(UNTITLED)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000600410027-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 14, 2005
• Sequence Number: 27
• Publication Date: May 16, 1985
• Content Type: PREL

Approved For Release 2005/12/14: CIA-RDP91-0
REUTERS
16 May 1985
By CHARLES ALDINGER
WASHINGTON
With superpower arms nce5sions to Moscow on his to resume on My 30, President Regan is
being pressed to offer co
plan in order to spur cuts in offensive nuclear arsenals.
In congressional hearings, public meetings and interviews with Reuters,
former senior U.S. officials have called on Reagan to seek a breakthrough in the
Geneva talks, possibly a ban on "Star Wars" tests outside the laboratory and a
U.S. pledge in writing not to deploy a defense system unilaterally.
The president also is being advised by former officials and current members
of Congress to keep a cap on the arms race by adhering to current limits on
nuclear weapons set by the 1979 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II).
Washington and Moscow blame each other for the lack of progress in the
opening round of talks this spring, and the White House has denied Soviet
charges that U.S. negotiators headed by Max kampelman would not even discuss
Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), commonly called "Star Wars."
The Pentagon is pouring billions of dollars into research on space-based
lasers and other weapons to shoot down attacking nuclear warheads. But Soviet
leaders have given top priority to banning defensive systems before they will
agree. to offensive arms cuts.
Suggesting the administration should accept such a deal for reductions in
nuclear arms, former Central Intelligence. Agency director Stansfield
Turner asked a symposium on the military strength of the superpowers this month:.
"Why not go back there (Geneva) and get something for nothing?
"We should keep an SDI research program going but we're a long, long way from
any SDI defense," he said.. "The Soviet Union will not cut missiles while the
prospect exists that we can suddenly make their missiles less effective."
Former chief U.S. strategic arms negotiators Paul Warnke and Gerard Smith
told Reuters that the Soviet Union would not reduce its nuclear force unless it
got more than statements from the Reagan administration that the Soviet
offensive nuclear deterrence would not suddenly be neutralized.
"The possibilities of a deal are there," said Warnke,. the chief U.S.
negotiator on SALT II.?"We would have to give them something on Star Wars first.
I think it should be a'ban on anti-satellite testing (ASAT)."
Warnke said such a deal would help alleviate.Sovietfearss abouttlSDI because
"no matter how you cut it, when you test weapons that destroy sliv
are at the same time improving the technology for "SDI is not.going to take warheads out of the Soviet
we can deploy SDI, they will simply scrap the each on their 308 SS-18 missiles." The SS-185 now carry 1O warheads each.
Approved For Release 2005/12/14: CIA-RDP91-00901R000600410027-1
 Approved For Release 2005/12/14: CIA-RDP91-00901R000600410027-1
But WarnkE said an offer for an ASAT ban might get the Kremlin to dismantle
all of the SS-18s, its largest missile.
"I think that as long as we are going full throttle to render Soviet missiles
impotent and obselete, they will not agree to reduce their numbers to make our
task easier," said Smith, who was chief. negotiator of the 1972 SALT I agreement.
never to
Smith told Reuters the United States should akeia a so first.
deploy a Star Wars system unless the Soviet
Reagan has said the United States will notsErophitsf"Star Wars" research,
charging that the Soviet Union has a major way
nuclear missile defense.
Warnke said he believed the top U.S. military officers on the Joint Chiefs of
Staff would press Reagan not to break SALT i missile limits when the nuclear
submarine Alaska with 24 multiple-warhead missiles undergoes sea trials this
year.
Reagan must decide then-whether to retire an older missile submarine or some
Minuteman land-based missiles or violate the 1,200-missile limit in SALT II,
which both sides have pledged not to undercut even though Washington refused to
ratify it.
"It is pretty obvious that if we break out of SALT, the Soviet Union, which
has 80 per cent of its missile force on land, can mount a lot more warheads,"
Warnke said.
Four U.S. senators wrote Reagan on May 13 that violating SALT II would end
superpower restraint on nuclear deployments, "cast a pall over the arms talks in
Geneva (and) seriously damage important U.S. foreign policy interests."
Republicans John Chafee of Rhode Island and John Heinz of Pennsylvania and
Democrats Dale Bumpers of Arkansas and Patrick Leahy of Vermont were responding
to feagan's charge on May 10 that there was considerable evidence the Soviet
Union had violated SALT II.
If that was the case, Reagan said, "there is no need for us to continue to
honor it."
The Washington Post reported this week that the administration might put an
older Poseidon nuclear missile submarine in drydock rather than dismantling it
when the new Trident submarine is launched late,this year.
It quoted arms experts that this would be a "gray area" effort to avoid
direct violation of SALT II.
Approved For Release 2005/12/14: CIA-RDP91-00901R000600410027-1