CARLUCCI'S FIRST TEST

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000301890015-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 21, 2012
• Sequence Number: 15
• Publication Date: December 5, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301890015-8
P-171-1 17 "7,7:rro
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WASHINGTON POST
5 December 1986
VIEWS
Rowland Evans and Robert Nova
Carlucci's First Test
k by the ABM Treaty, long have been in place in the Soviet
Union. That raises this question: Why the new radars? The
Baranovichi radar, the size of two pyramids, resembles the
An intense internal struggle over the significance o
huge new Soviet radar on the Polish border, confirmed
U.S. intelligence Nov. 10, awaits Frank Carlucci in his firs
test as President Reagan's national security adviser. Ne
intelligence on this and other secret radars has sp
Reagan's men on a treaty-compliance issue that raises
question of national survival.
CIA Director William Casey and Defense Secretary
Caspar Weinberger believe the United States may soon
ace a completed, wholly illegal Soviet antimissile syste
that would hand Moscow military preeminence and dange
ous political leverage. :The view from State is mo
cautious, on grounds all evidence is not yet in. Flow t
break the deadlock may be Carlucci's first advice to th
Oval Office. It will test whether he can restore the nation
security role to its intended function of sorting ou
conflicting departmental views for the president.
The shrouded policy struggle has been intense enoug
postpone the president's annual report to Congress o
viet compliance with its treaty obligations, the most
. fragments or pellets of steel released from a warhead tr.)
one in Krasnoyarsk that Reagan says clearly violates the
ABM Treaty. It duplicates two other huge radars (whose
f a discovery has not been acknowledged by the administra-
by tion) picked up in August by a U.S. spy satellite near
t Skrunda, on the Lithuanian border, and Muicachevo, on the
w Czech border.
lit Casey and Weinberger argue these two giant radars
the transcend the need for early warning. Now the further
overlap of the radar discovered Nov. 10 creates a "triple-
tiered" system that could mean only one thing: a nation-
wide missile-defense system.
m State Department and some Arms Control and Disarme-
r' meat Agency specialists claim that even if the new radars
re are designed for a nationwide defense system, the Soviets
o do not possess anything approaching enough interceptor
e missiles. Pentagon and CIA officials mock that argument as
1 wishful thinking. They point to the Norwegian govern-
ment's discovery of a mysterious "white light" produced
by warhead explosions in recent Soviet missile tests over
Northern Europe. Photographs under intense scrutiny in
the CIA suggest this "white light' may be millions of tiny
to
So
authoritative statement he makes on Soviet nuclear activi
ties. Last year Reagan told Congress Moscow "inay be
preparing an ABM defense system of its national territo-
ry. Weinberger and Casey, backed by senior national
security bureaucrats, want this year's report to go further,
helping those who want the president to start "near-term"
deployment (I his Strategic Defense Initiative.
Discovery of the new Polislkorder radar strongly
suggests Mikhail Gorbachev and his military chiefs are
constructing a "triple-tiered" radar system to cover west-
ern approaches to their country. Early-waning radars to
discover an incoming missile or aircraft attack, permitted
destroy incoming missiles. Such an antimissile interception
system seems ludicrously home-made compared to the
high-tech research of Reagan's SDL But some officials
believe that for all its horse-and-buggy simplicity, it might
work?if pinpoint radar targeting of attacking missiles can
be achieved with the Kremlin's new triple-tiered system.
Declaring the Soviet Union on the verge of a defensive
"breakout" would have momentous implications for the
policies of Reagan and his new national security adviser
and for the future of this nation.
01986, News America Syndicate
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000301890015-8