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FEATURES —

Reagan’s charges of Soviet ‘cheating
unsubstantiated, say control experts |

By FRED WEIR
American ultra-conservatives have been
claiming for years that the USSR “‘cannot
be trusted” to live up to treaty obligations,
and that it is therefore useless to negotiate

in many parts of the government that
because of the need for new weapons. -
weiere are going to need testing and perhaps €V™
testing above the 150 kiloton limit for a lone
time to come”.

even be eligible to be considered as a possi- [tis Forward taxed System
ble violation of the ABM Treaty until it is |itw | ih.
completed and put into operation. 1RBM
The Reagan administration has made no |itinv — suis
attempt to conceal itsowncontemptforthe [cic

with them. The Reagan administration has
now dropped all pretence of commitment to
arms control, and has joined this dubious
and insupportable bandwagon. With much
media fanfare, the administration has just
released a report which purports to “docu-
ment” several specific instances of Soviet
“cheating” on arms control agreements.

The charges are not surprising in them-
selves. It is inevitable that disagreements
and squabbles over interpretation will arise
between parties to complex strategic agree-
ments. It was for just this reason that the
Standing Consultative Commission (SCC)

was set up by the U.S. and the USSR to ~

monitor compliance with the SALT
treaties.

The SCC meets twice a year in Geneva,
and provides a forum in which differences
and complaints relating to arms control
treaties can be dealt with by experts from
both sides. The record shows that every
dispute that has ever been taken to the SCC
has been satisfactorily resolved. In 1980 a
Pentagon statement said that “Soviet com-
pliance performance under the 14 arms con-
trol agreements signed since 1959 has been
good... We raised a number of issues with
the Soviets in SALT — as they did with
us — but in every case the activity in ques-
tion either ceased or subsequent informa-
tion clarified the situation and allayed our
concern.”

What is truly astounding is that the Rea-
gan administration has made no move
whatsoever to take its current accusation to
the SCC, although it has had ample oppor-
‘tunity to do so. Instead, Washington has
chosen to launch a massive propaganda
campaign, placing a string of unsubstan-
tiated and irresponsible allegations before a
public which-is hardly equipped to judge
them. The only conceivable point of this
exercise is to discredit and repudiate the
arms control process itself.

The hypocrisy is breathtaking. Reagan
has already denounced the SALT II Treaty
as “fatally flawed”, and the U.S. is quite
openly developing a number of new wea-
pons that will destroy the last semblance of
binding arms control. The charges in the
present report, therefore, have the ring of
midnight calling the kettle black.

Moreoever, the allegations are dubious at
best. Examined closely, they don’t appear to
describe clear violations at all. This odd lack
of clarity may offer some clue as to why
Reagan is reluctant to take these complaints
to the SCC, and prefers to trumpet them to
the media.

® The charge that the Soviet Union is
building an “anti-ballistic missile radar sys-
tem” relates to a large radar installation
seen to be under construction in south-
central! Siberia. If indeed this radar is meant
to coordinate a ballistic missile defence net-
work, as Reagan claims; there are some
problems. :

First, it is in the wrong location to fulfill
such a function.

Second, there should be several such rad-.
ars, not just one, since it is inconceivable
that a single installation could cover the
entire USSR from nuclear attack.

Finally, no other anti-ballistic missile
hardware — such as ABM missile sites —
are seen being constructed in association
with this radar. It is probable, as the Soviets
themselves say, that this radar installation is
part of their space program, intended to
track orbital objects. In any case, it will not

10 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 1, 1984

wars” speech, Reagan announced the
launching of a project to build a vast anti-
missile laser system in space. According to
Gerard Smith, one of the American nego-
tiators at the SALT I talks, this Reagan plan
is “equivalent to termination of the ABM
Treaty”.

@ Reagan charges that the Soviets are
“developing a second intercontinental bal-
listic missile in violation of SALT II”.
Under the terms of SALT II, both countries
are entitled to one new ICBM each. The
US. is testing the MX missile. The USSR
has announced that it is developing the
SSX25. Reagan, however, claims that the
Soviet Union is also testing another ICBM,
TheseP IS:

Soviet spokesmen have said that the
“PLS” is actually an updated version of one
of their existing missiles, the SS-13. If true,

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Soviet activity is completely legitimate, and
could not conceivably be a violation of
SALT II. In any case, everyone agrees that
the so-called “PLS” has only been tested
five or six times. Under the terms of SALT
II, the definition of ‘ta second new missile”
depends upon technical criteria applied to
the last 12 of 25 separate tests of the missile.
So, the “PLS” will have to be tested some 20
more time before it becomes even a poten-
tial violator of SALT II.

The U.S. for its part, is quite openly
planning a second new ICBM. The Reagan
administration is committed to building
large numbers of mobile, single-warhead
“Midgetman” missiles to supplement the
coming MX deployment.

® Another charge is that the Soviets are
“encrypting” vital data concerning their
missile tests. SALT II permits the encoding
of some information but Article 15 prohib-
its the encrypting of telemetric data where
this “impedes verification of compliance
with the provisions of the treaty”. The ques-
tion of whether or not the Soviets are encod-
ing critical telemetric data is so ambiguous
that it cannot conceivably be settled in the
court of public opinion. If Reagan honestly
feels that he has a case, he should put his
money where his mouth is, and take the
matter to the SCC.

© The Reagan administration claims that
the USSR has committed “numerous viola-
tions” of the 1974 Threshold Test Ban

- Treaty, which limits underground nuclear

tests to a yield of 150 kilotons. Although
this treaty, like SALT II, has yet to be rati-
fied by the U.S., both sides have agreed to
abide by its provisions.

As to the specific charge that the Soviet
Union has violated the 150 kiloton limit,
Reagan has been unable to find support in
the American scientific community. In a
recent issue of the authoritative Bulletin of

the Atomic Scientists (No. 3, 1983) two top -

American geologists state bluntly: “We
have not found a single instance in which

the size of a Soviet test has exceeded the
threshold.” ao

Moreover, the Reagan administration
abandoned the 20-year negotiations toward
a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1982.
Reagan’s top arms control advisor at the
time, Eugene Rostow, explained that the
talks were terminated because of a “feeling

e Finally, there is the already discredit?
charge that the USSR and its allies are usi™!
chemical weapons — “yellow rain” —
Indochina and Afghanistan. The presett
report offers no new evidence for this claifl
and relies very heavily on documentatiol
presented by the U.S. State Department?
two previous reports, in 1981 and 1982. #2

' problem is that these accusations hav

already been torn apart by the most ind®
pendent scientists who have examin
them. E

By far the best and most thorough exam
ination of this allegation can be found in#
new book by Grant Evans, The Yellow
Rainmakers,(Shocken Books, New Yo

at all to the charge that the USSR is us!
chemical weapons, and that the whole “Y&
low rain” story is very probably a cl
disinformation campaign designed to fa
tate the passage through Congress of #
Reagan administration’s own
chemical weapons build-up program. __
The very fact that all of these accusatio®
are being presented by the Reagan adminh
tration in public before any serious attemp
has been made to deal with them throug?
proper, existing channels within the ati
control process, illustrates a central poll
Reagan and his people are utterly pre
pied with arms buildup. They are devotes
of the cult of military power. They have ™
interest whatsoever in pursuing arms col
trol, and would prefer to see it dead.
_ The escalation of global tensions, and tht
total breakdown of arms controls talks #
the recent period has brought our world t0
the brink of disaster. Let everyone note th#
the buck stops at Ronald Reagan’s door.

Fred Weir is a member of the Canaaia
Peace Congress and the author of sevel@
pamphlets on disarmament issues.

Military authorized
‘to push the button’

Various U.S. presidents from Harry
Truman through Lyndon Johnson —and
possibly beyond — have “pre-delegated”
the authority to use nuclear weapons to
military commanders, an article in the
Washington-based journal Common Cause
has revealed this month.

The article, entitled “Whose finger’s on
the button?”, cites claims by White House
and Pentagon spokesmen denying mil-
itary personnel now have advance author-
ity to use nuclear weapons, but it also
quotes several defence experts who say
that some form of pre-delegation may still
exist.

The notion that U.S. presidents have

pre-delegated nuclear authority has added
yet another ominious dimension to U.S.
nuclear policy since the final measure of
control — that political leaders would
have to make the awful decision to trigger
nuclear destruction — apparently did not
exist.
The article points to several instances
where military leaders had been given
advance authority to use nuclear weapons
under crisis conditions. Among them:

® In 1957 and 1958, General Earle Par-
tridge, former Norad commander, stated
that Norad had been given President
Dwight Eisenhower’s ‘‘approval to use,

without reference to anybody, any wea
pons at our disposal if there is a hostile
aircraft in the (detection and warning)
system.” 4
’ @ In 1976, retired Navy Vice-Admiral
Gerald Miller testified at a congressio
hearing that the Norad commander at the
time had been pre-delegated the authority
to order the use of nuclear weapons —
“only under severe restrictions and severe
conditions of attack”” — without first hav-
ing to check with the president. 7

Despite denials that pre-delegation s
exists and. despite the fact that pre-
delegation violates Congress’ sole author
ity to declare war, the president does have
the authority to pre-delegate nuclear deci-
sions, the magazine found. Moreover, it
says, that right “is virtually without
limitation.”

The article quotes former SALT Il
negotiatior Paul Warnke’s warnings that
pre-delegation could lead to a conflict
being escalated out of control as the resul
of rash decisions being made by mili

It also notes that at least some membe
of Congress will be raising the issue o
pre-delegation at defence subcommitt
hearings slated to take place in January. —