Nino Pasti’s evaluaticn of Reagan’s START proposai | -AU.S. smokescreen for ‘first strike’ During his visit to Canada to take part in the anti- Cruise mobilization, Italian Senator Nino Pasti, a former General wage 3 the post of Allied Supreme vice- in Europe for Nuclear Affairs, examined the present balance of forces as well as Soviet and U.S. proposals currently being discussed. In response to Soviet proposals for serious talks aimed at limiting and reducing nuclear arsenals, U.S. president Reagan brought forward his START (Strategic Arms Reduction Talks) package. This is Pasti’s evaluation of START outlined at a Toronto press conference: * * * The U.S. argues that both sides have the same number of strategic warheads on their missiles. But there’s one important point here — the majority of Soviet missiles are ground missiles with a small minority of them carried by submarines. For the U.S. it’s the opposite — the majority of U.S. missiles are carried by submarine, the minority are land Reagan’s START proposal is: let’s examine the ground missiles of both sides and reduce them to the same level. In effect, the USSR is asked to reduce its ground missile arsenal by about 3,000 while the U.S. offers to reduce its ground rockets by 1,000. Then, the U.S. says, we can examine submarine-launched missiles. It’s vital here to keep the geography of the region in mind. Soviet naval forces are concentrated in four areas — Arctic Ocean, Baltic Sea, Black Sea and the Soviet Pacific coast on the Sea of Japan. To reach the open sea, these forces must travel through narrow waters controlled by NATO navies. Each Soviet vessel is then tracked and followed. Its location is known to NATO at all times. The U.S. navy, by contrast, is operating in the open “sea making it impossible for the USSR to ‘‘localize”’ U.S. missile-carrying submarines. First Strike Theory Let us look at the U.S. concern over a possible Soviet first strike against the United States. Suppose they are able (and this is not true) to destroy all U.S. strategic ground missiles on a first strike. The U.S. will still retain the majority of its missiles carried by its submarine fleet able to retaliate with terrible force. Such a Soviet first strike would be suicidal. But let’s look at it in reverse. Should a U:S. first strike against the USSR destroy the ground missile forces, they are also able to destroy the Soviet submarine fleet locked as they are in confined waters. AUS. first strike therefore disarms the USSR and this is the actual difference. Examining the “third leg’’, that is aircraft attack, here again Soviet aircraft must fly long distances over oceans and land controlled by NATO forces. By contrast, U.S. _ Nuclear War Would Mean Unprecedented Deaths AMERICAN DEATHS = 200000 people IN_A NUCLEAR WAR” TS AA AAAAAALAAAADAAAADA LER EA A Reet et IN PAST WARS Wd HII MAbaSAAAAAAAADA ADADAASOAEAALELAA RELA Rohe tes VIII SSDP TOP DST reer Te Sees TSS SCT Rete oODN S| Cwlwer HH RERNERRNGRREARNRART RARE RAR RS wi # SIRERESEAPRERERESRELORERO ASIC RETR RRR RITA REY RESSERUERRCROSSSORUESERUDERRRERARETARERRRRARR ERT wer HANA ets SIRREASERRRG TSS CPERERR ES ALEC RS RARER RRR RRR RIT Veen SOERRDESEEERERS OTRO ESTOUOROERRRRSEREERERRERRER LSSPARASISUDANASS pian Vesansensvasctssareeane Sree 4900000 140,000,000 SOVIET DEATHS : IN_PAST WARS $ = 200000 people IN_A NUCLEAR WAR® AWA WAI PI VIII WIAA HANAHAN WISI dy: WY HL AL a 4 WAI Wd HALA PISCE PePOSeP Peer eceeeereer eri irr ec ecrr! WA Bereseetenreee RRR ERRERRRRERERERRREE EERE ET nuclear armed aircraft are forward-based ringing So borders with but a short distance to fly. Shrinking Time Gap When I say the U.S. can disarm the USSR by a strike, this is true with one condition. U.S.-based missiles will take 30 minutes to Soviet territory. Thirty minutes today is sufficient ti for Soviet reconnaissance ‘satelites to witness a ro launch and monitor it. By this means the USSR is ab determine if a genuine attack is underway, giving Soviet Union time to deploy all their weapons be’ they are destroyed. The ‘‘problem’’ U.S. military planners face is “‘neutralize’’ this 30 minutes gap and they are follo two paths. The first is to deploy the new Pershir missiles in the Federal Republic of Germany. Based in the FRG, the Pershing-2 can destroy Soviet Command Centre in Moscow in four to five nutes from launch time. This action against the mil and political command nerve centre would eliminate Soviet retaliation strike. — Certainly, the USSR’s line of command and co munication extends beyond any one centre, but it wo be difficult in one or two minutes of full scale war organize what needs to be done. By the time this chain command was employed, the 30 minutes needed U.S.-based missiles to reach the USSR will have pas But the U.S. is working on a second plan. The U has set up an outer space command and the shu Columbia is equipped with an arm whose job is to ma ipulate and ‘‘blind’’ Soviet space reconnaissance sat¢| lites. Without this information, Soviet defence al’ thorities will be unable to monitor U.S. missile activity: | Taken together, there is no doubt that the USSR has cause to believe the United States is making prepaf?| tions for a surprise first strike attack. i * * * With these factors in mind, plus the U.S. de mination to proceed with stationing Cruise Pershing-2 missiles in Europe, and its unprecedentt arms build-up based on the myth of Soviet superiorit Pasti commented that Reagan’s so-called START pro osal amounts to an invitation to the USSR to dis unilaterally — a course Moscow has made clear it not take. Intemational Focus Tom Morris | 30,000-Hiroshimas in one small garden The contrast ‘and timing were dramatic. On Nov. 22 Ronald Reagan went on national TV to an- nounce deployment of 100 MX missiles (cynically named ““Peacekeepers’’) and, while arming to the teeth mumbled on about “‘preventing war’’. The same week, 276 U.S. Roman Catholic Bishops re- leased a pastoral letter for the country’s 51 million Catholics in which they described U.S. nuclear policy as dangerous and immoral. The Bishops mament. reason. ‘nt Ai apA Ay ath : : tat Pat ali Pall TY VAAN A SP 4 Ay a 4 x : (\, ¥ \ ae — =>. = 4 A) PACIFIC TRIBUNE— DECEMBER 3, 1982—Page 10 urged opposition to the admin- istration’s ‘‘nuclear deter- rence”’ strategy, called for a mutual nuclear freeze, de- plored the $1-5 trillion U.S. arms build-up and urged Wash- ington to actively work with Moscow for nuclear disar- Reagan’s MX deployment was singled out by the Bishops’ letter, and with good Here’s what is planned: 100 MX intercontinental missiles, each carrying 10 indepen- dently-targetted warheads will be ‘‘planted’’ in a 23 x 1.5- kilometer strip in Wyoming. Regina, consider these figures. Each warhead has 600 kilotons (600,000 tons of TNT) of power — that’s 6,000 kilotons per MX rocket — times 100 MXs. The deadly mess of “‘Peacekeepers’’ packs the punch of 30,000 Hiroshima bombs carried on the super- accurate (to within 90 meters) MX missiles, all aimed at tar- gets in the USSR and other socialist states. How’s that for peace- keeping? At the top of this page we carry Senator Nino Pasti’s analysis of Reagan’s START (Strategic Arms Reduction Talks) proposal which Pasti made in Toronto a month be- fore Reagan announced his — MX plan. Read it and consider this expert’s case and add it to the U.S. MX plan. These two put together and seen within the entire context of Reagan’s five-year nuclear escalation should convince the most critical observer -that now’s the time — more than ever — to step up-the fight for peace and disarmament, the fight for life itself. To grasp the destructive Keeping the past Agent Orange, although 95,000 capacity of this nuclear garden A U.S. Vietnam vets have asked sitting some 250 miles from upon its throne to be tested and hundreds of The poignant song, ‘‘Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?”’ is the cry of a young veteran, back from the war, jobless and hun- gry. Having served the system, he’s now on the heap of for- gotten human scrap, reduced to begging. The song was made popular ‘in the 1930s and mirrored the plight of veterans riding the rods, standing’ in souplines, kicked around by cops. It came to mind this week as two news items showed the same system grinds on: _ @The British Defence Ministery announced Nov. 21 that servicemen wounded in the Falklands campaign and still being treated have lost their cost-of-living allowances. A serviceman who “‘is not able to perform his duties because he is in the hospital or ona sick list is not paid.”’ a Ministry as Ha as spokesman announced. e Ronald Reagan has prop- osed cutting $328-million from - Vietnam war veteran’s pro- grams. The administration has also refused to pay any dis- ability benefits on the grounds of exposure to the poison cases of skin disease, cancer and birth defects are showing up among this group. British Prime Minister Thatcher did, however, meet the boys coming back from the Falklands at the dock and used the occasion to extoll the Em- pire and bolster her political fortunes. Ronald Reagan did, it should be noted, sit for 20 minutes last _ week during the reading of the names of 57,939 U.S. Vietnam dead and then told reporters they died for ‘‘a just cause’’. These men and women were cannon-fodder. They died and were maimed in an effort to keep U.S. and Bnitish corpo rate fortunes and _ influence supreme. They were victims § who now receive the final in- sult from the very system — which has used them. There’s an inscription on a monument at Concord to the British who died fighting the fledgling American rebels: “They came three thousand miles and died, To keep the past upon its throne.’’