SALT: A Sprinkling of Hope

WHEN the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) opened in Vienna in mid-April, the assumption was that the U.S. and Soviet delegations would confer until early July before recessing for the summer. But last week, as they completed their 23rd session, it looked as if the delegates might keep going until late July or early August. The delayed recess buttressed hope that the two sides were making headway in the most important arms-control talks since the onset of the nuclear age.

So far, neither side has submitted a formal proposal that could serve as the basis for a treaty. But two weeks ago, U.S. Delegation Chief Gerard Smith made a flying visit to Washington, where he met with President Nixon. Many observers believe that the U.S. is now preparing just such a formal proposal for a limited agreement.

Possible Proposal. According to informed officials, the U.S. plan will include two main points:

> A freeze in the number of offensive strategic weapons. The Russians' slight edge in the number of land-based ICBMs (1,240 to 1,054) would be offset by the U.S.'s superiority in strategic bombers (533 to 150). Submarine-borne missiles may be excluded from the proposal unless a method can be found to reconcile the difference between the U.S.'s 41-ship fleet carrying 656 missiles and the Soviets' 40-sub flotilla with 280 missiles.

> A limitation on anti-ballistic missiles. ABMs would be used only to protect "national command centers." Thus the Soviets' ABMs would remain around Moscow, and the U.S. Safeguard system, instead of being built at 14 sites throughout the nation, would be erected only in the Washington vicinity.

If a U.S. proposal is submitted in Vienna, no action beyond a possible agreement in principle is expected until the talks reconvene next fall in Helsinki, site of last winter's preliminary SALT meetings. Both sides have compelling reasons for wanting an early agreement. Just as the Nixon Administration is under pressure to reallocate Government spending, the Soviet leaders would doubtless like to divert money from nuclear arms and into industrial projects that would help snap the Russian economy out of a severe slump.

Best Hope. Even a limited agreement would be a historic achievement. It would at least halt the proliferation of land-based weaponry and drastically reduce the extremely costly outlays for ABMs. A limited agreement, moreover, might be the starting point toward a more comprehensive treaty.

Unfortunately, the advent of a new weapons system complicates the outlook for a broader agreement. Even as the negotiators talked in Vienna, the U.S. was installing Minuteman III and Poseidon missiles that carry formidable MIRVs (multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles). Composed of a cluster of three or more nuclear warheads that are aimed separately at widely scattered objectives, MIRVs greatly increase the destructive scope of a single missile. They also introduce an extremely difficult factor into SALT. While the U.S. and Soviet Union can effectively check on the number of the other's ICBMs with spy-in-the-sky satellites, these satellites cannot see through a missile's nose cone to count the number of warheads underneath. In view of the Soviets' aversion to on-site inspections, MIRV would become an unknown and threatening element in the nuclear equation.

One-Sided Rhetoric. Aware of MIRV's potential mischief, the Senate in April overwhelmingly passed a resolution urging President Nixon to propose an immediate moratorium on the testing and deployment of U.S. and Soviet nuclear weaponry. But the Nixon Administration believed that it first had to respond to a huge buildup by the Soviets, who have installed some 784 ICBMs and sub-launched missiles during the past three years. Despite the ominous Soviet buildup, many critics blame Defense Secretary Melvin Laird for having exaggerated the Russian threat compared to U.S. strength.

Laird does not lie, as some of his more violent critics have claimed, but he sometimes obscures the truth. U.S. intelligence reports have shown that the Soviets during the past eight months have in fact installed only a few one-megaton SS-11 ICBMs and none of the huge SS-9s. At a press conference last week, he made headlines about the continuing Soviet missile threat by speaking of "new starts," "site development" and "momentum." He ducked a question on whether any missiles have been deployed since last November. As if to buttress Laird's case, defense officials two days later said that they had new evidence that the Soviets have resumed work on the S59 sites.

In a major address in April, Laird gave the impression that the Soviet missile submarines were beginning to gain seriously on the U.S. He did not mention the more pertinent fact that 33 of the U.S.'s Polaris subs now carry the A-3 missile, each equipped with a triple-warhead MRV (multiple re-entry vehicle, the forerunner of MIRV), whose bombs fall in a pre-selected pattern and cannot be targeted independently. Thus, these 33 U.S. subs alone carry a total of 1,584 warheads against only 280 for the Soviets.

Action-Reaction Cycle. As Secretary of Defense, Laird doubtless feels that he must always assume the worst in terms of a potential enemy's intentions. His approach, while understandable, has serious dangers. By overestimating the Soviet threat, Laird helps create U.S. responses that trigger new efforts from the Russians, who feel compelled to match every American advance. Of course, Laird and his supporters could argue that if the U.S. did not keep ahead, the Soviets would surpass the U.S. in weapons technology. But many American scientists maintain that each successive generation of costly weapons has actually diminished U.S. security.

MIRV may be the ultimate example of the action-reaction cycle. Because MIRV multiplies the number of offensive warheads available to either side (see chart), an attacker could overwhelm an enemy's ABMs, wipe out his ICBMs in their silos, and destroy his cities. In the macabre logic of nuclear war, the obvious countermeasure to MIRV is to tie the firing of ICBMs to a computer, since the time involved between detection and reaction would be too short to allow for human reflection. At the instant radar detected an attacker's incoming missiles, the computer would launch the defender's ICBMs so that they would not be destroyed in the ground. But a short circuit or some other mechanical failure in a computer could set off World War III.

Back in the Bottle. Many American scientists feel that the horrors of MIRV are so great that the U.S. should make a determined effort to stuff ths MIRV genie back in the bottle. The system was conceived primarily as a countermeasure to the Soviet ABM. By multiplying the number of warheads, the reasoning went, the U.S. would be able to penetrate Russian defenses. In addition, MIRV was regarded as a hedge against the huge Soviet SS-9s, which have the punch to destroy Minutemen even in their hardened silos. Laird's critics make the persuasive point that if the Soviets are willing to limit their ABM defenses to Moscow, which seems likely, and to cease S59 deployments, the U.S. should be willing to phase out its MIRVs. Since the Russians have test-fired only one rudimentary MRV, a moratorium on further tests would virtually guarantee a halt to further development by Moscow.

Without a test moratorium, the Soviets will probably have three-headed MIRVs ready for their giant SS-9s by 1972. Both sides' land-based missiles would then be vulnerable. In that event. Harvard Professor George Kistiakowsky suggests, the superpowers might agree to abandon land sites altogether in favor of submarine-borne warheads. Then, in order to avoid a new action-reaction cycle that would ultimately render the submarines subject to detection and destruction, Kistiakowsky envisions a ban on further development of antisubmarine warfare. "I know it sounds shocking to say that we must deny ourselves the means of locating enemy subs," he says, "but if we insist on those means the Russians will, too."

Sensible Adjustment. Herbert York of the University of California (San Diego), a former ranking Pentagon official, suggests that no matter what happens at SALT, the U.S. should abandon its land-based missiles and settle for an undersea force of no more than 30 subs. York would also retain about 250 bombers, but he would abandon the ABM. One serious objection to York's plan is that the nation's defense would rest mainly on one weapons system and that if it were destroyed, the country would be virtually helpless. Yet 30 Poseidon subs equipped with MIRVed missiles, as proposed by York, could carry almost 6,000 warheads, which would be sufficient to deter a Soviet attack. Moreover, the number of subs could be increased. The Navy is, in fact, already working on a new weapon called ULMS (undersea long-range missile system) that would fit York's specifications. ULMS subs would carry many more bigger, longer-range missiles. Since the subs could hit Soviet targets from any spot in the world's oceans, their vast area of operation would make them virtually invulnerable to Russian sub hunters.

Military advocates argue that the Kremlin would interpret any reduction in U.S. nuclear weapons as a sign of weakness. But the U.S. could counter such an impression by using part of the savings from a nuclear cutback to increase the efficiency of its conventional forces. In fact, a sensible adjustment of the U.S. nuclear arsenal might help restore faith abroad in the wisdom of American actions while putting the onus on the Soviets to scale down their own nuclear storehouse.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.