January 16, 1973
Page 1233
ARMS CONTROL
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the entire world was greatly encouraged last year by the first success of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks – SALT – the ABM Treaty and the Interim Agreement on Offensive Weapons. Most of us have always known that the United States and the Soviet Union have a common enemy – the costly and dangerous arms race. Accordingly, we have sought to preserve a situation of mutual deterrence which guarantees our security while checking an arms race. Such arms control efforts consistent with our national security merit bipartisan Congressional support as well as the solid backing of the American people.
When President Nixon returned from Moscow last May with a signed arms control agreement, therefore, I publicly saluted his efforts and subsequently voted for the SALT accords in the Senate. I believed that the agreements, by limiting each side to two ABM sites and placing numerical restrictions on offensive weapons, would result in considerable dollar savings for this country while stabilizing the strategic arms competition between the United States and U.S.S.R.
In sum, the superpowers seem to have indicated their intent to reduce the risk of nuclear holocaust and, in the words of the May 29 joint American-Soviet communique, "to contribute to the relaxation of international tension and the strengthening of confidence between states."
Since last May's accord, I have begun to doubt the Nixon administration's continuing commitment to arms control. These doubts were first raised when, in the wake of the signing of the SALT I agreement, Secretary of Defense Laird told the Congress that as a result of SALT I, the United States had to increase defense spending on offensive weapons, not reduce it. At the time, Secretary Laird said that it was imperative that we step up our spending for weapons systems not covered by the agreement. The double-think logic of the bargaining chip theory had evidently produced an arms control agreement that would serve to accelerate the arms race – not limit it.
In recent weeks, serious new doubts have been raised in my mind concerning the Nixon administration's commitment to curtail the arms race during its second term of office. First, there is the reported budgetary request by the Pentagon for fiscal year 1974 to put MIRV warheads on all 1,000 of our land-based Minuteman missiles. I certainly hope the White House will reject this request if the reports are true.
In 1970 when the administration was arguing for the initial deployment of a MIRV system, it was asserted that Soviet deployment of MIRV's was "imminent." At the time, I said that this was nonsense, an assertion subsequently borne out by fact. The simple truth is that we do not yet have any evidence that the Soviets have even tested, let along developed, a true MIRV capability.
I feel today just as I did in 1970 about land-based MIRV's – further deployments are unnecessary and potentially destabilizing. Moreover, further large scale deployments at this time might be harmful to prospects for further progress at SALT.
There is further reason to be concerned about the Nixon administration's continuing commitment to arms control. Last November, the United States participated in the first round of SALT II talks in an uninspired and undirected manner. The quality of our participation – or rather nonparticipation – is lamentable. To be sure, it will not be easy to achieve a quick agreement on the complex problems that remain unsolved following SALT I. However, this does not reduce the importance of devoting the strongest possible efforts to solving those problems. As a result of our foot-dragging, there was precious little serious interchange between the American and Soviet negotiators in Geneva concerning limitations on MIRV's or anything else. Regrettably, the only concrete achievement to come out of SALT II thus far has been the creation of a four-man consultative commission to supervise past and future strategic arms agreements, a development called for in the SALT I accords.
A third disturbing sign is the Nixon administration's alleged decision to reduce the budget of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency – ACDA – by one-third during the next fiscal year.
Such a budget reduction can only reduce the agency's effectiveness and importance. The United States can hardly afford such a development, particularly with SALT II, Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions – MBFR – the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and other urgent arms control matters on the agenda.
A fourth and related reason for concern may be the recent resignation of Ambassador Gerard Smith as Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and as our chief negotiator at SALT. A capable and effective public servant, Ambassador Smith was firmly committed to the cause of arms control and was an articulate advocate of this cause at SALT and in Washington.
Some observers have suggested that his resignation as our chief arms control spokesman could be the result of policy disagreements with the White House or a possible indication that the military establishment is ascendant within the executive. I certainly hope that these suggestions are not true.
Finally, I am troubled by the administration's plan to separate the SALT delegation from the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. During Ambassador Smith's tenure as our chief SALT negotiator, he simultaneously served as Director of ACDA. Now, the administration plans to have one person lead the U.S. delegation at SALT and another head the Arms Control Agency.
This is an unfortunate and undesirable downgrading of ACDA which is likely to hamper the effectiveness of our SALT effort and make it more difficult for our SALT negotiating team to buck Pentagon pressures.
All of these developments are troubling me. We need an energetic and continuing effort on the part of the administration to curtail the arms race. SALT I was a good beginning – but it was only a beginning. We need to cut back military spending, not increase it. We need to limit strategic arms deployment, not expand it. We need to build up ACDA, not emasculate its budget. We need to give our SALT negotiators more authority and support, not less. In short, we need to build on SALT I for long-range arms reduction – and not use it simply as a rationale for complacency.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that certain recent newspaper articles relating to my remarks be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[From the New York Times, Jan. 5, 1973]
ALEXIS JOHNSON IS EXPECTED To REPLACE SMITH AS NEGOTIATOR ON STRATEGIC ARMS
(By Bernard Gwertzman)
WASHINGTON, Jan. 4– U. Alexis Johnson, the State Department's senior career officer, is expected to replace Gerard C. Smith as the head of the United States delegation to the talks with the Soviet Union on limitation of strategic arms, well-placed Nixon Administration officials said today.
The sources said that Mr. Johnson, who has served as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, would reportedly be made a special ambassador by President Nixon, but would not assume Mr. Smith's other job as Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
The White House formally announced Mr. Smith's resignation from both his assignments today, but did not name his replacements. Administration officials said that a new director of the arms control agency had not been chosen and that the Administration had decided to curtail the activities of the agency sharply in the coming year.
BUDGET SLASH REPORTED
Last Wednesday, for example, the White House Office of Management and Budget informed the arms control agency that it would have to absorb a one-third cut in its projected $9-million budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1, officials said.
The budget cut shocked some agency officials who were informed on the same day that Mr. Smith was leaving the Government.
The reasons behind Mr. Smith's departure have already become a source of considerable discussion in the Government. Officially, he announced today that he was returning to private life to practice law in Washington and to help set up a "trilateral commission" of private citizens to promote relations between Japan, North America and Western Europe.
"SHABBY TREATMENT" CITED
Close associates of Mr. Smith said today that they believed that he would probably have stayed on in his agency if it had not been for what one called "the shabby treatment" he received from Henry A. Kissinger and President Nixon in Moscow after the signing of the first agreements limiting strategic weapons. According to the informants, Mr. Smith was irritated by two developments.
The first was the White House decision to keep him and the rest of his delegation in Helsinki for most of the week that Mr. Nixon was in the Soviet Union, instead of inviting them to join the talks in Moscow that concluded the agreements that Mr. Smith had negotiated for two and a half years.
The second involved the press briefings on the night agreements were signed.
There were two briefings that night. Mr. Smith attended the first and shorter one with Mr. Kissinger. A second briefing was held in a nightclub in the hotel in which the American newsmen were staying, and Mr. Kissinger conducted that one alone. Mr. Smith told associates later that he had been "disinvited" by the White House.
Mr. Smith was given minor responsibility in the weeks following the signing, when the Administration sought to get Congressional approval for the two accords – a treaty limiting each side to 200 anti-ballistic missiles and a five-year interim accord placing certain limits on offensive weapons.
For example, at a key briefing at the White House for leading senators and members of the House of Representatives, Mr. Smith was not invited to participate in the discussion in which Mr. Nixon and Mr. Kissinger participated.
The White House attitude, Mr. Smith's associates said, persuaded him that his work was not fully appreciated and he began to look to his own future.
OFFERS TO RESIGN
He told Mr. Nixon last fall before the election, that he wanted to resign at the end of the year, and Mr. Nixon prevailed upon him to lead the American delegation once more when the arms limitation talks began their second phase at the end of November in Geneva.
When the first round concluded last month, an official said, Mr. Smith told his Soviet opposite number, Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir S. Semyonov, that he would not be returning when the talks resumed on Feb. 27.
It is not known how many of the other members of the American delegation will be retained for the next round of talks, which deal with the reduction and limitation of offensive strategic weapons.
OFFICIAL PRAISE FROM NIXON
A White House spokesman, Gerald L. Warren, read a statement from Mr. Nixon today praising Mr. Smith for what Mr. Nixon termed his central role in bringing about the arms accords.
Mr. Johnson, who is 64 years old, has held a variety of ambassadorial posts and is the only active Foreign Service officer with the title Career Ambassador.
On Nov. 30, the White House announced that he would be replaced by William J. Porter, the chief negotiator at the four-party Vietnam peace conference in Paris. The White House said at that time that Mr. Nixon had asked Mr. Johnson to accept "a major new assignment commensurate with his special talents."
Mr. Johnson is regarded as a tough negotiator, and his appointment should be welcomed by legislators who have criticized the way the arms talks have been handled.
[From the Washington Post, Jan. 5, 1973]
MORE MIRV MISSILES SOUGHT
(By Michael Getler)
The Pentagon has recommended expansion of the U.S. Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile force so that all 1,000 of the strategic missiles eventually can carry the highly accurate type of triple warhead known as MIRV.
For the past several years, the Defense Department had planned to put the MIRV (multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles) warheads on 550 of the 1,000-missile Minuteman force. But in the fiscal year 1974 military budget request, which goes to Capitol Hill later this month, the Pentagon is recommending a start on a project that would allow eventual expansion of the force.
Military sources say the decision on approving the Pentagon recommendations now rests with the White House.
A favorable decision by the White House could have an important impact on the current second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT).
The United States is expected to press at these talks for some overall reduction either of the number of missiles carrying multiple warheads or of the number of individual warheads carried on each missile.
The Soviet Union has not yet flight-tested or deployed a MIRV similar to those in service aboard several hundred landbased U.S. Minuteman missiles and submarine-based Poseidon missiles. But the Soviet Union does have about 290 large missiles and about 90 silos for additional large missiles that might eventually carry MIRVs that are as powerful and as accurate as the U.S. version.
Thus, the U.S. move to expand the Minuteman MIRV force could be seen as a bargaining chip for the new round of arms limitation talks intended to make it worthwhile for the Soviet Union to agree to some multiple warhead limitation. Since it would obviously take several more years to deploy more than 550 MIRVed Minuteman missiles, some success at SALT II could possibly be achieved before new deployments were actually made.
At the same time a favorable White House decision on the Pentagon request also would keep the missile production line open.
A decision has to be made soon, Air Force officials have said, with respect to the future of the Minuteman program. Otherwise, production lines for the missiles' rocket motors would have to shut down soon and the cost of reopening them would increase if it were decided later to expand the force.
Currently, the United States has about 250 Minuteman III missiles, the version that carries the three-part MIRV warhead, operationally deployed in underground concrete and steel silos. The other 750 missiles are older Minuteman I and II versions. The original plan called for conversion of the older Minuteman I missiles in order to reach the full 550-missile Minuteman III force during fiscal 1974 which will begin July 1.
To go beyond 550, the Air Force would also have to convert the remaining 450 Minuteman II missiles to the Minutemen III configuration. This would involve replacing all three rocket motors on each missile, plus adding the MIRV warheads.
Eventually, the expense of such a project could run into billions of dollars, but the expenditure to get started during fiscal 1974 would be small, say Pentagon sources. This could improve chances for a White House go-ahead in the new budget.
The Soviet Union continues to lag well behind the United States deploying an accurate multiple warhead system. However, intelligence sources say that within the past several weeks the Soviet Union has test fired for the first time a large new missile that appears to be destined for deployment in the 90 large silos constructed during 1971 and 1972.
The missile, however, apparently did not carry any MIRV-type warheads in these early tests, and it is still uncertain whether the Soviet Union has mastered the technique for putting several individual warheads on the top of a single missile and guiding each one accurately to a different target.
ARMS CONTROL: A BAD TIME FOR DISARRAY
(By Chalmers M. Roberts)
It now has been nearly 17 years since President Eisenhower appointed Harold Stassen to the post of Special Assistant to the President for Disarmament, with Cabinet status. In 1961 the job was institutionalized with congressional creation, at President Kennedy's request, of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. William C. Foster became head of ACDA and the chief negotiator, as well, on arms control measures. In 1969 President Nixon chose Gerard C. Smith to head ACDA and later to be the chief negotiator for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). Now, as the second Nixon term begins, Smith has departed by his own choice and the President has tapped U. Alexis Johnson to be the negotiator. No one has been announced as Smith's successor to head ACDA, a quasi-independent agency housed and supported by the State Department but with its own congressionally approved budget.
It is evident, in retrospect, that all the major decisions in the arms control field since the initial Baruch Plan in 1946 have been presidential decisions, but it also is evident that presidential choices have been circumscribed by the quality and extent of the bureaucratic machinery which has examined the problems and possibilities and thus, through various layers of the government, served up the options. Stassen, Foster and Smith all were effective, or ineffective, to the degree that they could establish an independent input from an office or an agency that was beholden neither to the diplomatic views of State, the military views of Defense, or the views of the White House staff.
It is for such reasons as these that the appointment of Alex Johnson has done more than raise eyebrows among those in and out of government, who concern themselves with arms control, above all with the SALT II negotiations which resume in Geneva for a second session on Feb. 27.
Johnson is widely viewed as a temporary appointment. He suffered a heart attack a while back and his doctors have warned him against excessive work. For that reason, it appears, he turned down a Nixon offer to succeed Ambassador Bunker in Saigon. The top career man at State, Johnson is now 64. He has had only minimal acquaintance with the complex arms control issues.
The issues at SALT II are going to be very tough to resolve. Henry Kissinger, the generalissimo of SALT I here in Washington, has had no time for the problem because of Indochina and now his own continuation in the White House is uncertain. By all accounts, then, the U.S. is in a holding pattern on arms control and this is likely to last for some time. President Nixon's separation of the two posts of ACDA head and top negotiator adds an additional uncertainty.
It was widely believed when SALT II began that there would be no pressure from either Washington or Moscow for speedy new agreements. The interim pact on offensive weapons runs for five years and most people felt that not until about the fourth year would negotiations become intensive. But from what is now learned about the first go-round of SALT II this may not be necessarily true; indeed, a major opportunity for a key new phase in arms control just might be present, if the U.S. is prepared to grasp it.
This is because at the recent Geneva talks, all behind closed doors, the Soviet delegation expressed an interest in the control of multiple warheads, MIRVs. This came as a surprise to Smith and his delegation but there is no doubt that Moscow did indicate such an interest. It is true, however, that the other anticipated problems, notably the Moscow demand for limits on the American forward based systems (FBS) in any new agreement, were put forward by the Soviet side. But the Soviet talk of MIRV control added a new dimension to the meetings. At this first session neither side laid down any formal proposals.
Quite obviously the Kremlin interest in MIRV control must spring from the enormous American lead in such warheads though the Soviets are ahead in numbers of missile launchers and in throw weight of warheads. It would take some very difficult trade-offs to reach any form of MIRV agreement, and monitoring of such an agreement, beyond monitoring a ban on further tests, would be equally hard to achieve. But if there is no agreement, multiple warheads will be a major element in both arsenals.
Thus it appears this is a very bad moment for the American arms control establishment to be in such a state of disarray as the Johnson appointment, and the Kissinger situation, indicate it to be. Only President Nixon can change this state of affairs, although the Senate disarmament subcommittee of Foreign Relations could do some prodding.
The opportunity to control MIRVs is judged, at best, to be a long shot. But so were many other opportunities in past years that finally reached fruition through the perseverance of such men as Stassen, Foster and Smith. The U.S. can do no less than try – and there is currently no sign it is ready to do that.
[From the New York Times, Jan. 16, 1973]
MR. RICHARDSON'S TURN
(By Herbert Scoville, Jr.)
McLEAN, VA.– Deterrence, our sole protection from a nuclear attack or blackmail, requires not only sufficient retaliatory weapons to make the initiation of war inconceivable, but also a national attitude that leaves no doubt in the minds of both our potential foes and our allies that we will not submit to intimidation.
Although no one will ever know whether or not we would actually launch a retaliatory attack in any specific situation, an aggressor would be deterred from action if he were certain that he risked the complete destruction of his society. The Moscow ABM Treaty was a public acknowledgment by President Nixon and Secretary General Brezhnev that the security of the two major nuclear powers depends for the foreseeable future on mutual vulnerability.
Secretary of Defense Laird, however, has acted to destroy the credibility of our deterrent; will his successor, Elliot Richardson, reverse this course?
The U.S. now has more than 6,000 strategic nuclear weapons in its arsenals; about 4,000 of these are in ballistic missiles aboard submarines that are invulnerable to attack for the foreseeable future. This submarine missile force is backed up by more than 1,000 land-based ICBM's and nearly 500 intercontinental bombers. As a result of the ABM Treaty virtually all the missile warheads have a free ride to targets in the Soviet Union. Can anyone question that such a force is more than enough to wreak havoc on the Soviet Union under any conceivable circumstances?
Certainly this is a credible deterrent today; Soviet developments could not destroy this retaliatory capability in the next ten to twenty years even if the U.S. stood still.
But for the last four years, and even after the Moscow pact, we have been witnesses to a strange performance by our defense leaders. Instead of making clear to the world that the United States could never be vulnerable to nuclear attack, they have been belittling U.S. strengths and inflating Soviet threats.
Each year the refrain of inferiority swells in intensity as the military budget comes under review.
Secretary Laird has preached a national security strategy of "realistic" deterrence while he defended his programs before Congress on the basis of unrealistic threats. In 1969, he decried the vulnerability of our Minuteman ICBM deterrent to large Soviet SS-9 missiles with MIRV's and said that warheads with a "footprint" covering Minuteman silos had been under test for a year; but three years later he is forced to admit that the first Soviet MIRV test may still be six to eight months in the future. Now as he makes his departure from the Pentagon scene he again refers to the momentum of the Soviet weapons program. At last he can report the first un-MIRV'ed test of a new SS-9 type ICBM which may go in the very large silos he was so alarmed about two years ago. However, as a result of SALT I, the Russians are limited to less than 40 of these so regardless of the number of MIRV's they might eventually carry they pose no danger to the Minuteman force.
Misleading depreciation of U.S. strategic strength might be ignored as the distortions of an overenthusiastic advocate of military power if it was harmless. But, unfortunately, it serves to undermine the very credibility of our deterrent. Can we be sure that our allies will recognize such statements for what they are, i.e., attempts to extract more funds from the Congress, or will they perhaps take them at face value, cease to rely on the U.S. nuclear umbrella, and procure their own nuclear weapons?
Might even the Soviets believe that they had a freer hand to make political capital out of such advertised U.S. weaknesses? At the very least we are increasing the chances that we will be subjected to nuclear threats and be more pliable to pressures. If we talk often enough about the dangers of numerical inferiority, we may come to believe that numbers of weapons are a realistic measure of strength. Numerical advantage has no military significance when both countries can wipe out the other many times over; it can only have a political meaning if our leaders give it one. Expressions of alarm can become self-fulfilling prophecies.