REAGAN'S SALT MEASURE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000301890035-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 25, 2012
• Sequence Number: 35
• Publication Date: July 16, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301890035-6
A011^1E APPEARED
ON PAGE fli.
WASHINGTON POST
16 July 1986
,T Rowland Evans
And Robert Novak
Reagan's
SALT
Measure
When Ronald Reagan asked Francois Mit-
terrand to instruct Mikhail Gorbachev that
verification of SALT is the U.S. litmus test for
a new arms agreement, he set a higher stan-
dard that anti-SALT senators will soon con-
tend makes agreement nearly impossible.
The American president was talking about
not merely compliance, but verification. The
French president, who got the word during his
New York City visit, faithfully carried it to the
Soviet ruler in Moscow. There, Mitterrand
got no hints of any change in Soviet practices
that have repeatedly been labeled by Presi-
dent Reagan as violations of both SALT I and
SALT II. In fact, the Soviets will not permit
verification and the United States cannot veri-
fy, partly because of the recent space deba-
cles.
Whether or not the president fully realizes
that he has driven arms control into this cul de
sac, it will be pointed out to him on the Senate
floor. There an amendment will be introduced
to the defense bill, supporting Reagan's em-
phasis on verification as a condition of any new
U.S.-Soviet agreement.
That could lead, by Reagan's own condi-
tions, to the United States' exceeding SALT Il
ceilings later this year because the Soviets
continue to make U.S. verification Ai ,their
compliance impossible. In that event, bath the
1986 summit and a new arms deal look like
dead letters.
Congressional resolutions cannot bind the
president's freedom of action. Rather, the
Senate strategy is psychological: to demon-
strate to pro-SALT administration officials,
and to U.S. allies who are pressing for arms
control concessions, that Reagan's demand for
full verification of Soviet compliance with its
nuclear weapons agreements has not and will
not be satisfied in Moscow.
Soviet obstinacy is matched by U.S. techno-
logical decline. There have been recent dis-
turbing setbacks in American inspection capa-
bilities, starting with satellite-launching
problems. These setbacks are being exploited
by anti-SALT senators in an effort to thwart
new arms agreements that would cause even-
tual abandonment of Reagan's cherished Stra-
tegic Defense Initiative.
The satellite-launch crisis is worse than
even some administration officials realize.
While the agony of Challenges disintegration
convulsed the nation. lamely unnoticed lesser
failures have dammed this country's ability to
conduct "broad search" by reconnaissance
satellites.
In a letter last week to Kenneth Adelman,
director of the Arms Control and Disarma-
ment Agency, Sen. Jesse Helms and other
SALT foes asked this question: "To what
extent has the U.S. loss of the Space Shuttle
and several other launch vehicles and payloads
... created a crisis in U.S. capability for SALT
monitoring ... and verification?"
Behind this understated warning is harsh
reality. Knowledgeable administration officials
admit this difficulty more candidly. They say
privately that it took three or more years of
"broad search" over Siberia before the illegal
Krasnoyarsk radar was accidentally discovered
by satellite photography. The Krasnoyarsk com-
plex covers the area of seyeral football fields,
and contains one building that is 27 stories high.
"We have less satellite capability today than we
had in July 1983" (when Krasnoyarsk was first
photographed), one official told us.
Mobile missiles are seldom stockpiled any-
where near fixed silos of intercontinental mis-
siles. Thus, they can be found only through
random search by the dwindling number of
U.S. spy satellites.
There is reason to believe that the Soviets
are developing ways to "blind" spy satellites for
brief periods, using new jamming technology. If
so, verifying would become little more than
hit-or-miss. The Kremlin never has and never
will consider unlimited on-site inspection, by far
the most reliable verification tool.
U.S. officials say privately that the Soviets
are completing the construction of sheds up to
1,500 feet long to conceal nuclear weapons
coming off assembly lines and at missile-de-
ployment complexes. That eliminates a previ-
ous source of accurate information: loading
docks visible to the skies.
As Reagan demands verification, his negotiat-
ing partners in Moscow tighten their measures
to make it impossible and the United States
loses its ability to penetrate Soviet countermea-
sures. That is the message anti-SALT senators
want to send the country and its allies abroad.
They are hoping that the president, who estab-
lished the conditions and made them clear when
he asked his French colleague to deliver the
message, will not forget them.
01986, News America Syndicate
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301890035-6