Wed., February 24, 1988 NY TIMES

Kissinger Balks at Treaty on Strategic Arms

By MICHAEL R. GORDON
Special to The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23 — Henry A. Kissinger, the former Secretary of State, told Congress today that the United States should not conclude a treaty reducing long-range nuclear weapons until progress is made toward a separate agreement on conventional arms in Europe.

"Further steps toward nuclear arms control should be coupled with measures to remove the Soviet conventional superiority overhanging America's allies," Mr. Kissinger told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Mr. Kissinger stopped short of saying that a treaty on long-range nuclear arms should be held in abeyance until the Russians actually cut their conventional arms in Europe.

Rather, he suggested that the United States should first wait to see if the Russians presented a realistic proposal for reducing conventional arms.

## Backs Medium-Range Pact

"At a minimum, the United States should obtain a concrete Soviet scheme" about how to reduce conventional arms. He added that Soviet suggestions to reduce Soviet tanks in return for cuts in American tactical aircraft were unacceptable.

Mr. Kissinger, who appeared before the panel to discuss the recently completed agreement to ban medium- and shorter-range missiles based on land, gave a qualified endorsement of that treaty.

Repeating earlier arguments, Mr. Kissinger severely criticized the agreement for requiring the elimination of American missiles in Europe, which he said were valuable for military reasons and as a symbol of the American commitment to the defense of Europe.

But he then urged that the Senate approve the agreement anyway and said that the Senate should not attach amendments to the agreement that would require reopening the negotiations with the Russians.

## Conventional arms cuts should also be pushed.

He said that failing to ratify the agreement at this point would create a "crisis" within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization by undermining the confidence of West European officials in American leadership and encouraging neutralist sentiment there.

## Questions on Consistency

"Were the Senate to reject the treaty, European Governments would undoubtedly be forced by public opinion to insist on the removal of American missiles," he added.

Some Democratic committee members, recalling past statements by Mr. Kissinger and decisions he took while in office, sought to use the hearing to raise questions about some of Mr. Kissinger's recent arguments on arms control.

Senators Alan Cranston, Democrat of California, and John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, raised the question of whether Mr. Kissinger's latest arguments were inconsistent with the arms control arguments he advanced when he was national security adviser to President Nixon.

Pointing to Mr. Kissinger's assertion that issues of long-range nuclear arms and conventional weapons should be linked, the senators noted that Mr. Kissinger did not insist on such linkage when the first strategic arms treaty was completed in 1972.

In reply, Mr. Kissinger asserted that the two situations were not comparable. He noted that a treaty reducing long-range arms would set equal ceilings on American and Soviet weapons. But the 1972 agreement, Mr. Kissinger said, allowed the United States to maintain a lead in the number of missile warheads, though this American advantage was only temporary.

## Reagan Remarks

As the Senate committee continued its hearings, President Reagan assured Western allies that the United States would keep its commitment to the defense of Europe.

"After all, our goal is not a nuclear-free, or a tank-free or an army-free Europe, but a war-free Europe," Mr. Reagan said in a speech on the United States Information Agency's Worldnet television network less than a week before his departure for a NATO summit meeting in Brussels. "Our troops will stay in Europe, a guarantee that our destiny is coupled with yours."

"Simply put, an attack on Munich is the same as an attack on Chicago," Mr. Reagan said, stressing the American commitment to Europe's defense. Asked about this remark at the hearing, Mr. Kissinger said: "That's the beginning of wisdom not the end of it. How you implement that statement is the test before us."

Mr. Reagan also reiterated a pledge to seek to reduce conventional forces and to seek a ban on chemical weapons and to negotiate a reduction in long-range arms. But he stressed American opposition to the "de-nuclearization of Europe."

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domestic capital and most of them are those leaders who have
been associated with pro-American positions all along. They
now face a domestic situation in which the opponents of the
original deployment feel justified by the evolution of
events, and their own supporters are dubious.

Now, they do not want to be in a position of attacking
the United States and thereby undermining the credibility
even further, and if one adds to it if one has to make a
distinction here between the Federal Republic and the
nuclear-armed states, specifically Great Britain and France,
my analysis of Great Britain and France is that they were so
shaken by the Reykjavik potential agreement that they would
rather see America remove its nuclear weapons than have us go
after their own, which they were afraid we might do at AFTER
Reykjavik.

And the Germans, it is the pro-Atlantic group that has
the most serious doubts and is also in the most difficult
position to make them explicit. Nobody can ask to have the
United States keep weapons in Europe that America has
declared dispensable. This is the problem. And at this
point it is also no longer possible, so I am not arguing for
reversing the decision.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Dr. Kissinger: Sorry to have given such an extended
answer.

ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.
20 F ST., N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20001 (202) 628-9300

that.

Senator Helms: So do I.

And you said that the fact that the U.S. strategic forces
are far away creates what you called a psychological and
political imbalance which is magnified by the Soviet presence
of superiority in conventional forces.

Dr. Kissinger: Correct. If NATO were one nation, then
the location of the strategic forces would be of purely
technical significance. And that is the situation in the
Soviet Union.

The place of origin of Soviet nuclear weapons aimed at
Europe is not a major matter. The place of origin of nuclear
weapons in the defense of Europe is a very important matter
because it affects whether these weapons are in a different
nation and out of any control of the countries concerned or
out of any situation in which they would become more or less
automatically operationally involved, it creates a
psychological imbalance.

Senator Helms: Now, you say that the INF agreement
removes from West Germany only those missiles which can
retaliate against the Soviet Union and leaves only those
short-range missiles which would explode on German territory
and kill the German population, right?

Dr. Kissinger: That is creating the problem with respect
to modernization in the Federal Republic, correct.

1. Senator Helms: And you said in your statement that this
2. will have a permanent impact upon West German politics,
3. creating pressures for the total denuclearization of West
4. Germany.

5. Dr. Kissinger: Correct.

6. Senator Helms: And finally, according to my notes, you
7. say that this political situation would create a "strain
8. within the Alliance."

9. Dr. Kissinger: It is a strange kind of strain because
10. nobody is prepared to make it explicit at this point.

11. Senator Helms: Correct. It certainly would create a
12. strain within the Alliance.

13. Is not West Germany, to be blunt about it, the key to
14. NATO's stability?

15. Dr. Kissinger: It has been so conceived in the whole
16. post-War period.

17. Senator Helms: And would not the denuclearization of
18. West Germany permanently cripple the effectiveness of NATO?

19. Dr. Kissinger: Well, the denuclearization of the Federal
20. Republic would almost inevitably lead to a kind of neutralism
21. which is the modern word for nationalism in Germany because
22. the denuclearization of Germany makes sense only if it is
23. coupled with a no-first-use doctrine, which then establishes
24. the principle that NATO would prefer to be defeated with
25. conventional weapons rather than use nuclear weapons, which

Senator Sarbanes: You earlier said that ratifying the Treaty could then prove disintegrating of the Atlantic alliance.

Dr. Kissinger: No. If I said that, I misspoke. I said not ratifying the Treaty would be disintegrative of the Atlantic alliance.

I think negotiating the Treaty has created certain strains in the alliance that are serious, even though they are not very explicit. I do not believe they can be cured by non-ratification.

And I think non-ratification would be truly disintegrative of the Atlantic alliance today, not ratification. It is not the ratification.

Senator Sarbanes: Is it likely in your view that failure to ratify the Treaty would result in a situation in which the INF weapons of the West would come out in any event and the Soviets would be able to retain theirs?

Dr. Kissinger: Correct.

Senator Sarbanes: So that you would end up in a situation where they had theirs, but we did not have ours; would that be the case?

Dr. Kissinger: One of two things would happen: either that it would be entirely up to the Soviets. Either that would happen or the Soviets would make a big demonstrative gesture and remove their SS-20's without inspection and get

the credit for having made a sacrifice for peace while the
United States has gone the opposite way.

So whatever happened, it would not be favorable to us.

Senator Sarbanes: Well, either of those developments I
take it you would regard as more negative for western
interests than the problems you see connected with ratifying
the Treaty, is that correct?

Dr. Kissinger: Correct.

Senator Sarbanes: To what extent does your concern about
the Treaty relate to a broader concern about what the west's
overall strategic doctrine is, particularly in the wake of
Reykjavik?

Dr. Kissinger: My basic concern is related to the
overall strategic doctrine and to a certain incoherence
between declaratory policy and action policy. And it is
accentuated by the events at and since Reykjavik.

Senator Sarbanes: What do you see the essence of that
problem as being?

Dr. Kissinger: Well, I think the essence of the NATO
problem has several components. One is that since the early
days of NATO there has been a very heavy reliance on nuclear
weapons.

In fact, it started with the doctrine of massive
retaliation, which exclusively relied on nuclear weapons
Nevertheless, there was a demand for the stationing of

substantial American forces on the continent, even though in
terms of the military doctrine that was being pursued they
were not particularly necessary.

The reason they were there was as a kind of tripwire, to
guarantee that the United States would have no choice except
to engage itself, since the European allies had enough
experience from their own practice of allies left in the
lurch that they did not want to put us into that position.
So therefore there has always been a gap between the
conventional deployment in Europe and the doctrine which was
underlying it.

Now, in the fifties, up to the middle sixties, this was
not a huge difficulty because the United States had a vast
nuclear, first an atomic monopoly, then a vast nuclear
superiority.

But as the Soviet capacity in nuclear weapons increased,
the credibility of American war of the United States risking
general nuclear war in the defense of Europe was inevitably
going to decline, not because American leaders are
unreliable, but because nobody should choose suicide as the
only form of military strategy.

But NATO has never been prepared to bite that bullet.
And to meet the intermediate range missiles in Europe had the
principal consequence of establishing a link between the
ground defense of Europe and the nuclear defense of Europe.

1. Senator Sarbanes: Well now, you have recommended in the past that, if the Europeans do not spend more on defense, that we should take our troops out or take a significant number of our troops out.

5. Dr. Kissinger: What I recommended was as follows. I said I would prefer a larger conventional defense of Europe, but if we are going to be suspended between forces that are too large for a tripwire and too small for a conventional defense, then we should do one of two things: We should either get the approval of the Europeans that part of the forces in Europe can be used for third area conflicts, in which we are not then trapped into keeping them in Europe, as we were forced to in the '73 crisis, where we had to fly all around Europe to resupply an ally or else in which two of the five divisions be returned to America as strategic reserves.

17. But this was in the absence of the nuclear redeployment we are now undertaking under the INF agreement. I think under present circumstances, if we follow the INF redeployment with a redeployment of American conventional forces, the crisis of confidence in Europe would become unmanageable.

23. Senator Sarbanes: Would not the decoupling effect of taking that move with respect to troops in fact be greater than any decoupling effect you are concerned about with

31

1 the inconsistencies that I have mentioned in reply to Senator Sarbanes.

2
3 I believe in retrospect, although I did not, in fairness, think so inevitably in '79 -- I started thinking so starting about '81 -- I think the dual track decision was a mistake.
4
5
6 I think the intermediate range missiles should have been put there on their merits and been coupled with both conventional and nuclear disarmament or arms control in Europe.

But you are quite right, what happened was an inevitable
result of proposals, which in my view were probably made
largely for domestic considerations. It was easier to tell
one's public that one was prepared to withdraw all these
weapons, especially as one never believed the Soviets would
accept such a proposal.

Senator Lugar: I think that is an important statement.
I think we have tried to make the point that what is done is
done; we ought to ratify and use this as a basis for other
considerations.

But I simply raise the point to gain the answer you have
given: Even if in 1979 the two-track decision was a mistake,
it occurred.

Dr. Kissinger: I think we are sliding dangerously into
the following situation. Originally, when NATO was
originally formed, weapons decisions were made on the basis
of security considerations. Then later on, arms control

32

negotiations might or might not start, and then existing

2 weapons deployments were used in the bargaining that

3 followed, as is the case today with many of the strategic

4 forces.

5 In the late seventies, it developed that the Soviets

6 began to assert a right to comment and intervene in

7 unilateral NATO weapons decisions. And even though the

8 SS-20's had already been deployed without any question by the

9 West, NATO felt obliged to adopt a double track decision,

10 which meant that they would first negotiate with the Soviets,

11 which delayed the deployment by four years to begin with.

12 And it then created the premise that these two weapons

13 were equivalent, which they are not, and led almost

14 inevitably logically to the zero option. And we now see it

15 is happening with respect to short-range weapons which nobody

16 ever conceived were the subject of prior approval by the

17 Warsaw Pact, whether we could modernize weapons that were

18 already in Germany, that had been put into Germany without

19 the slightest opposition by anybody.

20 And gradually, the Soviets may be getting a veto over our

21 deployments through these domestic processes in the West, not

22 just in the United States.

23 Senator Lugar: Well, even if one were to agree that the

24 1979 decision was a mistake, is it not also true that it

25 would have been difficult to gain that degree of accord in

to fulfillment.

I mention this because it seems to me that it is so

Important to grasp the significance of your conclusion as to
what now as we review the difficulties.

Dr. Kissinger: I am very uneasy with what I see
happening. First of all, I think three years ago Chancellor
Kohl would have agreed to modernization of the Lances. It
would not have been any domestic issue at all. It would have
happened.

In fact, they agreed to it and many people were not even
aware that that decision had been taken. Now, I noticed in
some testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee,
one of the German witnesses who is for the modernization
nevertheless felt that it had to be tied into an arms control
package that was geared to the removal of some of the nuclear
weapons, plus some other considerations.

And before we know it, we are going to have slid down the
road again where the principle of zero in the short range
field is accepted for some undefined good pro quo, and then
we are well on our way to the denuclearization of Germany,
which I think is a disaster for the West.

I would urge the greatest care at this time in going down
that road.

Senator Lugar: I would agree.

Let me just ask this question, with regard to our

1. European allies, we have made speculative judgments about their politics, how they will react to this. what is your own judgment about the willingness of Europeans to defend themselves at this point?

5. Dr. Kissinger: I think one of the good results of potentially good results of Reykjavik and the INF agreement, neither of which I would have recommended if somebody would have asked me ahead of time, one of the good results is that the defense-oriented Europeans are now more willing to think to consider a common European defense effort, and to push European unity into the field of defense.

12. I think the challenge to the United States is to be receptive to this effort. The United States has so far favored the economic unity, but has been less willing to support defense unity, out of fear that this might be disruptive of the Atlantic alliance.

17. In my view, European economic unity is likely to be inherently competitive with the United States. In defense, I cannot conceive of an eastern threat to Europe in which Europe would not be better off with American support than without American support. So it is likely to bring us together.

23. And I hope, and I have no reason to doubt that this is the view, I hope that the United States supports efforts to strengthen the U.S.-European union and efforts by France and

Dr. Kissinger: In the early seventies we were not actually negotiating any significant reductions. we were negotiating ceilings on forces. SALT I established the truce approximately where it was in the unilateral program of the two sides, and there were no significant reductions envisaged at the time.

Moreover, in the early 1970s we had multiple warheads and they did not yet.

In the current situation, I believe we face the problem that it is becoming harder and harder to visualize what a security advisor or Secretary of Defense or Secretary of State or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would tell a President the objective of a strategic nuclear war initiated from the United States would be in response to a conventional attack, and therefore, I believe that we are heading into a situation in which the overhang of the Soviet conventional forces on the territories adjoining them is becoming a more serious problem than it was in the early seventies.

In 1973, at the time of the Middle East war, there was an increase in the readiness of our nuclear forces. At that time we had, I forget, we still had a very vast superiority in warheads over the Soviet Union. In the early nineties this would not necessarily not only but our land-based forces would probably be vulnerable to a Soviet nuclear attack and without a reciprocal ability to holo

20 F. ST., N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20001 (202) 628-9300

Dr. Kissinger: I would have to know what it is that is supposed to be restrained before I could make a judgment on it.

Senator Cranston: Yes, of course you would.

One question, if we did seek to link conventional progress to fulfillment of a START treaty, that could cause a long delay in getting to it with START. Gorbachev, as you know, has made some interesting statements about a desire to redress the imbalance and to make asymmetrical adjustments in Europe in conventional forces.

Do you have any suggestions as to how, with some reasonable dispatch and swiftness, we can come to grips with that and explore and find out how serious those statements really are?

Dr. Kissinger: well, of course, I have been working, I was working when I was an academician on arms control since its beginning. But I think you will agree, both students of arms control will agree that studies that have been made have concerned almost exclusively nuclear matters, and that the conventional issue has not been addressed with equal seriousness.

I have only speaking for myself, I have only myself started thinking about it recently, and I received some briefings, for which I hold no brief, but which I found rather impressive, which suggested that the imbalance in

1

2

3

Europe is such that reductions of less than five to one in
our favor in the conventional forces would actually make the
situation worse. I have not made these studies myself, but
they were done by serious people.

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

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Now, even if one negotiated specific reductions, one
would have a massive problem of verification, and one would
have to determine what is one talking about? Do these forces
have to be disbanded, do they have to be moved to another
part of Soviet and Western territory? Any force that is
demobilized, that is, reduced in Germany or in Europe would
demobilized
probably have to be done away with. I mean, there is no
place you can put them in Germany or the low countries that
would provide an adequate buffer.

So these are very serious questions, and this is why in
my statement I said that if we could agree as to a concept
without yet having negotiated it that gives us an idea of
what such a balance would look like, one could proceed with
START, which is different from what I wrote in my article.

Senator Cranston: You are talking of concept and not a
concrete negotiated agreement.

21

22

23

24

25

Dr. Kissinger: Yes, but I would like ~~but what can one~~
do? I would ask the Soviets to table a proposal of what they
mean by conventional arms control. Where are their units
going to be, who does away with what? And if we hear that we
have to take all our strike aircraft out of Europe in return

1

Dr. Kissinger: No.

2

[Laughter.]

3

Dr. Kissinger: The problem seems to me to be this.

4

Historically we face in the Soviet Union a country that has both under tsars and commissars, has constantly expanded. It is impossible to find a 50 year period of history in which it has not expanded in some direction. And if you get a historical atlas and compare the Soviet empire or Russian empire at the end of any century, starting with 1603 when the Romanovs came in, you can find this expansion.

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

So how to establish an equilibrium between a country that is eleven times out and its neighbors is an inherently difficult problem and is at the heart of security issues.

14

15

Now, I am not insisting that one begins with its neighbors, and I know that many people say, and correctly, that Russia and the Soviet Union have often been invaded and therefore they have a peculiar sensitivity on the issue of security. But Angola and Nicaragua are about as far away from the Soviet Union as you can get in this world, and it is my understanding, I am told by governmental people whom you have a better opportunity to question than I, that a billion dollars worth of arms was sent to Angola last year, less Russian military personnel, and $600 million of arms were sent to Nicaragua.

16

17

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19

20

21

22

23

24

25

I hold no brief for these figures, but they have been

47

1 come up with it. But it cannot go on that everything on our
2 side of the line is subject to undermining and everything on
3 their side of the line is sacrosanct without sooner or later
4 leading to a confrontation which is in nobody's interest.

5 That is my concern.

6 Senator Evans: Would you, in terms of timing, in terms
7 of timing and type, would you have this done now or in
8 conjunction with the INF treaty ratification or subsequent to
9 that, and in terms of type, would these negotiations be
10 better carried on, or the debate that you suggest be better
11 carried on in public, in private negotiations with the
12 Sovlets, or part of each?

13 Dr. Kissinger: Well, I do not think it can be, it cannot
14 be linked to the INF agreement because of the reasons that I
15 have already given, although I would certainly personally
16 ~~welcome a Senate, if the Senate saw fit to express its view~~
17 that the political issues need to be dealt with side by side
18 with the weapons issues, I believe that might be helpful as a
19 nonbinding expression of a Senate consensus, or as a ~~binding~~
20 ~~of Senate consensus.~~

21 Now, should it be done privately or should it be done
22 publicly? I think it depends on both. Now, there is a
23 ritual in which so-called third area conflicts are on every
24 agenda of every Secretary of State and of every summit
25 meeting, but my impression is that they are almost never

50

decoupling now if it was an either/or situation then?

Dr. Kissinger: well, this was not an article, this was a transcript of an extemporaneous speech I gave to a conference in Brussels, and I think you will agree that when you read that speech, that 99 percent of it deals with the declining credibility of strategic nuclear forces, and an appeal to Europeans to face the facts of the eighties and nineties. The 30 years was given by the editor of that journal. I made no such claim, I hope not, anyway, in the speech.

I have been asked that question before, so I have had a chance to look at my speech. I think the reference to the SS-20s and to what is now called INF was a parenthetical comment and was not even remotely central to my argument, which indicated that I had not thought through the problem.

I would say that starting in 1981, when I had thought more about the problem, I took the consistent position that in the sixties and seventies we still had a considerable strategic superiority, at least until the middle seventies, and then we had a period of grace because thinking does not adjust to strategic and technological realities as rapidly as it should. So we still got credit for having a strategic superiority.

But starting in the eighties, it was obvious, at least to me, that the strategic nuclear threat based on weapons that were based in the United States or at sea would no longer be

53

Dr. Kissinger: Well, Walter Slocombe is a man of extraordinary intelligence whom I have known since he was a student at Harvard and I was a young professor there, and for a brief period he either worked on my staff or as a consultant to my staff.

I think the difference here is between whether you look at this problem from the point of view of systems analysis or from the point of view of political decisionmaking. If you look at it from the point of view of systems analysis, you look at NATO as one strategic area, and within that context, it does not make any difference where the weapons are located, assuming that there is a uniform readiness to use them. If you look at it from the point of view of political decisionmaking, however, then you do not look at NATO as a single area, and you know that there is not a uniform readiness to use them.

The utility of the INF weapons stationed in Europe was as follows. Certainly one should not put the issue in terms of total credibility and total credibility. It will move through shades of many shades of grey before one gets into a black and white situation. One therefore talks about relative weights.

I think a situation will arise or has arisen or is about to arise -- this is again one of those grey areas -- in which honesty requires one to say that the decision, if anything,

54

It is left to a formal political decision with a lot of time,  
It will not be easy to make an argument for the use of  
strategic nuclear weapons, especially when they have been  
designed, partly, frankly, under congressional pressures, in  
such a way that they are not useful for military targeting  
but largely for bringing about cataclysmic outcomes.

So that even the overrunning certainly the overrunning  
of American forces would create a presumption that we will do  
something, but Secretary McNamara has said that he had made a  
private decision -- he said so publicly -- never to recommend  
to the President the use of strategic nuclear weapons, or for  
all I know, of any nuclear weapons. There have been many  
flat statements to that effect. Chancellor Schmidt has said  
publicly that he had made the private decision to surrender  
before anything like this happened.

Now, these are facts that one has to keep in mind. The  
presence of the intermediate-range weapons in Europe was a  
crude way by which a Soviet leader, looking at them, had to  
calculate that whatever foolishness the Americans might  
commit, they would not permit those weapons to be overrun  
without having authorized somebody to fire them. If they  
were fired, even if they attacked these weapons, then, and  
even if they got 95 percent of them, the remaining 5 percent  
would do huge damage in the Soviet Union, that they could not  
accept while leaving the United States undisturbed, and

5b

The Chairman: The Committee will come to order. The
Chair recognizes the Senator from Kansas, Mrs. Kassebaum.

Senator Kassebaum: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr.
Kissinger, I would like to ask a couple of questions on
verification and compliance.

You were instrumental in negotiating SALT I and really
ever since then we have been concerned about verification.
We have argued the merits or demerits of the Standing
Consultative Commission. Under the INF Treaty there is a
call for the Special Verification Commission.

I found quite interesting what you said in your statement
regarding new verification procedures must deal with three
issues, and then you lay them out. I was wondering what, in
your view, you would recommend in handling the compliance
issues in the future.

Do you think that the verification, the new Verification
Commission, as it is structured, has some merit? Or do you
feel that basically we are going to have to have the ability
to know what we want to do with it once we feel there is
non-compliance?

Dr. Kissinger: Let me make a general observation. As
I have viewed these arms control negotiations, every
agreement is sold to the Senate and to the public with the
proposition that there will be very fierce compliance and
that the Administration will be extremely vigilant. And this

1 is very sincere.

2
3
4
5
6
Then opponents of the agreement often use verification as
an issue, first to question it, when it is up for
ratification, and afterwards to try to find violations. Now,
some of these violations are genuine violations and some of
them are technical violations.

7 And so very soon a defensive cast of mind develops in the
     unfettered
     with effect
8 Administration in office when it is confirmed with technical
9 violations that it is being harassed. Then the whole debate
10 goes off the deep end. Because there are some violations
11 that are not threatening to the agreement, and not intended
12 to be.

13
14
15
16
I remember one apparent violation that occurred when I
was in government where the Soviets were building in every
missile field one additional silo. And that amounted to
about 60 silos.

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19
20
Now, that looked like a violation. On the other hand,
they were saying this was a command and control silo. And I
would have to go on television and say it is a command and
control silo.

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22
23
24
25
Then somebody would say, would it not be nice to have a
Secretary of State who does not defend the Soviets? My view
was that if the Soviets wanted to violate the agreement, they
would not build one silo in each field. And what would they
do with 60 additional silos?

59

permit us to put Pershings and GLCMs back into Europe. So
that we have practically no equivalent countermeasures left.
These are things to analyze.

Now, with respect to this new procedure, we have to take
care that particular slogans do not become a substitute for
concrete action. We have talked ourselves into the
Importance of on-site inspection. And we think this is a
great success that we have achieved, some on-site
Inspection.

I must tell you, I am not so sure this is necessarily the
case. On-site inspection should be judged like any other
method, on what it actually adds to our national means. Now,
you take the INF Inspection. As I understand it, we can only
look at those areas they have designated as base areas. We
cannot look at the others.

Now, if you have a very large house and it is suspected
of being a weapons depo, and somebody says you can look at
those three rooms but you cannot look at the other 25 rooms,
have you made progress towards on-site inspection if you
cannot even challenge the original data they give you and go
into areas which they have not designated as base areas?

Secondly, is the question of bureaucratic management. It
is my understanding that we need about 600 to 700 people to
operate this system. Now they have to report to somebody.
And this somebody has to report to somebody.

And how are you going to get it to the attention of the
top people who have to make the assessment? And how can you
keep it from the endless controversies that arise between
those who want to maintain the agreement and therefore lean
over backward in one direction, and those who want to scrap
the agreement and may lean over too far in the other
direction?

I do not want to be misunderstood. I am not against
on-site inspection. But we ought to analyze on-site
inspection the same way, there is nothing sacrosanct about
it.

I would analyze it in the same way I analyze national
inspection. Does it meet the three criteria that have been
that are put forward here? Or any other criteria that we
might set up?

And are we running the risk now that we may get 50
percent START agreement? Now, with INF, all we need to do is
to find out that there is no weapon, but how do you count 50
percent? It is a much more stringent system.

Now, do we need 5,000? And how do we build them into our
decision-making system? I think this requires some careful
thought, and I would be interested to get an intelligence
analysis of the degree to which they think, by what
percentage do they think the system of INF adds to our
national capacities.

certainly understand the degree to which they have
modernized.

But likewise, we have had the introduction of the F-16,
the introduction of the F-15, we have had the introduction of
the multiple-launch rocket systems, we have had the best
sensor system in the world with the AWACS, plus in 1973, as I
know you recall, we had significant troop problems by virtue
of the concentration on Vietnam. There were drug problems,
race relation problems, equipment shortages, and so forth.

Those, all of those issues having changed and our own
generals, admirals, et cetera, arguing that there is now a
neutrality, I wonder where you feel that there is not that
neutrality? Where specifically is this imbalance?

Dr. Kissinger: Well, I believe there are a number of
factors to be considered.

One, the Soviet Union has a geographic advantage, which
is not due to anybody's fault. It is inherent in geography.
They have the interior lines of communication, and therefore
they can shift their forces between their various fronts much
more easily than we can.

Secondly, it is, at least every military person that I
have talked to, plus the studies that I have seen, for
example, at the Rand Corporation, in which the war games,
various outcomes indicate that on any hypothesis the Soviets
would make very significant territorial gains, even in a

It has developed a sort of mechanical quality where all reductions are considered of equal quality. I have attempted, for example, to put the numbers of the 50 percent reduction into outcomes. I mean, what forces would then exist?

I think all of you who have done it or who can get it done will find that the number of warheads aimed at our missiles will increase rather than decrease, and therefore I ask myself, what are we trying to accomplish?

Is this simply a theological exercise in which we prove to ourselves that we can do it? Our aircraft are reduced, our submarines are reduced, but the anti-aircraft defenses and the anti-submarine defenses are not reduced. But the anti-missile defenses, we are told, have to be reduced.

Now, can somebody take a step back and analyze where we are trying to go and what we are trying to achieve before we start rushing into numbers exercises?

Senator Kerry: Specifically, with respect to that, and Incidentally I agree with you completely about the current START Instructions, which will result in almost a 10 to one ratio of their missiles against our land-based missiles, which I think takes us back in time. I am not sure if you agree with that.

Dr. Kissinger: My calculations show about five to one. But it does not make any difference. It makes it worse. It

and that was an unfriendly act. You also said that it served no national defense purpose and so forth.

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And you also spoke about Angola and the $1 billion that went down that way. I wonder if you would assess for me how serious and how realistic you feel Mr. Gorbachev has been about withdrawing from Afghanistan? Certainly the considerations are much different there.

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Dr. Kissinger: It is a good question. I find it hard to answer because my instinct would be that it would be totally unprecedented for them to withdraw from a country.

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And therefore, while I have serious doubts about the agreement we are discussing here, I would consider a Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, under conditions that do not create another prelude to their ultimate domination, I would consider it a significant event.

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They certainly talk as if they are going to withdraw. Which also is a tribute to our determination in supplying the freedom fighters there. We will know in a few weeks how serious he is. It has gone further than I thought it would.

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Senator Boschwitz: I agree. You know, it seems strange that a country that would expend those kind of funds so far away from home would suddenly be really serious about withdrawing from a country --

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Dr. Kissinger: Well, it could be that the adjoining Moslem areas of the Soviet Union become too restive under the

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1 impact of it.

2 It could be that the casualties are too heavy. It could
3 be a regrouping. It could be that they may even believe that
4 they could hold on to a dominant position there. but it is
5 an unusual step.

6 Senator Boschwitz: In talking about the Pershings and
7 GLCMs and the fact that the Russians would have to calculate
8 that the Americans would do something rather than allowing
9 those weapons to be overrun, that that was a serious
deterrent that you could not equivalently get from something
10 that is based in North Dakota or Montana.

11 I wonder how you would characterize the other weapons
12 that we have? Submarine weapons, what would their
13 calculations have to be? Or the F-111s in Great Britain.
14 Would the same type, they are not the cataclysmic type of
15 weapons.
16

17 Dr. Kissinger: Well, first of all, the submarines cannot
18 be seen. I think they would calculate that the likelihood of
19 using submarines is the same as the likelihood of using
20 Minuteman or MXs, that it would require a Presidential
21 decision ~~by~~ which he would take a reasonable amount of time,
22 prudent President would take a reasonable amount of time.

23 The "advantage," in quotation marks, of the land-based
24 missiles in Europe was that the rate at which they would have
to be fired was dependent on the speed of their own

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operations. So that the danger of their being overrun would determine the probability of their being fired.

This is not true of submarines. It is also not really true of the F-111s in Britain, which for these purposes are also outside the combat theater. Moreover, these F-111s in Britain are all based on one base. And it is easier to get rid of one base than of dispersed mobile missiles.

But certainly I do not say they are of no deterrent value.

Senator Boschwitz: But the fact that they are easier to get rid of because they are on one base must also serve as a deterrent?

Dr. Kissinger: That is true. I think the F-111s constitute some deterrent advantage. But they were always there.

I mean, we cannot have it both ways. we cannot say those weapons were of no significance, and secondly they are a major contribution to arms control, that their removal is a major contribution to arms control.

Senator Boschwitz: But the fact that a different type of decision-making process is necessary to use them makes a different type of deterrence, I think would be your argument.

Dr. Kissinger: Correct.

Senator Boschwitz: Dr. Edward Teller was here yesterday,

and unfortunately not all of my colleagues were here to hear
him.

But he, in a way, conditioned his advice to us, in voting
yes on the Treaty, he kind of conditioned that on the further
development of SDI and also added that fewer weapons made the
SDI in effect more effective, more valuable, and that he
therefore spurred us on with respect to combining the
research and development necessary for the SDI.

I wonder if you would comment? You commented to some
degree.

Dr. Kissinger: well, I would not make the SDI
conditional on this agreement. On the other hand, I would
not abandon SDI as part of the START agreement. Nor would I
de facto abandon SDI.

I think a combination of deployment restrictions and
testing restrictions will, in fact, not restrictions but
prohibitions, will in fact lead to a de facto abandonment of
SDI.

Now, I think we need a definition of what it is we want
to accomplish with SDI. I think the concept that we can get
a perfect population defense against an all-out Soviet attack
is so far in the future. If it is attainable at all, that it
leads to a needless debate as to feasibility.

Senatorusch: Dr. Teller, I might say, agreed with
that. He said that there is no perfect offense or perfect

I then said, let me understand what you mean by
overwhelmed. I said, what happens if they launch 1,000
warheads? Oh, we would get 99.9 percent or maybe all of
them.

This went on until we got to about 4,000 warheads. The
defense was degraded in that analysis only from about 6,000
warheads on. Now, if one could get the Soviets into a
position where the only nuclear war they can fight is one in
which they have to launch 5,000 to 6,000 warheads, that is a
different decision from one in which they can blackmail us
with one or two or five. This is what we need to analyze.

Incidentally, the Soviet Chief of Staff said that at the
level of 6,000 warheads, an SDI defense could be quite
effective, which tends to support that. And that is why we
does not want to go down to 6,000 with SDI.

Now, It seems to me that we can probably all agree that
if we could achieve a defense for our strategic forces this
would add to stability. Now, the question is, what degree of
defense should one get for the civilian population?

I find it very difficult to imagine that a democracy
that a democratic leader can tell his public that their total
vulnerability and the capacity of an adversary to exterminate
them is the permanent assurance of their security without
demoralizing them.

Now, against what level of attack? I would think at

Do they see this as a sign of America's strength or weakness? Is it more a complexion of perhaps the new General Secretary's efforts to portray himself as a leader of the world who objective it is to ease tensions?

I wonder if you could share from your experience what you assume they, the Soviets, feel about our position and the likelihood of where the United States will be in relation to the Soviet Union, recognizing we all like to have a superior position in nuclear or non-nuclear capability for our national security interests. Could you just generally --

Dr. Kissinger said, well, as I have said, perhaps too often, I wish this particular Treaty had never been made. And I do this because I think it gives more benefits to the Soviets in the long term than to us. So obviously they want it ratified.

But to deal with the immediate question, I would suppose that if this Treaty now failed of ratification, it would be a setback to Gorbachev. And one would then have to calculate how they assess this, because they might think we will be forced to withdraw our weapons anyway. And they can then play the game of either keeping theirs there or pulling theirs out as a unilateral action, which gives them political propaganda advantages.

The more fundamental question or issue that is raised by your question is, what do we have to do, I mean is Gorbachev really interested in an improvement in relations? And what

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does he understand by improvement of relations?

Now, I think certainly the Soviet Union needs a respite.
And it is surely in their interest to have a period in which
they can reduce some military expenditures. But it is also
the case that it seems to me very dangerous to gear American
foreign policy to the personality of a single Soviet leader.

Soviet leader has ever done anything other than
renounce the policies of his predecessor. So, even if you
assume the best intentions in Gorbachev, which I do not, but
even if you did, you would still have to ask yourself what
are his successors going to do and what is the objective
situation that they and the successors to our President will
inherit?

Secondly, there is no doubt that Gorbachev is undertaking
a huge program of economic and some limited political
reform. He does that because he recognizes that it the
present trends continue the Soviet Union will be the most
developed of the underdeveloped countries, and will have the
greatest difficulty of maintaining its position as a
superpower. He is not doing it in order to get along better
with us.

For that reason, he wants a respite. Now,
Americans, because we have never been exposed to
Irreconcilable hostility, because we have never known
irrevocable disaster, have a tendency to believe that peace

1 this Treaty is not ratified. Or if it is not amended or
2 modified to make sense, because it is now full of holes as a
3 piece of swiss cheese.

4 Dr. Klessinger: I think there is a difference between
5 SALT II and the INF Treaty. I was much less strong, in fact
6 I did not use, you quoted me correctly. I stated both sides
7 of the issue then.

8 Senator Helms: Yes, you did. And I commend you for it.

9 Dr. Klessinger: Now, there is this difference. SALT II
10 concerned only weapons that were under United States' control
11 and stationed either in the United States or at sea.
12 Therefore, the deployment of these weapons had not carried
13 any political cost or risk for these European leaders.

14 So whether we reduced them or not might have had a
15 symbolic significance, and their interest in it was because
16 of the idea that had developed that this was needed to ease
17 tensions. But otherwise, it did not have the same
18 implications.

19 The INF agreement, on the other hand, involved
20 significant decisions that were taken in the face of massive
domestic opposition. That domestic opposition had been
21 overcome.

22 And then in a period in which there was no particular
23 pressure for the removal of those weapons within three
24 countries, the United States developed a theory where they
25