OUR TURN TO BLINK?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R000300340066-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 8, 2001
• Sequence Number: 66
• Publication Date: November 1, 1971
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

:~ ~U1~ 1911
Approved For. Release 2001/03/0: CIA-Rl W l0
BY STE WWAR T ALSOP
eL:---,
il' .1 ti QV'1 {4' ~'c}~ ~': n li V d 11 kf
OU7
WASHINCTON?--It is highly likely that
one of these days soon, probably before
Christmas,, quite possibly before'I'haul.:s-
giviing, CIA director Richard Helms will
call the White house and ask for an
urgent appointn.7e it wills the President.
A great deal will then depend on what
Ilellns tells President Nixon, and what
President Nixon decides to do about it.
Helms, of course, is the No. I roan in
the U.S. intelligence community. The
intelligence community is braced for
"the other shoe to chop. " The other shoe
is a series of Soviet missile tests that the
intelligence specialists are sure--rather
mysteriously sure--will take place be-
fore the end of this year, most probably
in November or early December. ?
These tests will tell a great deal
about the real purpose of the very
great Soviet investment in offensive
strategic weapons. This investment is
the first shoe, and it is ''-symbolized by
the missile silos--"]notes," they are called
in the intelligence trade--that the Rus-
sians have been constructing with ex-
traordinary urgency throughout this
year. The tests Will show what kind of
missiles the Russians intend to put in
their holes.
PEACE AND THE HOLES
This is not, admittedly, a subject that
much interests most people in the pres-
ent, Curious mood of this country. But it
is a subject, that has to interest the in-
telligence specialists--and the Presi-
dent, too. For what goes into the Rus-
sian holes may well determine whether
or not it is rational to hope for what the
President likes to call "a generation of
peace."
The facts about the holes are as fol-
lows (and these facts are indeed facts,
for the Pentagon's reconnaissance satel-
lites bring back pictures of the holes
almost as detailed as a picture of a
building across the street). A total of
91 new holes has beat dug so far this
yc.u?. Twenty-five of these new holes
arc 'very large--larger than the holes
that used to be dug for the huge, 25-
megaton SS-9 missile. Sixty-six of the
holes are. somewhat smaller than the
regular SS-9 holes but larger than the
holes for the I-megaton SS-I1 missile.
These smaller holes are dug in a big
circle, with ten missiles to a circle. In
tsar niidclle of a half dozen or so of
been dug. None of the holes has as yet
been filled with a missile, and the ex-
perts do not expect them to be opera-
tional until,about July 1972.
There arc no doubt innumerable pa-
pers marked Top Secret filled with dc-
tails about the Russian holes, but the
essential facts are as stated above.
These facts make it possibly for any
reasonably intelligent reader of this
magazine to be his own intelligence
analyst. What are the holes for?
WHAT ARE THEY FOR?
It is very unlikely that they are sim-
ply for more first-generation SS-9s and
SS-11s. Otherwise, the missiles would
already be in their holes. They could
be, for improved versions of the SS-9
and the SS-11. Or they could be for
entirely new weapons.
It seems reasonable to suppose that
the Russians want to do one thing to
improve thee. SS-9, and another thing to
improve the SS-11. The SS-9 or an en-
most as much as they tell the Russians
about such factors as accuracy, range
and niegatonnage. Suppose the tests
show (a) a MiliVed SS-9-type missile,
(h) greatly improved accuracy for the
SS-11-type missile- and (c) an. entirely
new offensive strategic missile of im-
mense size. Even if the tests showed
only one or two of these things, Iticli-
ard hlelms would have to ask for that
urgcn'. appointment with the President.
\YhatA-adld the President do then?
.Already, it is too late to tall, about
missile "parity." The Russians have
1,600 intercontinental missiles against
1,054 American missiles, and in terns
of missile megatonnagc, they have be-
tween five and tell times' the thermonu-
clear capacity we have. Their anti-bal-
listic-missile complex is fully operational
in the Moscow area and being urgently
extended, whereas our ABM system
will not be operational for several years.
It NEW CONFRONTATION
tircly new version of the big missile, . They are ready to produce, an entire-
coul l be provided with multiple war- ly new swept-wing attack bomber, with
heads, or "M]RVed." Because its war- an undoubted "anti-U.S. attack capabil-
head is so immense, the missile could ity," ,vhercas our B-52s are Model T
be M1RVed six, or even ten times over. bombers, terribly vulnerable to the new
Given sufficient accuracy, even a rela- SA-5 Soviet anti-aircraft. The Soviet
tively small number of MIRVed multi- Y-lass nuclear submarine fleet of 41.
megaton missiles could be used to boats now equals ours, and instead of
destroy, in a first strike, this country's . halting production, the Russians have
main strategic deterrent--our 1.00 ? doubled their production capacity. The
land-based Minuteman missiles. Soviet conventional fleet is already in
Greatly improved accuracy for the several categories superior to ours.
SS-11, or sonic new version of such a The new Soviet missile tests could
missile, would have a similar effect. The indicate at least the serious possibility
SS-11 is an "anti-city" weapon; it is only that the Soviets are building up for a
roughly accurate, since only rough ac- new eyeball-to-eyeball nuclear con-
curacy is required to destroy a city frontation, like the 1962 Cuban crisis,
with a 1-megaton warhead. But if it in which it would be our turn to blink.
could be rendered accurate enough to The likely locale of the confrontation is
dig a Minuteman missile out of its con- obvious-the Middle. I?ast: It is easy to
Crete silo, then it too would become a dismiss this possibility as ]mere Pentagon
direct threat to our strategic deterrent. propaganda. But it is also silly.
How about the enormous new boles? The intelligence analysts, including
The reader's guess may be as good as the Pentagons, have consistently un-
the specialists', for the specialists do dcrestimatcd the Soviet missile pro
not pretend to have llle. answer. These grain. As for the President, his political
huge holes could be foli hardened con.- . future may be at stake. If lie were- to
trot centers. Or they could be for some abandon hope for successful SALT
new kind of offensive strategic missile, talks and ask for very largo new appro-
perhaps filled with penetration aids to priations to regain nuclear parity with
blind the U.S. defense,, perhaps with an ? the Russians, lie might well be throwing
enormous warhead designed. to black - away his chance of re-election, in this
out the defense's radar and control sys- country's present mood.
So what would the President do? If
Nobody knows
tems
.
..
these circles, a very big hole, bigger After the expected tests, a lot more some of the gloomier analysts arc right,
than any missile silo ever built, has will be known, for the tests tell us al- what trill the President do?
Approved For Release 2001/03/04: CIA-RDP80 01601 R000300340066.3