SOVIETS WARY OF RELAXING SCIENTIFIC CONTROLS FOR 'STAR WARS'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302330081-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 10, 2012
• Sequence Number: 81
• Publication Date: May 21, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302330081-5 STAT
WASHINGTON TIMES
21 May 1935
Soviets wary of relaxing scientific
controls for `star wars' I
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Soviet Union fears that com
peting with the United States in;
space-based missile defense could
unleash a new wave of internal oppo-'
sition since the research would,
require relaxing controls over the
Soviet scientific community, accord
ing to Vladimir Bukovsky, a leading;
Soviet exile.
Mr. Bukovsky, a doctoral candi-
date at Stanford University, last
week addressed a meeting of the
Andrei Saltllarov Institute, named
after the Soviet physicist who was
banished taa rembte city in 1980 for
his criticism of Soviet policy. Mr.
Bukovsky also directs a Paris-based
international movement of anti-
communist forces called Resistance
International.
Before being traded into exile for
a Chilean communist party official
in 1976, Mr. Bukovsky, 43, spent 11
years in Soviet pi.sons and prison-
psychiatric faciliti ?s for speaking
out in defetise of human rights.
In an interview Mr. Bukovsky also
said he believes the Soviet Union will
release Mr. Sakharov sometime soon
as part of an effort to improve rela-
tions with the West.
"I believe that if the Soviets are
really seeking improved relations
with the West, particularly in light of
their poor economic condition, they
have to realize that Sakharov's case
must be solved," Mr. Bukovsky said.
In addition to Mr. Sakharov, he
believes the Soviets will release
human rights activist Anatoli
Scharansky and will loosen
restrictions on Jewish emigration.
The subject of Soviet human
rights abuses and emigration
restrictions is expected to be dis-
cussed this week in Moscow during
high-level trade talks between a U.S.
delegation headed by Commerce
Secretary Malcom Baldrige.
Asked about Soviet opposition to
U.S. space defense research '.%Lr:
Bukovsky said the Sep icts regard
strategic detense as a serious prob-
lem because of the expense involved
in keeping pace technologically with
the United States.
"It is not only expensive - there's
another side to it," he said. "If [the
Soviets] have to go into full scale
development, it will require high
technology which the Soviet Union
does not have, and they will have to
give more academic liberty to the
scientific community," Mr.
Bukovsky said.
Such free-wheeling activity could
possibly lead, he suggested, to
greater political activity as well. In
addition, it might well result in the
promotion of scientists based on
"professional merit and not accord-
ing to their loyalty to the Communist
Party," Mr. Bukovsky said.
"And that's what they hate to do
because, as the result of similar pro=
grams with nuclear weapons, they
ended up with people like Sakharov
and [critic and nuclear physicist
Pyotr] Kapitsa who they were forced
to tolerate," Mr. Bukovsky said.
Mr. Bukovsky believes the Sovi-
ets' main purpose in engaging the
United States in arms control nego-
tiations is to force a slowdown or
postponement of the Strategic
Defense Initiative, or 'star wars'
missile defense.
"If the Soviets fail to do that, then
there is very little ground for any
agreement and very little interest in
continuing negotiations.:' he said.
On the subject of Soviet arms con-
trol violations, Mr. Bukovsky stated
that the Soviets have violated every
written agreement they ever signed.
He said they believe agreements
exist in order to cover secret Soviet
programs and to "calm down the
opposition."
"They never believed in any writ-
ten agreements with 'capitalist'
countries," Mr. Bukovsky said.
"They cite Lenin who said, 'We
deceive and have to deceive cap-
italist countries under our own
morality - proletarian morality."
He said the Soviets always use two
standards in measuring the value of
negotiations with the West. One is
how much they can benefit by
deceiving the other side and the
other is the propaganda value of the
negotiations.
On his life in the West, Mr.
Bukovsky has written a best-selling
book, published in Europe, called
"That Piercing Pain of Freedom:'
The book, as yet unpublished in the
United States, criticizes socialist
ideas and compares socialism and
communism. It suggests that totali-
tarianism today is a serious threat
because its roots lie within individu-
als.
The book, he said, discusses the
question of freedom and totalitar-
ianism.
"The question that is always inter-
esting for us Russians is 'Is there
something wrong with us that we
have this system or it is a problem
common to all humanity?'" Mr.
Bukovsky said.
After pondering the question, Mr.
Bukovsky concluded that the threat
of societies adopting totalitarianism
is "common to the human 'spirit.
"The possibility of
totalitiarianism is an ingredient of
the human character, and if you ever
have the misfortune of having it, you
will have it," he said.
The real threat of totalitarianism
is not just a Soviet threat, he says,
but is an internal threat'- "one of
the temptations that always exists in
the human mind - that's why it's so
dangerous."
He called these dual potentials a
mixed blessing.
"It's good because it means that
one day you will be free; it's bad
because it means one day you might
become as bad as the communist
system:' he said.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302330081-5