.
Reagan's SALT II Folly
•v<* WASHINGTON .—• President Rea- hundreds more missiles — about 130
•*gan's reaffirmation, in his State of the this year alone as against our 32. Of
-'"Union Message, of the importance of course, they will be. under no con­
^'protecting our country was deeply straints if we continue to violate the
•/' Ironic, coming on the heels of his deci- treaty's numerical limits. Even the
, V»ion to violate the SALT II treaty. Central Intelligence Agency admits
VThis decision marked the^first time that without the treaty the Soviet
*/either superpower has violated the ' Union by 1995 can have about 5,000
> '—'treaty sublimit on missiles and bomb- more nuclear warheads than it would
."ers, thereby risking an accelerated otherwise have.
> '<. :
1 '•'"nuclear arms race. Few Americans
America has legitimate concerns
want the Russians to have thousands about some aspects of Soviet compli­
of extra nuclear warheads, yet that is ance, and Congress has approved giv­
»v -where,our current course will take us. ing the President authority to re­
In late November, the President or- spond to Soviet violations. But ex­
~ 'dered the deployment of another B-52 ceeding the 1,320 multiple-warhead'•""bomber with cruise missiles, without missile limit effectively trashes the
*"«ny offsetting dismantling. This treaty and guarantees a new arms
''- caused us to exceed the treaty limit of race. Even critics of the treaty con­
I*" 1,320 multiple-warhead weapons. We cede that the Soviet violations cer­
v^liave violated this limit twice since tainly do not alter the strategic bal­
; then and, under current plans, will do ance. Scrapping the accord because
pacbo 22 more times in 1987 alone.
of our compliance concerns is like
o} What do we gain from breaking the scrapping the criminal code because
-"•limit? A tiny increase in our strategic of the existence, of crime. Scrapping
-^forces and an extra four to five years the treaty does not end Soviet viola­
•4 -of service from two missile subma- tions: it legalizes them.
^"rlnes, after which they will be
Ironically, one of the first effects of
-. -scrapped anyway because they will our violating the numerical limits
their 30-year life limit What will will be to allow the Soviet Union to in­
results be? An unrestricted nu- crease its quantity of precisely those
iClear arms race.
weapons that the Administration has
;•• To date, abiding by strategic arms consistently labeled as the most de­
,,agreements has required us to dis­ stabilizing: ICBM's with multiple
mantle only 48 operational missiles warheads. The treaty's limit of 820
such ICBM's would force the Soviet
,'vDale Bumpers, Democrat of Arkan- Union to dismantle some of its exist­
•.^sas, has Introduced legislation to bind ing 818 multiple-warhead ICBM's al­
' '^resident Reagan to the missile most immediately after it began de­
'limits contained in SALT II
ploying its new SS-24 later this year
tion with a record of unremitting hos­
tility to arms control. This is right-"*
wing ideology run amok, given the
major increase in Soviet nuclear
forces'brought on by the treaty's'de­
mise and the problems for American
security this creates. It magnifies the ,
difficulties confronting - the'*''Star ;
Wars" program by multiplying the
number of warheads that it must de­
fend against And violating the accord
diverts defense dollars from our real
defense needs, like conventional
forces, toward still more nuclear
weapons. It is no wonder that Brent
Scowtroft, the President's former
strategic weapons adviser, six for­
mer Defense Secretaries (three Re-'
publicans and three Democrats) and
all our Atlantic alliance allies support
staying within the limits.
Does it really make sense to re­
lease the Soviet Union from re­
straints that have already forced it to
dismantle more than 500 missiles and
which will force it to dismantle about
250 more by the end of Mr. Reagan's
term? Who can believe the world will
be better off by adding 10,000 to 20,000
more nuclear warheads over the next;
eight to nine years than it would be if
we continued the pact? Who believes
our national security is enhanced by
inviting Moscow to add 5,000 extra nu­
clear warheads to its arsenal?
Mr. Reagan can strengthen our se­
curity interests and keep at least
some limits on the Soviet nuclear
threat — but only if he puts America
back into compliance with SALT. Q
while the Kremlin has had to disman­ — but not without the treaty.
,.'/•,.,;•
By
Dale
Bumpers
tle
550 missiles and bombers. SALT
Scrapping the accord signals the .
.,<»>•——,*,———**.————-—— would
force the Russians to dismantle triumph of those in the Administra­
-»i'. -.hi,