:

"First, MIRV deployment, which will be di-ficult to monitor if testing continues, will create extraordinary difficulties for verifying compliance with an agreement on arms limitations.

"Second, MIRV systems will seriously jeopardize the stability of mutual deterrence, by increasing the vulnerability of hardened missile silos.

"Third, MIRV will be unnecessary to penetrate ABM defenses unless extensive and thick city defenses are erected; the lead time to perfect and deploy MIRV is shorter than the lead time to build this kind of ABM system.

"Fourth, MIRV will be less likely to enter the operational forces unless extensive test programs afford high confidence in the system's reliability and accuracy. Hence a mutual suspicion of MIRV testing can be a decisive lever on the arms race...

"The conditions which favor strategic stability are gravely threatened by a whole new generation of weapons now on the horizon. This is especially true of MIRV. Once testing is completed of these systems, without detailed inspection it will be impossible to tell whether a missile has one or many warheads. Each side will have to presume that any missile that can be MIRVed will be MIRVed. In a very short period estimates of effective force levels on both sides will have to be revised upward drastically...

"The great difficulty with the prospective deployment of MIRV technology is that it is a de facto multiplication of offensive capability. As such it is indeed highly provocative, it complicates the arms talks, and it presents a direct threat to mutual deterrence. When either side achieves a sufficiently accurate MIRV capability, it will have a significant capability to reduce the other side's retaliatory forces. In sum, MIRV is incompatible with the sensible strategic doctrine President Nixon has enunciated for the security of both the United States and the Soviet Union...

-13-

Remarks by Senator Brooke, 6/17/69, continued.

"While the US MIRV effort is certainly not designed to disarm the Soviet Union, it is ambiguous. Once deployed, operational testing and guidance modifications could give the force increasingly precise delivery. With greater precision, the force would eventually acquire a growing capability against hardened missile silos. And it is this anticipation of emerging counterforce capability on which both sides are likely to base their force planning and posture decisions. In this manner the very notion of a meaningful strategic freeze will be called into question and the arms race will very likely continue at a higher and more frenetic pitch.

"Not only is MIRV technology in conflict with the goal of stable deterrence; from the US standpoint, it is also premature and unnecessary. While the MIRV concept was developed from a variety of origins, and with a variety of missions in mind, the stated mission on which the decision to proceed with Poseidon and Minuteman III was based, was to penetrate an expected heavy ABM system in the 1970's. So far that type of heavy ABM deployment has not materialized...

"The main point should be emphasized. By rational assessment, each side has a larger interest in persuading the other side not to introduce MIRV systems than it has in deploying MIRV technology of its own.

"It is also clear that a mutual suspension of flight tests will not suffice to prevent deployment of MIRV. The proposal advanced in this resolution does nothing more than buy time for the negotiations to devise additional barriers to MIRV deployment..."

-14-

New York Times Editorial, June 12, 1969.

"Moratorium on MIRV"

"The biggest challenge that confronts the National Security Council on its discussion this week and next or negotiating tactics for the impending Soviet-American strategic arms limitation talks is to find a way to get the Soviet Union to call off its test program for multiple warheads.

"But Mr. Kosygin, like Mr. Nixon, obviously is not a 'unilateral disarmer.' One way to entice Mr. Kosygin into a MIRV test suspension would be to offer to suspend American MIRV gests -- or even actually to suspend them with the announcement that they would not be resumed so long as the Soviet Union refrained from testing its multiple warheads.

"This is precisely what a bipartisan group in the Congress has proposed in resolutions introduced on their behalf by Representative Jonathan Bingham, and Senator Clifford P. Case. The Administration has thus far failed to respond.

"Instead, American MIRV tests continue. Secretary Rogers insisted last week that the tests would not injure chances for agreement with Moscow on missile curbs. But, when pressed on this by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he conceded that it would raise 'new problems of inspection.' Once MIRV is deployed, it could be subjected to arms control only if there is a degree of on-site inspection that the United States itself would have difficulty accepting, not to mention the Soviet Union.

"The irony is that Soviet MIRVs, fitted stop the big SS-9 missile, could become a threat to the American deterrent. Each SS-9 could carry three five-megaton warheads, each of which, with an accuracy of a quarter of a mile, could destroy a Minuteman silo. But the first generation of American MIRVs fitted atop Poseidon and Minuteman III missiles, would be too small with present accuracies to be used against underground Soviet missiles.

"The United States already has enough offensive missiles to absorb a Soviet first strike and, in retaliating, to destroy the Soviet Union many times over. Yet it is preparing to increase the number of anti-city missiles with MIRV, presumably to saturate a heavy Soviet antiballistic system which Moscow no longer is deploying. In so doing, it is encouraging the Soviet Union to deploy MIRVs that constitute a counterforce

-15-

N.Y. Times Editorial, 6/12/69, continued.

"The madness of the missile race stands forth clearly in these facts. The Administration evidently is too much the prisoner of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to take the essential first step of seeking a MIRV test moratorium. Early Congressional passage of the Bingham and Case resolution would appear to be the only way to stimulate this vital step."

-16-

New York Times Editorial, June 20, 1969.

"Mr. Nixon and MIRV"

"No decision Richard Nixon will face as President is likely to be more momentous than the decision he faces within the next few days on the proposal to suspend the flight testing of MIRV multiple-warhead missiles. Mr. Nixon yesterday described this proposal as 'constructive' and said he would favor it if the Soviet Union would agree to do the same. But his attack on a "unilateral" suspension and his statement that this move must be part of an arms control agreement (which may take years to negotiate) confuse the issue.

"Immediate suspension of MIRV tests is essential to keep the door open for a strategic arms agreement with the Soviet Union that would freeze the existing nuclear balance, head off further escalation of the missile race and assure security to both sides. Continued testing for even a few more weeks threatens to take the world past a point of no return into an expensive and dangerous new round in the missile race. It promises a five-fold multiplication of nuclear delivery vehicles in the American strategic missile forces - from 1700 to about 8,000, an expansion that the Soviet Union doubtless would match. Even if limits on Soviet and American missile strength were later to be set at these higher levels, an aura of nuclear nervousness would be almost sure to replace the present situation of stable mutual deterrence.

"The bipartisan resolution introduced this week by Senator Brooke of Massachusetts and 40 other Senators urging the President to seek an immediate moratorium with the Soviet Union indicates a growing realization in Congress that MIRV testing is now the main governor on the arms race. It is more urgent than the issues that have dominated the missile debate in recent months, such as the Safeguard antiballistic system, or the Soviet offensive SS-9 missiles and defensive AM deployments.

"These systems can be fully discussed in the approaching strategic arms talks with the Soviet Union. They take years to build and there is time to negotiate cut-offs long before their expansion will significantly affect the nuclear balance. Moreover, they can be monitored easily by reconnaissance satellites without on-site inspections. MIRV is a wholly different matter.

"The United States already has staged fourteen full systems flight tests of silo-based Minuteman III and submarine-launched Poseidon missiles carrying from three to twelve MIRV warheads. The first two of 31 Polaris submarines to be refitted

-17-

N.Y. Times Editorial, June 20, 1969, continued.

at great expense for the big, MIRV-tipped Poseidon missiles
already have gone into drydock for that purpose.

"The Johnson Administration proceeded on schedule with MIRV
flight-tests last August after advice from the Joint Chiefs
of Staff that two years would be required to test to opera-
tional confidence. Within two months, it was thought, mis-
sile talks with the Soviet Union would be under way to halt
MIRV and other aspects of the arms race. But the Soviet-
American talks were delayed three months by Czechoslovakia
and then another seven months so far by the determination of
the Nixon Administration to re-examine the strategic balance
and the American negotiating position at leisure.

"Meanwhile the American MIRV tests have moved much faster than the Pentagon originally indicated and operational confidence may now be reached in a matter of weeks, if the tests continue -- a year ahead of schedule. Continuation of the testing this summer thus threatens to carry the world irrevocably into the MIRV era. MIRV can only be headed off in the test stage, since tests can be detected with relative assurance. Once deployed, MIRV can only be detected by on-site inspection more intrusive than the United States, not to mention the Soviet Union, would be likely to accept. Satellite cameras cannot tell how many warheads a missile is carrying.

"The American national interest lies overwhelmingly in head-
ing off Soviet MIRV tests before they begin, or at least, be-
fore they get very far. The best way to achieve that would
be suspension of American tests so long as the Soviet Union
refrains from testing as well. An alternative would be an
immediate approach to Moscow for a jointly announced test
moratorium now. Postponement of this approach until the
overall strategic arms talks begin in August - or, even worse,
until agreement is reached there - would risk the true secur-
ity interests of the United States and the world."

-18-

New York Times Editorial, June 29, 1969.

"MIRV Madness"

"The Administration's action in ordering production started on MIRV multiple warhead missiles before opening negotiations for a moratorium with Moscow touches the most sensitive point in the projected missile-curb talks. Equally grave is the manner in which the Air Force quietly awarded the $88 million contract to General Electric, on the day President Nixon spoke favorably of proposals for a Soviet-American moratorium on MIRV flight testing to head off production and deployment of the weapon by either side. Given this situation, the country is entitled to an explanation from the President of his intentions in the Soviet-American missile-control talks, which he has personally held up for more than seven months.

"For some weeks, pessimism has been deepening in Washington among those familiar with attitudes within the Nixon Administration toward the projected strategic arms-limitation talks. There has been a growing feeling that the Administration is going through the motions of preparing for the talks, but has written them off in advance. Fuel has now been added to a long-smouldering suspicion that a major reason for delaying the talks has been to flight-test MIRV to operational confidence first.

"The MIRV production order is evidence that operational confidence, to some degree, has been reached in less than half the two-year test period originally predicted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It enormously complicates, if it doesnot hopelessly prejudice, the chances of heading off a dangerous and expensive new spiral in the missile race.

"Forty-one Senators of both parties, only ten less than a majority, co-sponsored a resolution urging the President to take the initiative this summer in seeking a Soviet-American moratorium on MIRV flight testing for one highly urgent reason.

"The MIRV era can be headed off in the test stage, since tests can be detected with relative assurance. Control without on-site inspection far more intrusivethan either side would accept becomes virtually impossible once MIRV is produced and deployed; satellite cameras cannot tell how many warheads are concealed within a missile's nose cone.

"The $17 billion American MIRV program, which the Soviet Union undoubtedly would match, means a five-fold multiplication of nuclear-delivery vehicles in the strategic missile forces - from 1,700 to about 8,000. It promises an era of nuclear ner-

N.Y. Times Editorial, 6/29/69, continued.

vousness with less security than is now provided by relatively
stable mutual deterrence.

"Instead of heading of the Soviet MIRV, which could threaten American land-based Minuteman missiles, it forces Moscow to go ahead. The very Minuteman missiles for which MIRV warheads have just been ordered will be made obsolete by this inevitable Soviet reaction. How much madder can the international arms race become? "

-20-

N. Y. Times Editorial, July 13.

"Safeguarding Security"

"In the developing Senate debate over the Safeguard antiballistic missile system (ABM), Administration forces are no longer arguing that Safeguard is vital to prevent the Soviet Union from achieving a "first strike" capability that could wipe out the American retaliatory forces. Doubts that the complicated system will work when completed, or that it even will be needed have been admitted by Senator Stennis, the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

"The chief argument now advanced for going ahead is the alleged need to avoid a defeat for the President that would undermine his prestige just as he enters strategic arms limitation talks with the Soviet Union. This argument is specious, as Senator Aiken has now pointed out. The best way for the Administration to get a substantial Senate vote that would impress the Russians would be to convince the Senate that the Administration is seriously interested in halting, rather than continuing, the missile race. One way to do that would be to accept one of the compromise amendments now available limiting Safeguard spending essentially to research and development, delaying deployment of hardware until negotiations with Moscow give some indication of the kind of Soviet-American agreement that can be achieved. Even more urgent is an effort to halt Soviet development of MIRV multiple warheads by an American offer, before it is too late, to suspend flight testing and deployment of these dangerous offensive weapons.

"The critical lever in the arms race is MIRV, which is about to multiply five-fold the nuclear delivery vehicles in the American strategic missile forces. The MIRV era might still be headed off by an American initiative to achieve a Soviet-American moratorium on flight-testing, which can be monitored by unilateral means. Once deployment begins, satellite cameras will be unable to tell whether a missile nose cone conceals one or a dozen warheads.

"Soviet and American ABM systems can be detected by satellite reconnaissance. They can be abandoned at any stage or limited to samll networks. Both countries would be better off without ABM defenses, but there will be time to settle these issues in the talks with Moscow that, as Foreign Minister Gromyko has made clear this week, the Soviet Union intends to open shortly. MIRV, in contrast, will be increasingly difficult to head off if it is not halted this summer.

"There should be little difficulty in shaping a Safeguard compromise that could command a substantial majority if the Administration

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moves decisively to reassure the Senate about its arms control objectives through a MIRV moratorium proposal.✓

N. Y. Times Editorial, July 29.

"MIRV Responsibility"

"If a new arms race takes place in the strategic offensive missiles that multiply nuclear delivery vehicles fivefold, an important share of the responsibility will have to be shouldered by President Nixon. The dangerous, expensive and totally unnecessary prospect that development of MIRV multiple warhead missiles could pass a point of no return was known to Mr. Nixon last November when he moved to discourage Soviet acceptance of a Johnson Administration proposal to open missile-curb talks. Mr. Nixon has since delayed the strategic arms-limitation talks (SALT) with Moscow nine months, has permitted MIRV flight testing to proceed apace and has rejected repeated suggestions that he propose a moratorium to the Kremlin.

"No one can object, of course, to a review by the new Administration of the SALT preparations of the Johnson team. But there was no justification for the leisurely nine-month pace nor for refusing to propose a temporary suspension of MIRV flight testing by both sides while the review was in progress. That is why MIRV opponents in Congress suspect the Administration's aim from the start was to delay the SALT talks until it was too late to halt MIRV deployment.

"But is it really too late now? A Presidential decision has not yet been made, it is said, and both the former Deputy Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Adrian Fisher, and former Assistant Director Herbert Scoville Jr. Have told a House subcommittee in the last few days that a MIRV moratorium is not only still possible but essential and urgent.

"The Nixon Administration case against a MIRV ban, as put forward by Philip J. Farley, Mr. Fisher's successor, starts with the possibility that the United States might need MIRV to penetrate a "heavy" Soviet antiballistic missile system (ABM). But there is no evidence that Moscow intends to go beyond the light system already deployed and that could be quickly pinned down in the SALT talks. Mr. Farley has also raised the possibility that the Soviet Union could deploy MIRV without further testing or that it could test during a moratorium without detection.

"Mr. Fisher argues the contrary view. "An understanding under which both sides refrained from further MIRV testing could be

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verified by national means," he told the subcommittee. "It
is of course possible that some testing looking toward MIRV
development might escape detection, but the testing necessary to
... an effective system would, I believe, run an unacceptable risk
of detection."

"This debate recalls the arguments before conclusion in 1963 of the atmospheric nuclear test-ban treaty. It was said that the Soviet Union would evade the ban by testing behind the moon or in far outer space. Any arms-control agreement involves taking a calculated risk. The concept of so-called no-risk arms control, as Representative Eckhardt (Dem., Texas) commented, "ignores the larger and far more dangerous consequences of an escalation of the arms race."

"No issue awaiting Mr. Nixon's decision after his trip around the world is more important than MIRV or, along with Vietnam, will more shape history's verdict on his Administration."

N. Y. Times Editorial, Oct. 27.

"Sheathing the Nuclear Sword"

"More than a year after they pledged in the nuclear nonproliferation treaty to begin nuclear arms limitation talks promptly, the United States and the Soviet Union at last have set a date, Nov. 17, for preliminary discussions at Helsinki. That day could mark an historic turning point for a world living precariously under what the late President Kennedy described as "a nuclear sword of Damocles" -- but only if both superpowers display a more urgent determination to reverse their arms race than either has exhibited thus far.

"Despite their assurances to the lesser powers, the Soviet Union and the United States have used the fifteen months since the signing of the nonproliferation pact not to curb arms but to press the testing of new, destabilizing weapons systems. The first order of business at Helsinki, therefore, must be to seek a mutual moratorium on all testing pending the more comprehensive arms control agreements that can come only after prolonged negotiation.

"Especially dangerous is the continuing development by both sides of multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRV's), a new type of multiple warhead that will greatly expand the striking power of strategic missiles and seriously complicate control efforts. Prospects for a moratorium on MIRV testing would be greatly strengthened if the Senate gave prompt and strong support to a resolution favoring such action which was introduced four months ago by Edward W. Brooke, Republican of Massachusetts, and

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and 41 other Senators.

Interest in the Brook resolution was revived last week by Vice
President Agnew's intemperate charge that those who favor a MIRV
moratorium are playing "Russian roulette with United States security."
More thoughtful Americans -- and Russians, one hopes -- recognize
that it is Washington and Moscow that are playing roulette with
the survival of mankind by their failure to move more urgently to
sheath the nuclear sword.

N. Y. Times Editorial, Nov. 3.

"Hopeful Prelude to SALT"

"On the eve of the momentous Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), opening in Helsinki Nov. 17, an extraordinary range of agreement has emerged between influential Russian and American scientists on how to halt the nuclear missile race. The convergence received striking confirmation last week at the nineteenth Pugwash conference, which drew scholars from thirty countries to Sochi in the Soviet Crimea to discuss arms control, science and world affairs.

"The Soviet and American participants agreed that the most urgent task facing SALT is to terminate testing and deployment of MIRV multiple warhead offensive missiles and further deployment of defensive antiballistic missile (ABM) systems.

"MIRV is the driving new technology which could cause another spiral in the arms race and thus preclude for many years the opportunity for meaningful arms limitation negotiations. Unless MIRV flight testing is halted shortly, a point of no return may be passed. Once developed and deployed, MIRV will be hard to ban because of verification difficulties.

"ABM deployment, which cannot become effective for several years, calls for urgent action primarily because of its relationship to MIRV. Unless the Soviet Union suspends deployment of its ABM system, the United States will be reluctant to suspend development of MIRV, which is designed to saturate ABM defenses. Conversely, if Moscow were to halt development of multiple warheads for the SS-9 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) -- a development the Nixon Administration sees as a threat to American Minuteman ICBM's -- most of the steam would go out of the argument for Safeguard ABM's to defend Minuteman.

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"A moratorium on MIRV testing and ABM deployment could not be sustained indefinitely without comprehensive agreements at SALT. But there was a consensus among Soviet and American scientists at the Pugwash meeting that a moratorium of limited duration, perhaps one year, could safely be undertaken to head off the MIRV-ABM era while comprehensive agreements were negotiated by SALT.

"The ease with which Soviet and American scientists reached agreement at Sochi does not mean that their governments will agree as easily at Helsinki. The military on both sides take a different view. Political leaders on both sides have preferred in the past to believe it was safer to err on the side of too much arms rather than too little, irrational as this may be in the nuclear missile era.

"But experience also indicates that the public positions taken by Soviet participants in Pugwash conferences are rarely uncongenial to official Soviet policy. That fact suggests that a limited moratorium on MIRV testing and ABM deployment may be feasible early in SALT if the Nixon Administration has the courage to risk it.

N. Y. Times Editorial, Nov. 18.

"SALT on the Table"

"The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) in Helsinki have opened in an auspicious atmosphere of hope, moderation and avoidance of propaganda on both sides. Mutual suspicion is the chief obstacle -- and perhaps the only real obstacle -- to agreement. Both the United State and the Soviet Union now proclaim that their interest, and that of the world as a whole, lies in halting the nuclear missile build-up and maintaining the stability of the present nuclear balance. If they can achieve greater confidence in each other's commitment to maintain that balance rather than alter it for uni-lateral gain, they may be prepared to take the risks that a far-reaching arms control agreement unavoidably will involve.

"Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of the Helsinki talks, given the past two decades of confrontation, is that Russian and American officials this time meet to advance mutual rather than conflicting interests. The central issue is whether they really are prepared, in President Nixon's words -- which the Soviet delegation echoed -- "not only to limit the build-up of strategic forces but to reverse it." For that would imply agreement to limit offensive and defensive missiles at present levels, then to discuss reductions, rather than to search for a new, higher level of balance first by deploying offensive MIRV multiple warheads and added antiballistic missile (ABM) defenses.

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MIRV is clearly the lever in the arms race. It would bring a five-
fold increase in the number of independently targeted warheads in
the American offensive missile forces and an equivalent escalation
in Soviet capabilities. A decision on MIRV is the most urgent business
that faces the delegations in Helsinki and their governments at
home. No other weapon build-up can upset the strategic balance,
except after a period of several years. But MIRV must be taken
under control within the next few months or it may be too late.
Once deployed, it will not be easily subjected to inspection either
as to numbers or accuracy. A halt in flight-testing before deploy-
ment is the only way to keep MIRV out of the arsenals of both coun-
tries.

“The close relationship between ABM systems and the MIRV multiple warheads designed to penetrate them makes it difficult to halt either separately, and essential to ban deployment of both at the same time. There have been private indications that the Soviet Union is prepared for this double step. If these indications are verified at Helsinki, an American proposal for a MIRV-ABM ban should be placed on the table immediately and not delayed for the second stage of the talks in late January or February, which may be too close to the MIRV-deployment target to permit agreement in time.”

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Excerpts from "The Dynamics of the Arms Race," by
George Rathjens, in *Scientific American*, April 1969.

"Two rationales have been advanced for the decision to proceed with the US MIRV programs. One is that with MIRVs the US can have a high confidence of being able to penetrate an adversary's defenses. The apparent deployment of a limited Russian ABM system in the vicinity of Moscow and US concern about a possibly more widespread Russian ABM-system deployment have been important considerations in the decision to go ahead with the US MIRV programs.

"The second rationale is that a MIRV system enables one to strike more targets with a given number of boosters tha would be the case if one were using one warhead per missile. This rationale has been important for two reasons.

"First, it enable spokesmen for the Johnson Administration to argue against expanding the size of our strategic missile force during a period when Russian forces were growing rapidly...

"Second, it raised the prospect of a missile force that could be used as a very effective 'counterforce' weapons. This means that with MIRV's a limited number of missiles might be capable of destroying a larger ICBM force in a preemptive strike. To achieve this performance, however, particularly against hardened offensive missile sites, would require a substantial improvement in accuracy and a high post-boot re-liability -- no mean feats with a device as complicated as the MIRV bus."

"The American MIRV deployment has been rationalized as a logical response to a possible Russian ABM-system deployment, but there were also other motivations that were important: the desire to keep our total missile force constant while increas-ing the number of warheads we could deploy, the long-term possibility of MIRVs giving us an effective counterforce capability, and finally the simple desire to bring to fruition an interesting and elegant technological concept."

"The importance of somehow breaking the action-reaction chains that seem to drive the arms race is obvious when one considers the enormous resources involved that could otherwise be used to meet pressing social needs. In addition, there is partic-ular importance in doing so at present because the concurrent deployment of MIRVs and ABM systems is likely to have drastic destabilizing consequences. It is conceivbalbe that one of the superpowers with an ABM system might develop MIRVs to the

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Excerpts from Rathjens, continued.

point where it could use them to destroy the bulk of its
adversary's ICBM force in a preemptive attack. Its air
and ABM defenses would then have to deal with a much de-
graded retaliatory blow, consisting of the sea-launched forces
and any ICBM's and aircraft that might have survived the pre-
emptive attack...

"It may seem unlikely that either superpower would initiate such a preemptive attack ... With both MIRVs and an ABM system, however, such a preemptive attack would not seem as unlikely as it does now. It might not appear irrational to some, for example, if an uncontrollable nuclear exchange seemed almost certain, and if by striking first one could limit damage to a significantly lower level than if the adversary were to strike the first blow. In short, if one or both of the two superpowers had such capabilities, the world would be a much more unstable place than it is now.

"Obviously neither superpower would permit its adversary to develop such capabilities without responding, if it could, by strengthening its retaliatory forces. The response problem becomes more difficult, however, if the adversary develops both MIRVs and an ABM system than if only one is developed"

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From MIRV, by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

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Why MIRV? - All new nuclear weapons systems, defensive and offensive, must be evaluated in the light of the preceding remarks. Thus we ask the following questions:

1. Is MIRV a necessary countermeasure against an existing or potential Soviet ABM population defense?

2. Is MIRV a necessary reinforcement of our second-strike capability because of a potential Soviet first-strike capability?

3. Are Soviet military planners likely to fear that our testing and deployment of MIRV is a move towards first-strike capability, and react accordingly?

4. What will the strategic balance be when both sides have MIRV?

We do not ask: Should MIRV be deployed simply because it is a technically feasible improvement in weaponry? In the age of thermonuclear weapons this is not a sufficient consideration; all too often there are pressures to deploy systems in vast numbers just because they work well, with little heed paid to ultimate consequences.

Let us now take up the answers to these questions.

1. At the present time the Soviet Union has a rudimentary ABM system surrounding Moscow. It consists of only 67 launchers and is far more primitive than Safeguard. Long ago our ICBMs were equipped with penetration aids that allow them to pierce these defenses easily, without MIRV; it is therefore not surprising that the Soviets have refrained from installing the system at other cities. There have been no indications that they are contemplating an ABM system as sophisticated as Safeguard, and according to President Nixon even a greatly enlarged Safeguard would not provide adequate defense of cities against an attack by existing missile forces. Thus there is no Soviet ABM worth worrying about, either in being or in prospect. As a penetration aid against future Soviet ABM, MRV (multiple warheads without independent targeting) is as effective as MIRV but less provocative.

2. A Soviet first strike would entail the simultaneous destruction of virtually all our 1000 ICBMs in their concrete silos, our 41 Polaris submarines, and our 650 SAC bombers. Some 30 submarines are normally submerged in the ocean, their locations unknown to the enemy; 40% of our bombers are on 15 minute alert, and our ICBMs are easily launched during the 20 minutes between the detection of enemy missiles and their arrival at Minuteman bases. At this time and well into the 1970's, the Soviets are incapable of eliminating the Polaris fleet, and can not confidently synchronize an attack on our radars, ICBMs, and SAC bases so as to catch a major portion of our forces on the ground.

3. The destructive capability of MIRV depends very sensitively on the accuracy with which the separate warheads can be aimed, on their yield, and on the number of warheads per missile. With sufficient accuracy each MIRV warhead is capable of destroying

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a hardened missile silo. (A hardened silo is one built to withstand intense shock waves.) By watching our MIRV tests the Soviets cannot determine the accuracy of our missiles. They are therefore faced with a system, on the verge of deployment, whose potential capability is ominous, while its present capability is largely unknown to them. They will know that the greatest distance between separate warheads (of order 100 miles) coming from a Minuteman III is well suited to attacking ICBM bases, but rather too small for simultaneous attack on sizeable Russian cities (see Appendix 5). They will also realize that if we actually deploy Safeguard ABM, we will be a step closer to massive population defense. Finally, their suspicions will be buttressed by Secretary Laird's request of March 27 for additional appropriations to accelerate work which will

"improve significantly the accuracy of Poseidon guidance, thus enhancing its effectiveness against hard sites."

Surely our own military, would, if placed in the Kremlin, be fully convinced that we are embarked on an attempt to achieve first-strike capability. They would not be impressed with any stated intention to attack missile sites in retaliation only. It would be foolish to assume that the actual occupants of the Kremlin will come to a different conclusion. Indeed, they are deploying large ICBMs and submarines at a considerable rate, and may be at the beginning of MIRV tests themselves. Each side responds to its view of the other's future plans, justifying its action with self-fulfilling prophecy.

4. If both sides have deployed MIRV and thus come a step closer to the illusory goal of first strike capability, fears of attack by the other side will heighten. Since a single incoming warhead is capable of destroying an entire unlaunched missile with several warheads, there will be a much greater premium on getting missiles into the air first. The situation will be much more complicated, and instability even greater, if both sides have deployed extensive, but imperfect, ABM systems in addition to MIRV.

The period while MIRV and ABM are being deployed will be an exceptionally dangerous one. New military technology on such a vast scale always brings with it uncertainties about one's own system and ignorance of the opponent's. This confusion would increase both the chances of serious international crises arising and the chances of their resulting in nuclear war. And if we survive this hazardous transition period, will we then be safer than today? No, we will both be stronger, and correspondingly less secure.

The present circumstances are exceptionally well suited to a meaningful agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union to halt MIRV testing. Such an agreement, if respected, would make it impossible for either side to deploy a MIRV system in which it had confidence. Each side could readily verify, without on-site inspection, that the agreement had not been broken. Such an agreement would have highly beneficial effects on international relations. Both great powers would have tangible evidence of the absence of first strike intent by the other, and the security of both sides would be enhanced. Other nations would have tangible

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evidence of a willingness on the part of the great powers to limit
their counterproductive arms race. The agreement would be a
productive start toward implementing the provision of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty which calls for good faith arms-control
negotiations.

The time in which such an agreement is possible is sharply limited
by the more advanced American testing program. If both sides stop
testing, negotiations can proceed at their usual snail's pace
without great danger. However, once our testing is complete,
or more precisely, once conservative planners in the Soviet Union
must assume it is sufficiently far advanced for deployment, any
MIRV agreement will be much more difficult. When will this stage
be reached? Indications are that we may pass the point of no
return late this summer, perhaps sooner. There is, therefore,
a pressing need for reconsideration of the MIRV program and its
implications. A sensible and important first step is an imme-
diate moratorium on American MIRV tests, as has been urged by
many Senators and Congressmen of both parties. Such a step would
in no way jeopardize our security. (See Appendix 8).

If such a step is not taken and there is no MIRV agreement, there
will surely be Soviet MIRV testing and eventual deployment. And
then will come strong demands from our conservative planners for
construction of new weapons; for superhardened missile silos, for
maneuverable re-entry vehicles; for bigger ABM systems, and so on.
It is no exaggeration to say that a MIRV agreement, besides its
contribution to the security of both American and Russian citizens,
would save American taxpayers many tens of billions of dollars
in the next decade.

In brief, MIRV is certainly not needed as a countermeasure, it is
exceptionally provocative and destabilizing, and its testing
jeopardizes the possibility of meaningful arms control negotiations.

The present frantic rush towards MIRV is an irresponsible policy.