Souring on SALT?

Moscow and Washington launched the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) 14 months ago on a note of guarded optimism. Last week, with the talks due to resume in Vienna in mid-March, the mood was one of gloom. In Washington, a top-level White House official said that the Administration believed Moscow has failed to make the basic "political decision" on the desirability of setting limits on its military capability. Yet the prestigious Federation of American Scientists has charged the Administration with precisely the same failure and warned that, as a result, SALT may produce nothing but a "sham" agreement.

Megaton Monster. Behind the pessimism is the deep distrust with which the U.S. and the Soviet Union view each other's proposals. The U.S. plan contemplates a comprehensive limit on both offensive and defensive weaponry. It calls for a numerical limit of about 1,900 delivery vehicles for each side. The exact mix within that limit would be left to each power to decide. Within the quantitative limit, each side could make a number of qualitative improvements on existing weapons systems.

The U.S. plan did not appeal to Moscow on several counts. To begin with, it proposed a special limit on the Soviet S59 rocket, a 25-megaton monster (v. five megatons for the largest American ICBM). In addition, the U.S. plan did not include Europe-based U.S. and NATO bombers or Sixth Fleet aircraft, though they are capable of striking targets within the Soviet Union.

Moscow countered with a proposal that the two sides start off more modestly--by limiting deployment of anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems to their respective capitals. U.S. proponents of arms control swiftly urged Nixon to accept the plan. They pointed out that it would save the U.S. the enormous cost of continuing to develop its Safeguard ABM system, which has been deployed around selected Minuteman missile sites despite strong objections in Congress. Moscow has been guarded by a ring of 64 ABMs since 1967, but none have been deployed since then.

An ABM limit might break the "action-reaction cycle," which encourages each side to develop ever more deadly weapons capable of cracking enemy defenses. With ABM in place, both sides are encouraged to work on MIRV (for multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles), a system that equips a single rocket with several warheads and is designed to pierce ABM defenses. With ABMs severely limited, the need for MIRVed weapons would be reduced.

Finally, as supporters of the Soviet plan noted, the Johnson Administration offered just such a proposal to Moscow in early 1967. Although the Russians rejected it then, argued the disarmament proponents, there was no reason for the U.S. to hesitate in accepting it now.

The Administration disagreed and turned down Moscow's plan. White House strategists contend that the Soviets are merely trying to get rid of Safeguard on the cheap. The Russians, they claim, fret that the ABM can be upgraded from a shield for individual silos into a defense for much wider areas against a Soviet counterstrike. That would enable the U.S. to launch a first strike against the Soviet Union with less fear of retaliation, upsetting the nuclear "balance of terror."

Mere Umbrella. It is also argued that Moscow's plan would place no limit on the SS-9, the Soviet weapon that most worries the U.S. The huge S59 could crack even hardened missile silos, thus opening the way for a Soviet strike at military, industrial and civilian centers with less fear of retaliation.

Actually, the Soviets have already halted deployment of the SS-9. Defense Secretary Melvin Laird feels that the halt is temporary; he has speculated that the Soviets might be pausing to refit the rocket with their own version of MIRV. As a result, Administration planners argue the U.S. should not give away its Safeguard "bargaining chip" until the Soviets are willing to put theirs, the SS-9, in the same package.

Even if the Nixon plan were accepted, says Morton H. Halperin, a former member of the National Security Council and now a leading member of the Federation of American Scientists, it would merely provide an "umbrella" beneath which both sides can continue to spend vast sums improving their weapons. Despite the businesslike atmosphere among the SALT negotiators so far, both Washington and Moscow continue to view the other capital's activities and intentions in the worst possible light.

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