THE MX STALL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000301900073-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 73
• Publication Date: February 27, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301900073-2
Rowland Evans
And Robert Novak
The
MX
Stall
The Reagan administration, to every-
one's surprise, is stalling a decision on
where to base the MX mobile missile in
a delay that pits the Pentagon against
the State Department and delights the
environmentalist lobby.
The delay over whether to base this
country's most vital new weapon.on land
or sea is fraught with potential dangers.
It raises the disturbing question of
whether President Reagan, who is totally
committed to rapid MX deployment, is
kept fully abreast on whether, and how
his desires are carried out by competing
bureaucratic power centers-
Ronald Reagan himself is partly to
blame for the latest procrastination over
where the United States should base the
10-warhead missiles desperately needed
to give the U.S. land-based system pro-
tection against possible Soviet' attack. i
Reagan pledged while campaigning in
Nevada and Utah . to. take a look at'
Jimmy Carter's decision to base the mo-
bile system there despite fierce environ-
mentalist opposition. - , :W
. But what should have been,-,,a pro
forma Pentagon review with a foregone
conclusion may be heating up into a.
major test. Favoring sea-based deplov-
men a position he espoused `while
deputy director of the CIA, is Deputy
De tense re ran ar ucci. De-
fense Secretary Caspar Weinberger pri-
vately warns that environmentalist law-
suits could conceivably tie up the Carter-
approved Nevada-Utah plan "for years."
But Weinberger says he has aniopen
mind on,basing and a public commit-
ment not to let the new study delay de-
ployment of the system, expected to
start in 1985.
THE WASHINGTON POST
27 February 1981
Why, then, has Weinberger told his I
panel of experts they have until "June or
July" to make their report? The ques-
tion is particularly relevant for another
reason: National security and budget of-
ficials in Reagan's White House are com-
mitted to Nevada-Utah basing. They
worry that another long delay in the
ever-receding "final" decision will do ex-
actly what Weinberger privately wams-
against: give environmentalists that
much. more time to mobilize for d' total
assault on the Nevada-Utah plan .! ` I
Secretary of State Alexander Haig is
quietly advancing a blockbuster ration-
ale of his own against what the Pentagon
calls "going to sea." If environmentalist
and other political pressures are allowed
to overturn the Nevada-Utah decision,
Haig predicts an irreversible torrent of
political reaction in Europe against mod-
ernizingNATO's land-based nuclear
systems ....:
Boiled down, that means environmen-
tally sensitized West Germans would
physically block the nuclear moderniza-
tion program agreed to by North 'Atlantic treaty states (NATO) in December
1979 if. the United States knuckled
under to political threats or legal suits by
its own environmental lobby.
European statesmen visiting here have
made this point hard to Haig. They rea-
son that any U.S. decision to "go to sea"
would be interpreted as a valid excuse
for Europeans to demand that NATO's
new nuclear weapons should also be
based on boats (which military special-
ists say would be impossible). When the
visiting Europeans warn Weinberger
that moving the MX to sea? would create
massive political problems for NATO, he
not only appears to be unimpressed but
at least on one occasion argued that: sea-
basing the MX might be the best de-
ployment in view of environmentalist
delays.
Yet President Reagan has a precedent
to ask Congress for a special exemption I
from lawsuits and other legal delaying:
actions now being planned by the envi-
ronmentalists (by no means confined to
Nevada and Utah). Congress gavel the;
Alaska pipeline project such an exemp-'
tion nearly five years ago. The project
,was built to specifications laid dovyp by I
the Environmental Protection Agency,
but it was immune from most spec-in-
terest lawsuits.
A Reagan request for similarbeat-
ment for the Nevada-Utah-based, :MVIX
would get quick attention; the national
security aspect is far graver in protecting
America's land-based missile system i
than in any oil shortfall.
Moreover, White House advisers. say
that the courts have been friendly to
Uncle Sam in rejecting environmentalist
lawsuits involving military work Federal
courts have been loath to grant injunc-
tive relief when government attorneys
stake their defense on grounds ofl na-
tional security. , , _' _
Accordingly, the preference o' Car-
lucci and other officials for a sea-based
system has little to do with environmen-
talists and much to do with arcane de-
bate over weapons strategies that was re-
solved last year by the Pentagon after
years of agonizing indecision. More''mde
cision is not needed at this point; which;
is why some White House aides hope:
Ronald Reagan will himself end the
cd elay forthwith.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301900073-2