Green Light for ABM

For nearly a year the U.S. has been trying to talk Russia out of deploying an anti-ballistic-missile network around key Soviet cities. Such a move, President Johnson argued, would force the U.S. to erect a shield of its own at immense cost, thereby imposing "on our peoples and on all mankind an additional waste of resources with no gain in security to either side." But the Russians, with their own hawk-dove divisions to worry about, were not listening. Now, discouraged by the Soviet response, alarmed at the looming menace of China as a nuclear power and buffeted by intense congressional pressure, the Administration has made a far-reaching decision. In a speech prepared for delivery this week in San Francisco, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara announced that the U.S. plans to begin deploying a limited ABM system based on the Army's Nike X.

Spartan & Sprint. As presently envisioned, the system will not handle what defense theorists call a "sophisticated attack." Such an attack would involve 400 to 600 incoming Soviet missiles traveling at 18,000 m.p.h., carrying devices aimed at confusing U.S. radar and bristling with multiple warheads. Rather, the network will be designed to cope with a "primitive attack," involving the sort of strike that Peking may be capable of mounting by the 1970s. Total cost of this "thin" or "austere" defense, as the Pentagon calls it, is estimated at $3.5 billion.

For the present, the Administration will need no additional funds. The current $70 billion defense budget, approved only last week, includes $817 million for development and deployment of the system; another $168 million was appropriated last year for work on Nike X but never used. The decision to deploy the "thin" defense does not preclude future agreement with Moscow--though once U.S. and Russian ABMs are in place, it will be difficult to dismantle them. Further, the thin line could later be thickened if U.S. strategists concluded that Moscow posed a real threat of a missile attack.

The system will depend on "over-the-horizon" radar, now being perfected, to spot missiles as they leave launch pads in China or Russia, 30 minutes' flight time from the U.S. Once the onrushing rockets are detected, two types of antimissiles will be deployed. One is the long-range Spartan, designed to intercept enemy missiles 400 miles above the earth; the other is the short-range Sprint, whose job is to cope with any missiles that escape Spartan's nuclear net at levels under 100,000 ft.

The austere defense is not designed to protect urban centers but to preserve the land-based U.S. missile arsenal for a devastating retaliatory strike. That arsenal, consisting of 1,000 Minutemen and 54 Titan Us, is more than double Russia's stockpile of 470 land-based missiles. But London's Institute for Strategic Studies reported last week that the Russians are closing the gap; as for the Chinese, the I.S.S. noted that they have begun test-firing a missile with a 400-mile range.

Political Megatonnage. It was not only the fear of foreign attack that forced the Administration's hand. During the launching of the nation's 92nd nuclear-powered submarine in Groton, Conn., two weeks ago, Rhode Island's Democratic Senator John Pastore, chairman of the Joint Atomic Energy Committee, warned ominously, "With all our offensive power, our defense posture could be our Achilles' heel." Washington's Democratic Senator Henry M. Jackson leaked word that he would hold hearings on the ABM--and Lyndon Johnson was aware that they would pack plenty of political megatonnage. Richard Nixon called on the Administration to "go ahead at all costs" with an anti-missile system. This pressure-plus the gnawing fear that the U.S. might be underestimating Chinese and Soviet missile progress--prompted the President to flash the green light.

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