ON NULLIFYING PROLIFERATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70B00338R000300080053-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 9, 2006
• Sequence Number: 53
• Publication Date: December 23, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2006/01/30 : CIA-RDP70B00338R000300080053-9
Matter of Fact . .
On Nullifying Proliferation
THERE TS a great, great
deal more to the argument
about the anti-missile miss-
i'1 than the difference on
this subject
brcween the
:oint Chiefs
of Staff and
Secretary of
D e f e n s e
Robert Mc-
Namara.
The Joint
Chiefs say
that the So-
viets are un-
doubtedly
deploying a nationwide anti-
missile system, and there-
fore we must respond with
nationwide deployment of
our Nike-X system. Secre-
tary McNamara says that a
Nike-X system will be terri-
bly costly, and 'will not be
"cost-effective" - thereby
slighting all the vitalpoliti-
cal-psychological f a c t o r s
which he is also known to
have slighted at the time of
the Cuban missile crisis.
But these points, though
highly important, are no
more than the bare begin-
ning of the problem. We
have repeatedly told the So-
viets, "We won't deploy
anti-missile missiles if you
don't;" yet with their badly
strained budget and pres-
sing domestic needs, the So-
viets are footing the enor-
mous bill for deployment.
One suspects they have
seen the biggest point of all
more clearly than the Joint
Chiefs and Secretary McNa-
mara.
The biggest point of all is
that Soviet and American
anti - missile missile net-
deployment of effective
anti - missile missile net-
works amounts to a device
for restoring the world
power balance that existed
before nuclear proliferation
began.
Take the case, for in-
stance, of Gen, de Gaulle
and his "Force de Frappe."
Unless, de Gaulle in fact
intends to use his nuclear
weapons against Germany
By Joseph Alsop
or his other European and the U.S.S.R. has any-
neighbors (in which case we thing like the advanced
might have something to technology to do the job.
say), these costly weapons Silly people say we must
have always been a dubious not build an anti-missile sys-
investment. tem to "avoid proliferation."
Even before the Soviets But in fact, this turns out to
began to deploy anti-missile be the first practical way of
missiles, there was always a nullifying proliferation that
grave question whether the has yet been thought of. For
"Force de Frappe" h a d in the new era that clearly
enough real penetrating and lies ahead (unless the So-
striking power to have the viets yield to last minute
smallest influence on Soviet American pleas to turn
policy. back), there are going to be
NOW, HOWEVER, the
Gaullist "Force de Frappe"
two very different kinds of
nuclear powers.
is about to be rendered irre- THERE ARE going to be
mediably obsolete before it the nuclear powers that
has even been completed. really count, because they
For de Gaulle cannot re- have both missiles and anti-
spond to the construction of missile missiles, and the nu-
the Soviet anti-missile mis- clear powers that do not
sile net by building enough count, because they lack the
additional French missiles defensive system. The kind
to saturate and overwhelm of nuclear power possessed
the Soviet defensive system. by France and China will
The program of his thus be fatally downgraded.
"Force de Frappe" was lim- This is of crucial impor-
ited from the outset, both tance, because the real dan-
by economics and by war- ger of proliferation lies in
heads. And now that the So- probability theory. If-there
viets are installing a vast is one chance in ten of a
defensive system, quite ca- nuclear war when only two
pable of knocking down nation-states possess nuclear
anything that de Gaulle can power, then there is nearly
send auainst them. the one chance in two of such a
"Force de Frappe" must au- war when the number of
tomatically cease to be a se- states possessing nuclear
rious factor in the power power has risen to six. But
balance, you just about go back to
The same reasoning of only one chance in ten, if a
course applies, not only to way is found, as it' has now
the rather half-hearted Brit- been found, to make the
ish nuclear deterrent, but two original nuclear powers
also and above all to the the only ones that count.
new nuclear power of Com- It has been uncomforta-
munist China. Furthermore, ble, God knows, and it will
no other nation-state now in always be uncomfortable, to
business, except the United have the world's future de-
States and the U.S.S.R., can pend on the quasi-monopoly
conceivably pay the bill, ei- of nuclear power enjoyed
ther now or for many years by the United States and
to come, for an anti-missile the Soviet Union. But that
missile system of its own. kind of bipolar monopoly is
The cost to this country is at least very much more
estimated at above $30 bil- comfortable than a multi.
lion, and in addition to the polar system. And now a
absolutely forbidding ex- way to avoid that nightmare
pense, there is the further has rather strangely turned
fact that neither China, nor up, in the curious disguise
France, nor any other state of the anti-missile missile.
except the United States
(D 1966, The Washington Post Co.
Approved For Release 2006/01/30 : CIA-RDP70B00338R000300080053-9