SCALPING THE PENTAGON

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100190001-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 23, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100190001-1
27
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WASHINGTON POST
23 November 1984
Rowland Evans and Robert Novak
`Scalpina the Pentagon'
According to a high-ranking Americanolo-
gist in the Kremlin, the Soviet leadership
privately charges Defense Secretary Caspar
Weinberger and one of his top aides with
having drawn up a "master plan" to destroy
the Soviet Union.
Georgi Arbatov, head of the renowned
Kremlin-run U.S.A. Institute, is known to
have expressed that view of the Kremlin's an-
tagonism toward Weinberger and Assistant
Defense Secretary Richard Perle within the
last six months. It has come into the hands of
U.S. intelliante agencies, but by what means
is not known. It was Arbatov's "personal
Ucpinion"that the removal of either Weinber-
?rger or Perle would be a "favorable develop-
-anent" and a "positive sign."
Disclosure of the secret Arbatov file on
scalping the Pentagon happened to coincide
with instructions from President Reagan to
top`Cabinet officials. including Weinberger
and CIA Director William Casey, that he in-
tends to follow "a negotiating track" on
U.S.-Soviet concerns. But Moscow's call to
fire Weinberger?an Perle may backfire on
Arbatov by raising their go-slow influence
within an administration deeply divided over
,arms control.
The destruction of the Soviet Union, Ar-
batov said, is planned not by nuclear war
but by "other" means: presumably eco-
nomic and political subversion, military
rearmament too fast for the Soviets to
match and tougher restraints on sales of
technology.
The Kremlin's top strategic specialist on
how the Soviet. Union should deal with its
superpower rival denied that the election
campaign had anything to do with it. "Let it
be known," he said, "that it is the view of
the Soviet leadership that the American ad-
ministration does not want improved rela-
tions with Moscow and therefore for the
foreseeable future the Soviet Union cannot
move on arms control."
All this transpired before the president
met Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei
Gromyko in the White House last month.
Since then, and particularly since his land-
slide reelection on Nov. 6, the president has
been moving fast-too fast, some officials
believe-toward arms control talks with
Moscow under a vague, White House-pro-
claimed "umbrella" formula.
The "umbrella" formula will send Secre-
tary of State George Shultz to Geneva early
next year for across-the-board talks with
Gromyko. Paul Nitze, Reagan's negotiator
in the failed effort to halt Soviet deployment
of the European-targeted SS20 - missile,
might become Shultz's nuts-and-bolts nego-
tiator starting during the preliminary "um-
brella" talks.
In addition, Reagan is all but certain to
ask Weinberger to designate a Pentagon
specialist to sit through all the negotiations
-not Perle, but perhaps Defense Under-
secretary Fred Ikle. Whoever is chosen
must be acceptable to the Joint Chiefs of
Staff.
This careful preparation for what the
president is privately calling his "negotiat-
ing track" looks neater and tidier than it is,
Even with Reagan's strong emphasis to
Weinberger and Casey that he is committed
to negotiations-that, in the words of one
Wp aide it is his "frame of mind"-caution
about new arms control agreements domi-
nates the CIA and the Pentagon. At Shultz's
State Department, the mood is different:
optimistic over possibilities for break-
throughs.
Indeed, administration insiders sympa-
thetic to the Pentagon's arms control cau-
tion say that the State Department's private
judgment of Weinberger and Perle on the
nuclear issue is just as negative as the view
from the Kremlin portrayed by Georgi Ar-
batov.
The report of Arbatov's vicious criticism
of the president's top Pentagon arms-con-
trol planners may actually strengthen them.
That would produce a backlash against the
Kremlin in the administration's bureau-
cratic struggle for the mind and soul of Ron-
ald Reagan. Pro-arms control diplomats
might be disadvantaged at the hands of Pen-
tagon-CIA skeptics who are convinced that
the United States was taken-e clgan?~ls
in earlier SALT agrt_g1n"ts and mus ig
Itak ro_ veapt onprocedures for all
future a ggremnts.
One fact was emerging with clarity here
following high-level study of the Arbatov
file: however persona non grata Weinberger
and Perle may be in George Shultz's State
Department, the Kremlin's top American-
ologist has ended all prospect of their leav-
ing their posts any time soon.
C4964, News oroup chicago, inc.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100190001-1