U.S. IS CHALLENGED ON SOVIET RADAR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302240032-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 26, 2012
• Sequence Number: 32
• Publication Date: March 15, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302240032-9
REW YORK TIMES po??
tr
U.S. IS CHALLENGED
ON SOVIET RADAR
Some Experts Said to Accept
Moscow's Explanation for
Goals of New Station
Ily LESLIE H. GELB
Special to The New York Times
? WASHINGTON, March 14 ? Reagan
Administration charges that a Soviet
radar system violates the treaty limit.
Ira antiballistic missile systems are
tieing questioned by British and Amer-
ican intelligence exyerts, according to
Administration othciais.
These intelligence officials are said
to be saying that Moscow's explanation
for thcradart now under construction
at Krasnarsk in central Siberia, can-
not be ruled out. The itussians have
said that the radar is for space tracking
and is allowable under the treaty.
? Nonetheless, officials said the pre-
vailing view in the Administration re-
mains that the radar, which American
? officials say is to be completed in two
or three years, constitutes a treaty
violation.
They added that the American dele-
gation to the arms control talks in
Geneva has been instructed to make a
central issue of this and other pur;1.
ported Soviet violations, both because (
of the importance of the purported
violations to the integrity of arms con-
trol and at a counter to what the Ad-
ministration calls Moscow's propa-
ganda attacks against President Rea-
gan's program on space-based de- I
tenses.
American Experts' Opinions
15 March, 1985
. -
The sides further agreed That early
warning radars could be placed only in
a nation's peripheral areas and only
with the antennas facing out. Deployed
Inland, such radars could become the
basis of a territorial defense system if
they were used to track incoming war-
heads and guide missiles to destroy
them.
Only space-tracking radars and
radars used to monitor arms control
treaties may be located anywhere.
These radars do not face at the angle of
Incoming warheads and so cannot be
used to track them. Moscow insists
those are the purposes of the Kras-
noyarsk radar.
The Reagan Administration's con-
tention is that this radar is an early
warning radar and that its location.
about 500 miles from the Mongolian
border, violates the treaty. ?
British officials were said to have
asked for intelligence data on this mat-
ter several months ago and to have sub-
mitted a preliminary report on the
radar at the end of January. Adminis-
tration officials said that the British re-
port called the battle management'
charge "unlikely" and the Russian con-'
tention that the radar was for space-
tracking purposes "plausible."
The corn ? lica factor to Ole n
ish ts . ? some Am can is
gence experts t one YU can
Kenneth L. Adelman, Director of the
Arms Control and Disarmament Agen-
cy, said in an interview that senior offi-
cials in different departments and
agencies were "unanimous" in believ-
ing the Krasnoyarsk radar to be a
violation, but that there were some dif-
ferences of opinion among experts over
whether the radar was also designed
for "battle management." ?
Use of the radar for battle manage-
meat or to direct missiles to shoot down
Incoming missile warheads is gen-
erally seen as more ominous than an
? illegally placed early warning radar.
Under the 1972 treaty on antiballistic
tnissile systems, Washington and Mos-
cow agreed to restrict themselves to no
more than one missile defense site with
no more than 100 antimissile missiles
?
at that site.
' The purpose of the treaty was to - ?
sharply limit defenses against missile
? attacks so that a side contemplating an
? . attack would have no defense against a,
retaliatory blow. Thus, mutual deter,
rem was said to have been assured:-
eral
es. These expe.rts
noted That one of the Americaiiirarly
warning systems, known as Pave
Paws, also is used for tracking objects
In space.
, These analysts and experts are also
said to argue that from what is known
of future plans for orbiting Russian
satellites the location and direction of
the Krasnoyarsk radar might be useful
for space tracking.
But even these British and American
officials are said to believe that the
most likely explanation is that the
radar is for early warning purposes,
and is being built at Krasnoyarsk
rather than on the nation's periphery
for reason of topography.
According to several Administration
analysts, the only area of the Soviet
Union that was not covered by early
warning radar was in the northern Pa-
cific region. They said that a number of
years ago Moscow built two radar sta-
tions on the periphery in the tundra fac-
ing in that direction, but that given the
nature of the tundra, the stations could
not be maintained.
Angle of Antennas
?
"So what they tried to do," said one
Administration expert, "was to build
the radar inland near the trans-Sibe-
rian railway where they could- main-
tain it and hope they could pass it off as
a space-tracker."
The consensus among senior Admin.
istration canals, including Mr. Adel-
man, however. is that the decision to
place the radar in Krasnoyarsk is more
probably an attempt to lay the basis for
a Russian "breakout," as they call it, a
major step toward a general territorial
defense system.
They say that an early warning sys-
tem in that location makes little sense
since Moscow would be losing about 6
minutes of warning time, because of
the station's location inland, out of a
total warning time of about 22 minutes
for a submarine-launched ballistic mis-
sile.
These senior officials also contend
that the antennas are aimed at the
angle for incoming ballistic missile
warheads. The skeptich say the angle is
mostly toward the horizon and ? thus
consistent with an early warning (unc-
tion.
The senior officials acknowledge that
there are no interceptor missiles
nearby for the Krasnoyarsk radar to
manage and control against incoming
warheads. But they say the radar could
"hand off" information to other such
radars near interceptors in the future.
- The skeptics argue that the radar is
not "hardened," that is, defended and
protected against a missile attack. The
Administration position is that these
elements could be added later. ?
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302240032-9