THE TRANSPORTABLE ICBM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP63T00245R000100230019-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 5, 2010
• Sequence Number: 19
• Publication Date: January 1, 2000
• Content Type: NSPR

25 YEAR RE-REVI[Ap-proved For Release 2010/05/05: CIA-RDP63T00245R000100230019-5
Matter of Fact .
The Trans lnortable ICBM
Y
ON the basis of all the avail-
able evidence, the American
analysts now assume that the
Soviet intercontinental ballis-
t i c missiles
and their
launching
pads are trans-
portable.
On its face,
this may not
look like, an
e s pe c I A f-
ly grave or
significant
piece of news.
In reality,
however, this news is con-
siderably more disturbing
than all the reports of all the
Soviet successes in outer
space laid end 'to end and
multiplied by two. The rea-
sons for being disturbed are
easily understood, when our
own immobile ICBM weap-
ons system is compared with
the presumed Soviet system.
Both the American ICBM's
already in production, the
Atlas, and the next to bepro-
duced, the Titan, are de-
signed to be fired from fixed
pads. The launching pads
themselves are huge and
costly" installations, which
add heavily to the expense
of the missile program. The
first three Atlas squadrons
will also be "soft" and the
next five squadrons will
be "semi-soft"-meaning that
an enemy missile falling al-
most anywhere in the vicin-
ity will destroy one of our
missiles or its launching pad.
BY digging huge concrete
pits for the launching pads,
the. squadrons to be activated
after mid-1962 will be "hard-
ened"-meaning that the de-
struction of any ICBM in
these squadrons will cost the
enemy a considerable num-
ber of ICBMs. "Hardening
is of. the uttnost importance,
since it multiplies the
enemy's minimum require-
ment of missiles for a first
strike by a factor of much
more than ten. But the "hard-
ened" squadrons, like.. the
"soft" and "semi-soft" squad-
rons, will 'still have to fire
from costly fixed positions.
Until the solid-fuelled Min-
uteman missile comes into
production, the United States
will have no transportable
ICBM. Until a date at least
four or five years ahead,
therefore, the Kremlin will
know just where to find all
the nerve-centers of Ameri-
can ICBM strength. With
this knowledge, if the Soviets
build enough missiles for the
job, the, can hope to destroy
the whole panoply of Ameri-
can ICBMs in a single sur-
prise attack.
IN contrast, if the Soviet
ICBMs and their launching
pads are indeed transport-
able, the planners in the Pen-
tagon can never know pre
cisely where they are. Like
our own ICBMs, to be sure,
the Soviet model now in pro-
duction is thought to be
liquid-fuelled (although there
are minority doubts,. even
about this). If liquid-fuelled,
the Soviet ICBMs can hardly
be 'fired from positions too
distant from a rail line. But
they can nonetheless be fired
from any point where the
far-spreading Soviet rail net
can carry the special flatcars
for the missiles and launch-
ing pads, the special tank
cars for fuel and the like.
The first rule of the mis
,sile balance is that you can-
not attempt a first strike, un-
less you can be sure that
your first strike will cripple
or prevent the other side's
counter strike. Otherwise,
your first strike is simply the
first stage in a suicide pact.
Equally, you cannot hope to
cripple or prevent the other
side's counterstrike if you do
? By Joseph Alsop
not know whether the other
side's striking power is em-
placed. If the Pentagon plan-
ners only know that the So-
viet ICBMs must be some-
where close to the Soviet rail
net, this is not good enough
to permit a first strike.
H E N C E the assumption
that the Soviet ICBMs are
transportable puts a much
darker color on a picture
that was already quite dark
enough. To be sure, the.
President has repeatedly pro-
claimed, at his press confer-
ences, that a democratic so-
ciety can never strike the
first blow in an H-bomb war.
Thus it is tempting'to argue
that the transportability of
Soviet ICBMs hardly mat-
ters.
Yet it does matter, and
quite enormously, for two
reasons. On the one hand, a
transportable ICBM is both
harder to build and, by any
imaginable test, operation-
ally superior to an ICBM
that must be fired from a
fixed launching pad. Thus .the
assumed transportability of
the Soviet missiles further
emphasizes the Soviet lead
in missile development.
On the other hand, there
is all the difference in the
world between the President
telling Khrushchev and com-
pany that they are immune
to surprise attack by the
West's nuclear power; and
Khrushchev and company
knowing they are immune to
surprise attacks because
their own nuclear power is
beyond the West's reach. All
the President's assurances
could never eliminate a lin-
gering-deterrent doubt. But
if this..doubt is automatically
eliminated by the character
of the Soviet ICBMs the
West's deterrent will be seri-
ously weakened, both strate-
gically and politically.
Copyright. X959, New York
Herald Tribune, Inc.
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