SALT-2 IS PACT WITH FLAWS, BUT . . .

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000200980003-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 22, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: June 9, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/22 : CIA-RDP90-00806R000200980003-9 STAT
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UN FAGE_ i O i
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
9 June 1985
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W ASHINGTON - When you
catch a dangerous criminal,
someone who has clearly
broken the law, you have the choice of
trying to punish him or reeducate him.
Both methods have the goal of halting
dangerous and criminal behavior.
In dealing with the Soviet Union,
President Reagan has been urged by his
civilian advisers in the Pentagon to take
a third route, the goofy approach: Let
the criminal go free-and abolish the
law.
The Soviet Union has been cheating
on SALT-2. The cheating has been
marginal-at the edges of the treaty-
rather than outright violation of the
central limits on the numbers of mis-
siles the Kremlin may deploy.
The Russians have encrypted radio
data from their missile tests, making it
harder for us to determine what they
are up to. This is a violation of SALT-2.
Even so, despite the forbidden encryp-
tion, we still have enough information
to know that they are testing more than
one new type of missile, which would
also be a violation of the treaty.
When such violations occur, we can
approach the Russians through a Stand-
ing Consultative Committee and ques-
tion them about their behavior. When
caught, they can either stop or explain
that it was not really a violation at
all-as has sometimes been the case.
But these marginal violations have
prom to a fense Secretary Cam
Weinberger and CIA Director
William Casey try to per-
suade Reagan to throw out the
entire SALT-2 a?reement-
iith its limits on Soviet mis-
siles. its resUil~n on Soviet
warheads its bans on conceal-
ment of test activity is
mec an sms for clarifying
confusion.
e have no law, they
say, than one the Kremlin
flouts. This is no doubt ideolo-
gically satisfying, but it does
not address the central ques-
tion: Is SALT-2, despite its
frayed edges, still in the na-
tional security interests of the United
States?
SALT-2, signed by Leonid Brezhnev
and Jimmy Carter in June 1979, was
never ratified by the Senate. Reagan
has called it fatally flawed. It has all
manner of defects-its missile limits are
too high, it does not restrain the quality
of the weapons, it raised false hopes
that it boded a new era of peace and
good feeling. But SALT-2-the collec-
tive, successive work of Henry Kissin-
ger and Cyrus Vance-is a clever docu-
ment. It was drawn up in such a way as
not to interfere with America's strategic
nuclear modernization plans,
while at the same time putting
a restraint on the Soviet Un-
ion. For all its faults, SALT-2
corrects a major shortcoming
in the Soviet political system:
It gives Soviet civilians a lever
they do not otherwise have
over the Soviet armed forces.
Under the constraints of
SALT-2, for example, . the
Soviet Union has destroyed
1,000 land-based ballistic mis-
siles as it deployed their re-
placements. It has not tried to
cram more than 10 warheads
on its heaviest missile, the
SS-18, which could carry as many as 30.
It. has not concealed its missile silos or
its submarine pens from our satellite
surveillance.
"They have not dug a new hole, not a
missile silo, in 13 years," says Thomas
Longstreth of the Arms Control
Association, which is defending the
treaty. "The Russians have a whole new
fifth generation of missiles ready to go.
The same administration that has been
telling us that the Soviet threat is
growing relentlessly is now arguing
that, even without SALT-2, the Soviets
are going to stop. That's absurd."
Even more absurd is the attempt to
take all limits off the Soviet missile
force at precisely the time the U.S. has
announced it is embarking on Star
Wars, a strategic shield against Soviet
missiles. Lifting the SALT-2 limits in-
vites the Russians to build enough
missiles to overwhelm whatever de-
fense we may devise.
Reagan faces a decision now because
the U.S. is about to deploy a Trident
submarine, the Alaska, that would place
us over the limit of 1,200 multiple-
warhead nuclear missiles. He can honor
the treaty by retiring 14 existing mis-
siles-either on a Poseidon submarine
or in Minuteman silos. Or he can
announce that he is abandoning the
treaty. Or he can steer some gray-area
middle course.
B UT BOTH THE latter choices,
abandonment or compromise,
undermine the very law we want
the Russians to obey. Both give them
the excuse to continue their cheating,
and both deny us the right to demand
compliance. Neither makes us any
safer.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/22 : CIA-RDP90-00806R000200980003-9