TWO VIEWS ON SALT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000400380039-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 8, 2004
• Sequence Number: 39
• Publication Date: May 21, 1979
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

.AR T I GLL'A
ON PAGE
Release 2010501}i1.2 : CIA-RDP88-01315
21. May 1979
The debateoverSALTIIi.sbeingled by two
former government officials with wide expe-
rience in defense and arms control. Paul
,Niue, 72, :; a former Secretary of the Navy
and an outspoken opponent of the accord.
Paul Warnke, 59, was, until recently, Presi-
dent Carter's chief arms-control negotiator
and vigorouslydefendr the treaty he helped to
draft. The two men were interviewed sepa-
rately in Washington last week by NEWS-
wrF K's John J. Lindsay. Excerpts:
LINDSAY: How does SAL T I! help or hurt
our national security?
NITZE: There are two questions involved.
Wirnke: 'Without
ZSAL7, There would
be ay premium on
sir kon9 first'
The first one is whether ... the ceilings in
SALT II are too high. I believe they are
much too high and that the SALT II treaty
has really very little to do with arms con-
trol. The second question is whether... the
provisions of the treaty are equal as between
the two sides. They are not equal. One
should also take into account the relative
size of warheads. Soviet warheads on some
of their SS-l 8s have 625 times the yield of
warheads on our Poseidon missiles.
But that isn't the main point. The main
point is the question of accuracy and reli-
ability coupled with size. The Soviet Un-
ion's capability will increase tenfold by the
end of the treaty and will be substantially
greater than that of the U.S. This is the
thing that is really worrisome.
WARNKE: I think you have to recognize.
that security in the sense of safety from
ity ... The real problem in the absence of
SALT 11 is that you may end up with
technological breakthroughs that would, in
fact, threaten the ability of the other side to
retaliate. That would eliminate the deter-
rent; it would mean that as a consequence,
in a time of crisis, a premium would be put
on striking first.
Q. What changes would you like to see
made in the treaty?
NITZE: The thing that really should have
been limited-should have been banned-
is the modern, large ballistic missiles ...
The Soviets are building some 300 very
large missiles with seven times the power of
our Minuteman II, our largest MIRVed
missile. As the treaty has worked out, the
Soviet Union is permitted 300 of them. We
arepermitted none. I think the treaty would
be improved if it provided that both sides
were entitled to the same number and that
the number were as close to zero as the
Soviet Union would accept.
I think the treaty will prevent our doing
what is necessary to defend ourselves
against those modern, large ballistic mis-
siles. That is, to deploy our Minutemen in a
new basing mode. This is sometimes called
"the shell game." In essence, what it pro-
vides is a large number of fixed ICBM silos
for each one of our missiles. I believe the
treaty's language now prohibits the deploy-
ment of fixed ICBM silos. The Serrate should
see to it that the executive branch clarifies
this point [so that] we could, under the
treaty, deploy our ICBM's in that way.
WARNKE: The treaty is more than ade-
quate at the present time. Now certain
changes can obviously be made if the Senate
were to insist on relaxation of some of the
controls, so that both we and the Soviets
would be able to go ahead with more
systems. I'm sure the Soviets would accept
that weakening of the treaty. But I doubt
that is what the senators would like to do.
Q. Would the Soviet Union accept any
change mandated by the Senate?
NITZE: I'm not sure that they would [ac-
cept my proposal on large MIRV's]. But I
see nothing unfair in their accepting it.
WARNKE: Well, it depends on what the
senators do. If they try and get the Soviets,
to make further concessions, in addition to
those they have already made, I think they
will find that they've got a dry well. The
Soviets have been pushed as far as they are
going to be pushed. The major moves have
been made by the Soviets toward the
American positions consistently over the
years of the SALT II negotiations.
Q. The SALT /I treaty does not provide
for on-site verification. In view of U.S.
Ironically, should on-site inspection be
added to the treaty?
NITZE: On-site inspection would not be
very effective ... You could have some-
body looking at a missile, and unless he had
a screwdriver and could take the missile
apart, he could not know how many war-
heads there were. And even if he were given
the opportunity to take it apart and count
the re-entry vehicles, lie couldn't be sure
that six hours later they hadn't unscrewed
that warhead and put a different one on. 11
WARNKE: On-site inspection would he of
no use in the SALT II treaty.
Q. If the Senate rejects SALT II, what
act on detente between the
will be the im
p
U.S. and the Soviet Union?
> ttze 1 oviet
capacity will
increase tenf'old'
by the treaty's end'
NITZE: The Soviet leaders respect people
of strength of character, wisdom and
strength ... I do not believe that the way to
improve one's relations with the Soviets is
to enter into arrangements that are one-
sided in their favor.
WARNKE: Obviously the Soviets would
figure that we had [turned] away from any
attempt at accommodation. After all, they
have been negotiating now with three presi-
dents-two Republican, one Democratic-
overa period of almost ten years. If at theend
of that negotiating process there is disap-
proval of the treaty, they'd be bound to won-
der just what American foreign policy was.
Q. If SALT /1 is rejected, how will the
arms race---and efforts to control it- -be
affected?
NITZE: I think the probability is that the
nuclear war depends ~i~~(~l el~ ~k ~i~r~~if7 Ark r iS8t~91395~ ftb4V6- 3g am-and particularly
CONTINUE
 Approved For Rlelp~~fi40/Qt1/d1LlFQ13158000400380039-8
nuclear weapons-will he about the same
whether SALT 11 is ratified or not.
If we go forward with a program to
reverse current trends, I would think that
after the Soviets are persuaded that we can
and will effectively deny them strategic
nuclear superiority. we can anticipate the
eventual renewal of SALT negotiations on
quite a different basis. One could seek
parity and provisions that would, in fact,
reduce the risk of nuclear war and which
would decrease crisis and instability.
WARNKE: The Soviets would. go ahead
with their present program, which would
mean a whole fifth generation of ICBM's.
Conservative estimates are that they would
increase their total number of strategic
nuclear-delivery vehicles from the present
2,550 to some 3,000. We have slightly more.
than 2,000. So as a consequence, we'd be
faced with a 50 per cent disparity.
With regard to their large ICBM's, they
could load them up with more and more
warheads, which would increase our con-
cerns about thesurvivability ofour lCB.M's.
Also, without SALT, they'd be free to
conceal; they'd be free to interfere with our 1
national technical means of verification.
We'd have to guess what they were doing;
they'd have to guess what we were doing.
We'd both guess high, and the arms race
would be in for further escalation.
And without the successful completion
of SALT, you couldn't move ahead with
any of the other arms-control negotiations.
Q. Should Soviet behavior in places like
Africa or its behavior on human rights be
"linked" to the SALT treaty?
TZE: What the Soviet Union has done in
Africa, the Middle East, Asia, over the last
five years [has] hardly been favorable to our
side. [But] at the signing of SALT I, Presi-
dent Nixon attempted to get Leonid I3rezh-
nev to agree that we would go beyond the
words of the treaty and try to implement
the "spirit of the treaty" as well. The
Soviets didn't understand what "spirit of
the treaty" meant; they had negotiated
hard for individual provisions and we
should not count on them to do anything
other than abide by the strict terms of the
treaty. Frankly, I don't disagree with that
viewpoint.
WARNKE: I think that the fallacy of the ;
direct-linkage argument can be seen when
you look at the significance of the SALT
treaty. We certainly would not give them
any concessions in SALT to bribe them into
being good someplace else. And we can't
take SALT away from them as punishment
for their behavior, because it is not a favor
we are doing for them. It is a favor we are
doing for ourselves, for our own security.
The purpose of arms control is to try to
diminish the risk of the inevitable competi-
tion that will continue between two coun-
tries that have so many differences.
Approved For Release 2005/01/12 : CIA-RDP88-01315R000400380039-8