$5 BILLION 'THIN' PLAN APPROVED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70B00338R000300100098-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2006
• Sequence Number: 98
• Publication Date: September 19, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

-W4S4 P%ST ISSW&-y
Approved
~J BiIlipn
`Thin'Plan
Approved
McNamara Bares
Defense Program
To Counter China
By George C. Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writer
The, United States this
year will start building a
$5-billion missile defense
dlesigned primarily to guard
against a Chinese attack,
tieLeiise Secretary Robert
S. 1V cqamara annoui'e
,yesterday.
Ile sfressed that the
ahead on an ABM (anti-ba'llis-
tic-missile) system "in no Y{ ay
indicates that we feel?
,agreement with the S t;
Union on the limitation. of
strategic nuclear offensive,,apd
defensive forces is any the.Iess
urgent or desirable."
McNamara made his an-
nouncement in a major ppTfcy
speech before the United Press
International editors in San
Francisco. T Ih e Pentagon re
leased the text here.
About 2000 antiwar demon
strators paraded in front--of
the Fairmont Hatel while Tqlc-
Namara spoke.
Even though ,it would-.be
insane and suicidal" for 'lie
Red Chinese to launch a mis-
sile attack against the Uned_
States, McNamara said in f'v-
ing the rationale for the A_
"our strategic planning" must
cover "even the possible irra-
tional behavior of potential
zhtfve sarles."
It is this consideration, Me-'
ZT&X11ax4 ~ said, that provides
:O arginai grounds for don-
ciu`aing'r that a light, or t
f -1 rile defense "is prudent."
Production of the ABM mis-
siles and radars will begin lie-
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For Release 2006/01/30?: CIA RDP70B00338R000300100098-7
SCHEMATIC CONCEPT OF THIN ABM DEFENSE
,Main radars- protected by
+ short range Sprint Missiles
A Batteries of long-range Spartan Missiles.
This is a concept of the thin missile defense the U.S. will build-not an
official plan. Main radars would be along U.S. Canadian border to intercept
Chinese ICBMs'flying over the North Pole,
Sept. 19, 1967
THIN DEFENSE-The missile defense the
U.S. will build for $5 billion might be laid
out this way. Spartan- batteries would
patrol large areas. The Sprints, besides
protecting radar sites, also would be
placed around ICBM sites and key cities.
a b
H
ro
' ~p F. M m
The Washington Post
The Sprint would destroy any warheads
which eluded Spartan out in space. Both
Chinese and Soviet ICBMs would prob-
ably approach the United States from the
North Polar areas. Canada would,; have
to a p p r o v e one, site (broken circle).
Fo Release 2006/01/30 : CIA-RDP70B00338R000300100098-7
 Approved For Release 2006/01/30 : CIA-RDP70B00338R000300100098-7
pose a "heavy" defense but
did not rule out a limited one
to handle early Chinese mis-
siles. He did say in January,
however, there was no rush
to deploy an ABM to meet the
Chinese missile threat. He said
it would take China' longer
to build an offense than for
the U.S. to build a defense, so
the ABM decision "need not
be made this year."
But the stunning nuclear
progress of China, coupled
with political pressures, evi-
dently changed the timetable
for ARM deployment.
China will have medium-
range ballistic missiles "with-
in a year or so," McNamara
said yesterday, and "an initial
ICBM capability in the early
1970s." This means, he said,
that "the time will shortly be
right" for the U.S. to go into
ABM production in order to
get a defense deployed in time
to meet the Chinese threat.
The Johnson Administra-1
tion, In'relying on a thin anti-i
China defense, is assuming
China will not have the quan-
tity or quality of ICBMs for
some time to adopt the basic
U.S. strategy of trying to ex-
haust the defender's ABMs.
McNamara stressed that his
nuclear strategy toward Rus-
sia remains unchanged.
He will fight against ex-
panding the thin ABM system
into a much more elaborate
and expensive one designed to
stop sophisticated Soviet mis-
siles.
His chips instead will still
go on offensive weapons, like
the multiple warhead Minute-
man 3 and' Poseidon missiles.
Poseidon will replace the Po-
laris missile on 31 of Ameri-
ca's 41 nuclear submarines. He
said the United States now
has 3 or 4 to 1 superiority
over Russia in deliverable
warheads, pledging: "We will
maintain a superiority."
No matter how much money
was spent on a missile de-
fense against Russian ICBMs,
McNamara said, it would not
buy the United States any
real security.
"Were we to deploy a heavy
ARM system) through the
U.S.," he told the editors yes-
terday, "the Soviets would
clearly be -strongly motivated
to so increase their offensive
capabilities so as to cancel out
our defensive advantage."
The Defense Secretary said
"it. is futile for each of us to
spend $4 billion, $40 billion or
$400 billion-and at the end
of all the deployment, and at
the end of ' All the effort to
be relatively at the same point
of balance on the security
scale that we are now."
McNamara does not believe
the thin system now planned
will "destabilize" the military
balance between the U.S. and
Russia, thus pushing the arms
race up another spiral.
He opposed the ABM plan
the military Joint Chiefs of
Staff wanted, partly for fear
of doing precisely that. The
Chiefs unanimously backed
two kinds of missile systems,
called Posture A and Posture
B.
Posture A-costing $10 bil-
lion-would comprise about
1,000 long-range Spartan mis-
siles and 106- short-range
Sprints. The idea would be to
let the Spartan?, Which Inter-
eept`?enemy warheads far out
in space, give a thin protec-
tion to the entire U.S. The
Sprints, which whoosh up to
intercept any warheads. that
elude the Spartans, would be
placed around key military
bases and cities.
Posture B-costing $20 bil-
lion-would comprise the
same number of Spartans, but
also thousands of Sprints, to
give heavy protection to cities
and bases.
The $5-billion thin defense
to be built is a compromise
between the bargain-basement
$3-billion ABM some Pentagon
leaders favored and the $10-
billion Posture A of the mili-
tary chiefs. Those are total
costs, not per year.
McNamara yesterday did not
detail the ABM system to be
built. But earlier this year he
told the Senate Defense Ap-
propriations Subcommit-
tpe that the population could
he protected against early
Chinese missiles for $3.5 bil-
lion, with another $800 million
going for Sprints to protect
offensive weapons. i
'There already is money in
the Fiscal 1968 budget finance
the -next step in building an
ABM-gearing up for ?produc-
tion. Spending until now for
ABM research - under the
Nike X program - has been
running at about $500 million
a year. This probably will
jump to nearly, $1 billion in
next year's budget.
Besides protecting' against
early Chinese missiles, Mc-
Namara said yesterday that
the thin ARM to be built
would further protect ICBM
sites.
He said such additional pro-
tection for the U.S. force of
1000 Minuteman ICBMs would
underscore for Russia and oth-
er nations the folly of trying
to knock out our retaliatory
missiles by surprise attack.
Another dividend of the
"Chinese oriented" ABM, he
said, is the chance of destroy-
ing an accidentally launched
enemy ICBM before pushing
the buttons that could incin-
erate the world.
The other , advantage Mc-
Namara cited for the $5-bil-
lion missile defense was pro-
viding "an additional indica-
tion to Asians that we intend
to deter China from nuclear
blackmail,"
This, he said, "would con-
tribute toward our goal of
discouraging nuclear weapon
proliferation amo*g the pres-
ent non-nuclear bountries."
The Defense Secretary in
phis 25-page speech did not
address himself to the other
half of that equation: how to
meet demands of neutrals for
the kind of ABM protection
the United States will now
build for itself.
McNamara evidently hopes
to sell the neutrals on the
idea that nuclear weapons are
overrated.
"The simple truth Is," he
said yesterday, "that nuclear
!weapons can serve to de-
ter only a narrow range of
threats." He said the United
States could not use its nu-
clear monopoly right after
World War II to keep
the Soviets from pressing on
Berlin or supporting the en-
emy in Korea.
Approved For Release 2006/01/30 : CIA-RDP70B00338R000300100098-7