A DISARMING LACK OF CANDOR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403240002-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 11, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: March 10, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403240002-0
WASHINGTON POST
10 March 1985
ARTICLE AFP ED
ON P4Ga_e
ROBERT O. KAISER
A Disarming Lack of Candor
0 THE EVE OF nuclear arms talks
in Geneva, the Reagan
administration is bending itself into
knots trying to pretend that it has a
coherent national security policy that
could produce both an American "Star
Wars" defense and a sweeping arms
control agreement with the Soviet
Union.
There are two possible explanations
for the administration's gyrations. One
- the most hopeful. but also the most
unlikely - is that we are witnessing a
surpassingly shrewd bargaining
operation by a group of master poker
players, who are maneuvering the
Russisns into historic negotiations that
could actually reverse the arms race.
The second and more likely
explanation is that we have entered a
strategic Wonderland. guided by a
president obsessed by a doubtful idea,
who is advised by "experts" whose
principal expertise is concocting.
..rationales that don't torture the facts .
too body," as a Republican Senate aide
put it last weep,
President Reagan's ides that we can
have Star Was and negotiated
disarmament, too, is considered
implausible by nearly everyone who
fglbws these isages Closely from a
vantage point anywhere outside the
Reagan administration. Superhawks on
Capitol Hill, anus c attollers,.experts.
and officials al'over WesternEurope,
senior members o( past administrations
- and numerous officials in the present
American government who are never
hW4 from M public - consider thin an
unrealistic approach.
EXCERPTED
T he official talk this weekend is
upbeat about arms control.
But actually, Reagan adminis-
tration policies, if pursued, will un-
ravel the principal accomplishment
of all previous arms control negoti-
ations, the 1972 ABM treaty ban-
ning most deployments and testing
of anti-missile missiles.
Here again the administration's
position is cynical. We are assured
- by Reagan, by Nitze and others
- that the United States will ad-
here to the ABM Treaty. But the
Star Wars- portion of the adminis-
tration's 1986 defense budget now
pending in Congress contains
money for the development of
"prototypes" of new defensive
weapons that violate Article V of
the treaty, which commits both
countries "not to develop, test or
deploy ABM systems or compo-
nents which are sea-based, air-
based, space-based or mobile land-
based." These prototypes in the
'86 budget, if approved by Con-
gress, could be tested by 1990 -
the effective duration, apparently,
of the promises to adhere to the
treaty.
Our European allies recognize
that there is no way to make Star
Wars and the ABM Treaty compat-
ible. That is why Margaret
Thatcher has sought President
Reagan's pledge that he would ne-
gotiate with the Soviets before de-
ploying a Star Wars system. The
British hope that such negotiations
would somehow preserve the exist-
ing arms control that re But can
anyone imagine a
States would spend up to $100 bil-
lion to develop a plausible Star
Wars system (a conservative esti-
mate of the development cost), and
then drop the whole idea because
the Soviets declined to accept its
introduction after negotiations?
If the ABM treaty must go,
many important officials of the
Reagan administration won't mind.
For despite the reassuring public
rhetoric, this American govern-
ment is filed with people who don't
really believe in arms control, and
actually prefer to live with the Rus-
sians on the basis of bad relations
and vigorous co ilpetition.
Arnold Horeiick formerk the
CIA's national, intelligence officer
for the bovietVmon and now with
the RaW Coro. has
hard-line element in the adminis-
tration as convinced that the cur-
rent strategic trends favor the
United States. In this view, we'll
be relatively better off five or 10
years from now than we are now,
so why rush into new agreements
with the Soviets based on today's
balance of power?
There is no visible cause for op-
timism about the arms negotiations
begining this week in Geneva. Spe-
cialists in NATO foreign ministries
and many working-level officials in
the United States government
agree that there are no real pros-
pects for making a deal unless the
Reagan administration is willing to
adhere to the ABM treaty and give
up active development of the de-
fensive weapons which it bans. But
President Reagan specifically rules
out using his Star Wars program as
a bargaining chip.
The great irony is that the cur-
rent strategic trends probably are
favorable - not if the objective is
to gain a meaningful American ad-
vantage, but to get negotiated
arms reductions under way. The
Russians are- anxious to avoid a
whole new competition in space -
the threat of Star Wars has indeed
gotten their attention, and it re-
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403240002-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403240002-0
mains. a potentially useful bargain-
ing chip. Our allies are yearning for
new negotiated agreements. The
Reagan administration could get an
effective, comprehensive treaty
through the Senate, if one could be
negotiated.
Negotiating a deal would not be
easy. The issues are complex and
growing more complex all the time,
as new weapons come into both
arsenals. The Soviets appear to be
building an elaborate new radar in-
stallation that violates the ABM
Treaty itself, U.S. planners are
tantalized by the prospect that they
might get a really usable defensive
system to protect land-based
American missile silos - some-
thing far short of a Star Wars de-
fense, but a neat little improve-
ment in our arsenal that would jus-
tify deploying lots of MX missiles
(because it could protect many of
them in a war). Even without a full-
blown Star Wars program, the
fragile arms control regime now in
force could easily unravel.
And yet, whatever marginal ad-
vantages the Soviets might get
from their new radar or we might
get from "point defense" of missile
sibs would not begin to provide
meaningful new security to either
side. Security in a world of 40,000-
plus nuclear warheads can't be
bought with incremental changes
in your arsenal Security can only
come from confidence that the
other fellow understands the bal-
ance of terror roughly the way you
do, and has decided to try to live
with it in an orderly way. Security
is a political matter, not a technical
invention.
Increased security based on
political accommodation was al-
ways the promise of the anus ne-
gotiations launched by Richard
Nixon and Henry Kissinger in
1969. Curiously, those two men
seem assured of a relatively posi-
tive place in history bemuse of
their dip omatic accomplishments
- and despite transgressions that
would sink the reputations of many
other public Bauures.
What sort of historical reputation
would a public official enjoy if he is
held responsible for destroying the
fruits of those earlier negotiations,
and also for initiating the most ex-
pensive and dangerous round in the
entire history of the arms race?
Ronald Reagan, apparently sur-
rounded by yes-men and dreamers,
may not have faced that question,
but perhaps he should.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403240002-0