SALT: The Third Round

IN the midst of new uncertainties in U.S.-Soviet relations, the third round of the U.S.-Soviet Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) opens this week in the Finnish capital of Helsinki. Negotiators expect it to last only about six weeks, all but ruling out any formal agreement on the enormously complex subject. The U.S. is hopeful nonetheless that the Soviets will reply to the comprehensive arms plan presented by the Nixon Administration last June.

Under it, the U.S. and the Soviet Union would place an upper limit on the total number of their strategic weapons systems. Each side would be free to choose its own mix within that limit.

At present the U.S. holds a lead in heavy bombers and SLBMs (sea-launched ballistic missiles). The Soviet Union is ahead in the number of intercontinental, medium-and intermediate-range ballistic missiles and medium bombers (see chart). Two problems that could complicate the final equation, however, have not yet come up for discussion: > Both sides are moving ahead with the development of MIRV (multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles), a system that arms a single rocket with several warheads. Its deployment, undetectable by most monitoring procedures, could make a final agreement impossible. >The Nixon plan provides for parity in delivery systems but not in megatonnage. Because some Soviet rockets are so much larger (some SS-9s pack 25 megatons v. five megatons for Titan 2, the biggest American 1CBM), the Soviets would probably come out with more firepower. Each side, however, would still possess more than enough megatonnage to destroy the other.

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