ATTACK ON SALT-2 IS NO LAUGHING MATTER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504730020-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 20
• Publication Date: June 4, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504730020-4
YORK DAILY NEWS
4 June 1986
Attack on SALT-2 is no laughing matter
By LARD--ERIK NELSON
W ASHINGTON-From one
White House official came a
startled giggle. From an in-
telligence official, there was a serious
"Hmmm, that's a good question." From
the Arms Control Agency, the answer,
after a day of thought, was "Nobody
knows the answer to that."
The question that produced this dis-
play of mumbles and grins: "Now that
President Reagan has thrown out the
SALT-2 treaty, what are we going to do
if the Russians start concealing their
nuclear missile deployments, covering
up submarines, spoofing our satellites,
hiding data from their missile tests?"
The Reagan administration re-
sponse: Giggles, "Hmmms" and an un-
easy shuffling of feet.
A more serious response from a
career State Department official: "If
the Russians cheat in the future, we
won't have any basis for complaint.
There is no standard any longer." Adds
a Senate expert: "If they start to con-
ceal their tests, we won't have any right
to call them on it."
In the past, if the Russians covered
up a nuclear missile silo or encrypted
data from a missile test, the United
States could challenge them at the
Standing Consultative Commission.
That forum wasn't perfect, but it did
clear up some U.S. misgivings about
possible Soviet cheating.
No longer will the Russians be
obliged to answer any questions about
their strategic nuclear force. By junk-
ing SALT-2, Reagan has taken them off
they hook.
looked in its lust to slay the "fatally
"
flawed
treaty, is that SALT-2 was two
treaties-a U.S.-Soviet intelligence
agreement, and a cap on nuclear
weapons.
As an intelligence treaty, SALT-2
maintain an "oven skies" policy for
Sophisticated U.S. satellites It forced
the 5ovlet military to less secretive
.1nan it prefers
Article 15 said, "Each party under.
takes not to use deliberate concealment
measures which impede verifica-
tion ..* of compliance with the provi.
sions of this treaty."
The ban on concealment apolled
fo e
-
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rner sai in C
a asymmetry in need"
-i.e we ne ert
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ore: W. Sdv=
Not any more. Where once we used
to complain that the Russians en-
crypted some of the telemetry (radio
data) from their missile tests, now they
are free to encrypt all of it. "We've
thrown out the baby with the bathwa.
ter," says former National Security
Council expert Roger Molander.
Reagan's SALT-2 decision has been a
triple play: It has antagonized the Euro-
pean allies, it has given the Russians
freedom to return, if they choose, to a
nuclear build-up in total secrecy-and it
has united Democrats on an arms-
control policy.
The first challenge to Reagan's deci-
sion will come next month-not from
the Russians, but from House Demo-
crats preparing legislation to bar him
from spending any money to violate the
limits on SALT-2.
Under the plan, engineered by Rep..
Les AuCoin (D-Ore.), Reagan would
have to abide by SALT-2 ceilings as
long as the Russians do. It is a strategy
that short-circuits the Constitution-but
it has worked before: Last December,
AuCoin used the power of the purse to
force the administration not to test
antisatellite weapons as long as the
Russians don't.
N EXT MONTH, House Democrats
will submit a bill to force
Reagan to dismantle Minuteman
missiles if he proceeds with his plan to
arm more B-52 bombers with cruise
missiles. Normally, such extra-Constitu-
tional diplomacy wouldn't have a
prayer. But the Democrats are conclud-
ing, in the words of one staffer, that
Reagan's tough-sounding policies "real-
ly don't protect this country's national
security."
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504730020-4