THE SALT II AGREEMENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000400370039-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 16, 2004
• Sequence Number: 39
• Publication Date: June 12, 1979
• Content Type: TRANS

d For Release 2005/01/12 : CIA-RDP88-01315R000400370039-9
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RADIO TV F PRTS, INC.
NBC Nightly News STATION NRC TV
NBC Network
DATE June 12, 1 979 6:30 PNI CITY Washington, DC
The SALT 11 Agreement
JOHN CHANCELLOR: Public opinion polls have shown this
year that the American people believe the Russians are likely to
cheat on the SALT II treaty limiting nuclear weapons. This is a
widely held bel ief despite the fact that officials in a position
to know, including former Secretary of State Kissinger, say the
Russians did not cheat in any meaningful way on the first SALT
treaty.
In any case, verification of the treaty will be one of
the key issues in the Senate debate on the treaty, and we've asked
Ford Rowan to look into the whole business.
FORD ROWAN: What if the Russians cheat? Suppose they
build bigger and better weapons than allowed by SALT? Would the
United States find out?
The United States relies on space satellites and other
electronic monitors to watch what the Soviets are doing. Pictures
,r 1n-the-sky satellites are secret and much more detailed
from spy
and revea 1 i ng than these unc I ass i f i ed photographs. But the se-
crets have been compromised.
In two espionage cases, the Russians bought information
about three satellite systems: Keyhole, which takes photographs;
[unintelligible], which listens to missile telemetry; and Argus,
monitors radio transmissions.
But the biggest problem started back on Earth, in Iran,
when the U.S. was forced to close down monitoring stations near
the Soviet border, a major Ioss, according to the former head of
Air Force Intelligence.
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GEORGE KEEGAN: The SALT treaty, as I presently under-
stand it, cannot, in any way, be verified. The assumptions and
public statements made by this Administration regarding verifi-
cation, in my best judgment, are fraudulent and so intended to
deceive the American people.
ROWAN: The new SALT treaty would limit the development
of new and bigger missiles, as well as the number of multiple
warheads (M9IRVs) that can be placed on missiles.
When the Russians launch a missile at their test site
in Turatam (?), American infrared satel I ites pick up the heat
of the rocket engines. The two Iranian listening posts are
missed at this point because they had a clear look at the test
site and the early stages of flight. But as the missile gains
altitude, it is monitored by radar stations farther away in
Turkey, by other satellites, and, as it nears the Pacific, by
ships and radar stations in Alaska.
Former CIA officer Herbert Scoville says these down-
range monitors can check to see if the Soviets have violated
SALT Iimits on MIRVs.
HERBERT SCOVILLE: I am absolutely certain we can
verify the SALT II agreement, as it is now written. Not only
do we have alI these capabilities, but the SALT II agreement
has specifically written into it a large number of provisions
which facilitate verification, which actually will improve our
intelligence over what we have today.
ROWAN: To improve intel l igence, the Administration
has ordered a crash program to use such things as U-2 spy planes
along the Soviet border to make up for the loss of the Iranian
bases. But some say it would not be enough to compensate for
the losses in Iran.
DANIEL GRAHAM: I think it's fraudulent for the Admin-
istration to come forward and try to give the American people
the impression that you can replace those capabilities. Those
capabilities gave us a 24-hour watch, with alI sorts of sensors,
over the two most important facilities in the Soviet Union for
verification.
ROWAN: CIA Director Stansfield Turner has angered
some leaders in the Administration by conceding that it would
take five years before the CIA recovered the capabilities lost
in Iran. Furthermore, Turner says there's no way he can be
certain SALT can be verified.
Is SALT worth the risk the Russians will cheat? In
a recent speech, Turner said he'd leave that up to the President
and his advisers.
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ADMIRAL STANS F IELD TURNER: The pot icymaker must a! so
say, in view of the fact Turner hasn't got 101 percent assurance
on any of these t'h i ngs, are' the risks to our country worth it?
Are the benefits of having these controls worth whatever degree
of possibility there is from the monitoring evaluation that it
could be circumscribed, or circumvented, or whatever the right
word is -- cheat.
ROWAN: President Carter and Defense Secretary Brown
have insisted that the United States will have the ability to
adequately verify Soviet actions under the SALT agreement. They
argue that without SALT and its rules forbidding concealment,
i-1- would be even harder to find out what the Soviets were doing.
CHANCELLOR: Senator Henry Jackson released the text
of a speech today in which he mounts a very tough attack on the
Carter Administration's stand on the SALT treaty. The White
House is saying that if the Senate votes amendments and changes
to the treaty, that will force the Soviets into new demands,
which couid kill the treaty.
Jackson, in his speech of today, says that attitude is
appeasement -- his word -- ominously reminiscent, he says, of
statements made by an unprepared British Government as Adolf
Hitler prepared for war.
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