MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD FROM L. K. WHITE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01284A001800090095-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 16, 2005
• Sequence Number: 95
• Publication Date: April 15, 1969
• Content Type: MFR

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15 April 1969
Morning Meeting of 15 April 1969
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The Director opened the meeting by introducing General Cushman
to each attendee.
*DD/I reported that Governor Rockefeller will depart 11 May on the
first of three scheduled visits to Latin America. In response to the
DD/I's question, the Director asked the DD/I to schedule appropriate
briefings for Governor Rockefeller via the usual State liaison channels.
Godfrey briefed on the North Korean shootdown last night of a
U. S. Navy EC-121 aircraft over the Sea of Japan. He noted that the
aircraft had apparently received three warnings, probably from
CINCPAC, and that a large rescue operation was under way.
Godfrey reported that Dubcek is going to Moscow today but will
return to Prague to attend Thursday's session of the plenum.
related that they are doing a review of NIE 11-13-69,
U. S. Intelligence Capabilities to Monitor Certain Limitations on
Soviet Strategic Weapons Programs. They are in receipt of a request
from General Thomas, Air Force ACSI to include some estimate of
our future collection capabilities.
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Carver noted that it was relatively quiet in Vietnam. In
response to the Director's question, Carver noted that he was some-
what surprised at the reported candor of General Giap in his conversa-
tion with Oriana Fallaci, particularly Giap's acknowledgement of
500, 000 Communist casualties.
Maury reported that the Ervin bill is scheduled for public hearings
on 24 April.
Maury raised the question of exploring what relevance if any
the loss of the EC-121 aircraft will have on 303 deliberations.
Houston briefed on the status of Richardson's suit against the
Treasury for failure to publish the receipts of expenditures of CIA. He
noted that this case was dismissed in the District court on grounds of
lack of standing to sue. This was confirmed by the Circuit Court of
Appeals on the grounds of lack of jurisdiction.
DD/P noted that C/WH will be on hand today to brief the 303 Com-
mittee on the two items pertaining to Latin America.
*The Director called attention to an 8 April memorandum from the
Under Secretaries Committee outlining procedures for crisis manage-
ment. He asked that the DD/I and the DD/P get together and examine
this guidance in terms of our own task force procedures.
The Director announced that the Executive Director will receive
the National Civil Service League Career Service Award on 13 June.
The Director suggested that those concerned read the John Finney
article in the 13 April New York Times.
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Goodwin called attention to the Mankiewicz/Braden article in
today's Washington Post and to the item on the Polish defector in
today's New York Times.
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 HE NEW YORK TIMES, TUES' PRIL 15. 196.9
Polish Journalist, an Ex-Consul, Asks U. S. Asylum
A Polish journalist, former-
consul in Chicago, yesterday
made known his decision to
seek asylum in the United
States after years of "doubts
about the basic validity of
The journalist, Zbigniew
Byrski, 55 years old has been
in New York.with his wife
on a six-month visitor's visa
since January. The Interna-
tional Rescue Committee, of
386 Park Avenue South, in-
tends to present his request
111 thorities today, according to
Charles Sternberg, executive
is director.
Mr. Byrski said he joined
and was assigned as vice
consul in Chicago and then.
before he returned to Poland
on vacation. He said he found
"
he had been "kicked out
for reasons that he did not
know.
He finally decided against
returning to Poland while on
Zbigniew Byrski at International Rescue Committee office
Czechoslovakia last August, might overcome a bureauc- rebels" and was openly anti-
he said, shattered an illusion racy that he said hated "in- Semitic:. Mr. Byrski's wife is
that "forces of liberalism" tellectuals as potential Jewish.'
Poland's participation in
the Soviet-led invasion of
 Frank Mankiewicz and Tom Braden
0
on Soviet Missile Won't Wash
EVEN SO reasonable a
man as Secretary of State
William Rogers has appar-
ently been taken in by the
Pentagon's hard-working
propagandists on the subject
of the SS-9, or Soviet "su-
permissile," as it is now
being called.
The belief of too many
Americans that "bigger is
better" is helpful to Secre-
tary of Defense Melvin
Laird and the generals in
the campaign to make the
SS-9 into a new and fright-
ening reason why we should
spend $6 billion to $7 billion
-for openers-on an ABM
system.
There is no doubt the SS-9
is big. Secretary Rogers, at
his recent press conference,
referred to it as a "25-mega-
ton missile." This is a far
higher estimate than that
made by the CIA, which es-
timates it to have a warhead
capacity of 5 megatons. But
there is no need to argue
the point of size. Probably,
the SS-9 has a bigger war-
head than anything the
United States now deploys
-and it is still far too small
to knock out more than one
ICBM site, of which we have
1054.
The fact is that the SS-9 is
not a first-strike weapon, no
matter how many grisly
(and already public) details
the Pentagon "declassifies."
It is not designed to destroy
the U.S. ICBM system and
cannot do so. It is, instead, a
large warhead designed to
destroy large "soft" targets,
such as cities. It is-in other
w o r d s -a second-strike
weapon, and that's all it is.
THUS, IT DOES not
change the balance of terror
in any way or give the Rus-
sians some huge and myste-
rious advantage which
should cause us to escalate
the arms race.
Secretary Laird and the
generals in the Pentagon
have chosen to ignore this
fact-for a very good rea-
son. The reason is that the
Safeguard ABM as proposed
by President Nixon is not in-
tended to protect large tar-
gets, such as cities. It is in-
tended to protect our ICBM
silos. And it is a tenable pro-
posal only if Congress and
the American people can be
persuaded that the Soviets
have a missile capable of de-
stroying these silos. The SS-
9, being large, meets the
needs of the argument so
long as the argument ig-
nores the facts.
The facts are these: In
order to threaten only the
U.S. land-based second-
strike capability, the Rus-
sians would have to build
2000 SS-9s, at a cost of $25
million each. Such a pro-
gram would give them a
minimal chance of destroy-
ing 1000 of our Minutemen,
built at a cost of $5 million
to $6 million each. There is
no evidence that they are
embarking on any such ri-
diculous course.
And if they did it would
still threaten neither our
substantial fleet of submar-
ine-borne missiles nor those
carried by U.S. strategic
bombers.
EVER SINCE mid-1968,
when details of the SS-9
were first made public in
the commercially published
"Jane's All the World's Air-
craft," it has been known to
be inferior to the U.S. Min-
uteman in both reliability
and launching time. Indeed,
it is most comparable to our
Titan I missile which we are
now in the process of dis-
carding as obsolete. To res-
urrect SS-9 now, as a reason
for starting an- ABM pro-
gram, seems very close to
downright deceit.
For far less money-say
about $2 billion-the United
States could "superharden"
all of its Minuteman sites.
Roughly speaking, a super-
hardened site is five times
as strong as a hardened site.
thus, in order to maintain
the same counterforce abil-
ity, the Russians would have
to do one of the following:
(1) increase the warhead
size of the SS-9 by a factor
of 11; or (2) double its accu-
racy.
Either of these is a far
bigger order than penetrat-
ing the "thickest" ABM sys-
tem.
In short, the much-trum-
peted SS-9 is not a break-
through in the balance of
terror. It is a weapon of
great horror-but of no
greater horror and some-
what less efficiency than
many of our own. It justifies
neither panic nor the ABM.
 Disarmament
?
Why Inspection May No Longer Be Critical for Arms Control
WASIDNGTON-For the past
decade every significant arms
control proposal has run afoul of
the issue of inspection, Now for
a fleeting moment, thanks to a
development nobody wants to
talk about, the two superpowers
may have a chance to reach some
arms control agreements without
the odious requirement of intru.
sive on-site inspections.
One of those rare concatena-
tions is happening where a polit-
ical Interest in limiting strategic
weapons is being reinforced by a
technical development permitting
such an agreement to be verified.
The development involves one
of the most remarkable and yet
unsung accomplishments of the
lites that can perform feats of in-
telligence beyond the capacity of
the best cloak-and-dagger spy.
More important in terms of arms
control agreements, these satel-
lites, from unseen altitudes of
100 miles or so? can substitute
In many ways for the on-site In-
spector.
The United States hinted at the
possibility of using reconnais-
sance satellites to monitor an
arms control agreement last week
at the Geneva disarmament con-
ference when it modified its. pro-
posal for a cutoff in the produc.
tion of fissionable materials for
atomic weapons. In the past, to
verify such an agreement,. the
United States had proposed that
there be inspection by the Inter-
national Atomic Energy Agency
of all the plutonium reactors,
uranium gaseous diffusion plants
and chemical separation centers
which the nuclear powers de-
clared were no longer producing
materials for weapons.
In addition, the United States
had proposed that each side have
the right of on-site inspection to
check on "undeclared" plants
that might still be in clandestine
production. It is this latter de-
mand that the United States
dropped: The reason, although It
was never explicitly stated, was.
that this country now can rely on
reconnaissance satellites to check
for clandestine plants.
The American proposal was
summarily rejected as really
nothing new by Aleksel N. Rosh.
chin, the Soviet delegate to the
conference. Furthermore, he ob-
jected that the proposal would
not contribute to the reduction
of existing atomic arsenals and
was "caused mainly by the over.
production of nuclear materials
designed for military uses in the
U.S.A."
' There was some merit In Mr.
Roshchin's objection. The United
States now has so many nuclear
warheads that it can cannibalize
obsolete weapons to obtain most
if not all the fissionable materials
it needs for new weapons. Thus
a cutoff in fissionable materials
production would not necessarily
lead to any significant reduction
in existing arsenals, although it
might place-some constraints on
the development of new'weapons
systems, such as a ballistic mis-
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site defense system with Its thou-
sands of warheads.
But in summarily rejecting the
proposal, the Soviet Union may
have overlooked Its underlying
significance. For all the acknowl-
edged one-upmanship in the pro-
posal, the United States also was
sending up a signal that it was
ready.to consider using "national
means of verification" to monitor
some types of arms control agree-
ments, such as a limitation on
strategic missiles.
"National means of verifica-
tion" is the euphemism used for
reconnaissance satellites. It is so
euphemistic that even disarma-
ment officials are under some
constraints In describing the new
opportunities for arms controls
that have been opened up by
these satellites.'
Thus, in the April issue of For.
eign Affairs, William C. Foster,
the former director of the United
States Arms Control and Disarm-
ament Agency, commented that
"our verification capabilities us-
ing 'national means' alone are
considerably greater than it has
been possible, so far, to reveal."
The reconnaissance . satellites
circle the earth on a regular basis,
sending back packets of film that
are routinely recovered by planes
over the Pacific. The method of
re-entry into the atmosphere is
similar to that for manned cap-
sules, A plane with a trapeze
device then catches the vehicle',
parachute shrouds.
The United States has never
officially acknowledged the exist-
ence of these satellites. There
have been some hints, however,
of their remarkable photographic
capacity.
Sen. George D. Aiken, a mem-
ber of the Joint Congressional'
Atomic Energy Committee, ob-
served last week that from, an
altitude of 50 miles a reconnais-
sance satellite could detect a
postage stamp. That may be
something of an exaggeration, but
not much. With little difficulty,
it could detect whether a table
cloth had been placed over a
'small picnic table.
In, recent weeks there have
been some hints from high Ad-
ministration officials on the kind
pf intelligence information that
can be obtained from these satel.
lites. Thus at his March 14 news
conference, President Nixon
noted that the Soviet Union has
deployed 67. ABMs around Mos-
cow. And then before Congres-
sional committees, Defense Sec.
? retry Melvin R. Laird disclosed
that. the Soviet Union has con,
strutted two shipyards for turn-
ing out atomic submarines.
This information undoubtedly
was obtained' from reconnais-
sance Satellites, and yet the Ad.
.ministration would never admit
that. Indeed, there was consider-
able private consternation when
the President used the exact fig-,
are of 67 ABMs--a figure that
had been treated until then as a
top secret to conceal the capaci-
ties ot.the satellites.
. . These satellites-can even deter-
mine to a large extent what the
Russians are doing behind closed
doors. It is possible to tell
whether a building houses a gase-
ous diffusion plant or anatomic
reactor, for example, by its size
and shape. i
Unless both the United States
and the Soviet Union seize Im-
mediately upon the opportunities
opened up .by reconnaissance
satellites, they' may miss the
chance for a strategic arms con-
trol agreement. In the not too
distant future, both sides are go-
Ing to begin mounting multiple
warheads on their interconti-
nental ballistic missiles and once
that happens the chance will have,
been lost for monitoring an agree
ment with reconnaissance satel-
lites because the satellites can
only detect the missile silo--not
the number of warheads on the
missile. Both sides then will have
been pushed back into the quag-
mire of on-site Inspections.
-JOHN W. FINNEY
~Y.