CORRECTION: IN A RECENT COLUMN I QUOTED A CIA DOCUMENT THAT APPRAISED THE ACCURACY OF THE SOVIETS' SS20 MISSILE AT .02 NAUTICAL MILES, OR 122 FEET.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150093-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 29, 2012
• Sequence Number: 93
• Publication Date: June 5, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT /
I Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/29: CIA-RDP9O-00965ROO0100150093-6
APPEARED
ON PAGE j -___
THE WASHINGTON POST
5 qune 1982
Correction: In a recent column I
quoted a CIA document that ap-
praised the accuracy of the Soviets'
SS20 missile at.02 nautical miles, or
122 feet. Actually, the SS20's accu-
racy is .2 of a nautical mile, or 1,215
feet. With a nuclear warhead, that's
scant comfort.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/29: CIA-RDP9O-00965ROO0100150093-6
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/29: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150093-6
,I
ON F,
THE WASHINGTON POST
1 April 1982
Missiles `Freeze'
Is Brezhnev's
April Fool Joke
To be fitting, Leonid Brezhnev
should have waited until today to an-
nounce his missile "freeze." It would
have been a grim April Fool joke.
Top-secret documents make it
clear that the Soviet boss is playing a
deadly shell game with his nuclear
missiles. And it could well be a game
of winner-take-alL
Brezhnev's offer to halt deploy.
ment of his SS20 medium-range rock-
ets in the western Soviet Union was
an empty gesture. Not only would it
lock NATO into a dangerous disad-
vantage (if the West agreed not to
deploy 572 additional nuclear systems
starting next year), but the Soviets
were giving away nothing.. Brezhnev
was offering to stop at the 300-missile
level-but that's the number the So-
viets had always planned to stop at.
With 300 missiles to secure his Eu-
ropean flank, Brezhnev could easily
afford not to deploy future SS20 mis-
siles west of the Urals. In fact, intel-
ligence sources told my associate Dale
Van Atta there's a harrowing possi-
bility that the purported "pullback" of
SS20s would give the Kremlin many
more missiles capable of reaching the
United States.
Here's why:
By attaching a third-stage rocket,
the Russians' two-stage, intermediate.
range SS20 becomes a full-fledged
SS16 intercontinental ballistic missile
that can hit targets in North America .
And adding the 10-foot third-stage
component to an SS20 is a relatively
simple process.
The Soviets' SS16 ICBM is a fear-
some weapon that has been developed
and tested in extraordinary secrecy
since at least 1973. According to top-
secret CIA reports, the Russians went
to elaborate lengths to keep the
SS16's performance from being mon-
itored by Western intelligence agen-
cies. The precautions included "the
use of canvas and camouflage netting
at test ranges, test-firing only at
night, and building roofs over rail sid-
ings at a production plant"-all de-
signed to thwart U.S. spy satellites.
Despite these measures, the CIA
was able to gather information on the
super-secret SS16. The agency
counted a total of 32 test firings, and
detected five failures. The final
launches were made by soldiers dur-
ing troop exercises, which indicated
that the ICBM was about ready for
deployment.
Toward the end of their- series of
SS16 tests, the Soviets began regular
tests of its precocious "kid brother,"
the SS20. The CIA discovered a scary
thing: both missiles use the same
basic elements and the same'niobile
truck launchers. As a result, the CIA
report said, "it may not be possible to
determine which missile a support
base contains." The only way to tell
for sure is to check 'the missile's .per-
formance after launching.
The SS20 is a'sWer smart:missile.
It has, according to the CIA,="w ac-
curacy of about .02 nautical m'iles~if a
-pre-surveyed launch position- Is used.".
That's less than half the length of. a
football field.
Not only that, but the SSSO is fully
mobile; it's fired from the same truck
that carries it around. It ? `cair be
launched within 30 seconds if if is at
its highest state of readines8," the CIA
reported, adding: "Otherwise, about
20 to 30 minutes are - required
And a new missile' cari be
launched within a few - seconds if
major re-aiming isn't needed. _
That's the SS20, the missile ar-
rayed against our Western' European
allies. Brezhnev has offered, not to
deploy more than the 300 already in
place-if no new U.S. missile" are
sent to Europe.
What many Europeans fail to un-
derstand, though, is that each . SS20
can be converted into a .long-range
missile. Realizing this, U.S. -negotia-
tors at the SALT II talks got the Rus-
sians to agree not to produce- the
third-stage "conversion kit" for its
SS20s. That concession, of .course, is
now inoperative. . _ ,
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/29: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150093-6