The North Coast times-eagle., August 01, 2003, Page 11, Image 11

NORTH COAST TIMES E A G L E , AUGTEMBER 2003
War and had earlier that year announced its intention to deploy
a “thin" antiballistic missile system (ABM) to counter an identical
system around Moscow. The ABM systems brought sharply
divided views on the possible effects on the nuclear arms race.
Threats raised by development of intercontinental ballistic
missiles (ICBMs) and the ABMs set up in defense of them finally
caused the opening of the first round of SALT talks in Helsinki,
Sweden in November 1969.
Soviet and American weapons systems were far from
symmetrical. The USSR, which had lagged behind the U.S. in
ballistic missiles, caught up during the years of SALT negotia­
tions. Its landbased ICBMs rose from around 1,000 to 1,500 and
were deployed at a rate of some 200 annually. Soviet submarine
based launchers had quadrupled. The U.S. had not increased
its deployment of strategic missiles since 1967 — that year its
ICBMs numbered 1,054, and its submarine-launched ballistic
missiles (SLBMs) 656 — but it was conducting a vigorous pro­
gram of substituting single-target missiles with MIRVs, which
were multiple warheads loaded onto individual missiles and
aimed at separate targets. One SLBM submarine armed with
MIRVs was capable of destroying every major city in the Soviet
Union MIRVs gave the U.S. a lead in numbers of warheads and
it retained a lead in longrange bombers, still in use as nuclear
weapons carriers.
The U.S. had also shifted from its earlier plan for a “thin"
ABM system of certain American cities and was deploying ABMs
around two landbased missile sites. The full U.S. program called
for 12 ABM complexes. The USSR had only a limited ABM
curtain around Moscow.
Defense perceptions and commitments of the super­
powers differed considerably. The U.S. was involved in several
webs of overseas treaties, which included Western Europe,
Southeast Asia and Japan, while the Soviet Union's allies were
its near neighbors, captive to the Soviet realm since the end of
World War 2 (the so-called ‘Warsaw Pact'). These circumstan­
ces made it difficult to equate specific weapons or categories
of weapons, and in defining overall strategic equivalence.
Two initial disagreements nearly shackled the talks.
The Soviets sought to define as “strategic" any U.S. or Soviet
weapons system capable of reaching the territory of the other
side. This would have included U.S. forward-based systems,
chiefly short-range or medium-range bombers on aircraft
carriers or based in Europe, but would have excluded, for
example, Soviet intermediate-range missiles aimed at Western
Europe. The U.S. position was that weapons under negotiation
comprised intercontinental systems, and to accept the Soviet
approach would jeopardize its alliances. The Soviets then
sought to restrict negotiations to ABM systems, maintaining
that limitation on offensive systems should be deferred. But the
U.S. said it was essential to at least begin the process of limiting
offensive systems.
After two and one-half years of such haggling, the first
round of SALT finally ended May 26, 1972 when President
Richard Nixon and General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev signed
the ABM Treaty and Interim Agreement on Strategic Offensive
Arms.
The basic provisions of each SALT 1 agreement differed
in their duration and inclusiveness. The ABM Treaty was to be
of unlimited duration, yet each superpower could withdraw on six
months notice if it decided its interests were compromised. The
Interim Agreement was for a five year span and covered only
certain major aspects of strategic weaponry.
The ABM treaty specified that each of the belligerents
could have only two anti-missile deployment areas, which were
subsequently reduced to one area apiece. This was to be so
restricted and so located that neither superpower would be able
to provide a nationwide missile defense or form the basis of
developing one, which left penetration of offensive missiles
into either virtually unchallenged. The intent was to limit
development of nuclear weapons specifically designed for
deployment against ABM systems. The Soviet Union chose
Moscow, which was already curtained, as its ABM site, and the
U.S., which originally planned to protect Washington, D C.,
selected instead an IBM site in North Dakota.
At each ABM site there were to be no more than 100
interceptor missiles and 100 launchers forthose missiles. Both
parties agreed to not develop, test or deploy ABM launchers
capable of launching more than one interceptor at a time or
modify existing launchers for this capability, and systems for
rapid reload of launchers were also banned. Interceptor missiles
with more than one warhead were taboo. Early warning radars
were not forbidden but were to be located only along the territor­
ial boundaries of each superpower and pointed outward so as to
not contribute to an effective ABM defense of the interior.
PAGE 11
ROBERTARNESON
The second SALT 1 accord was the Interim Agreement
on the limitation of strategic nuclear weapons, which was
confined in duration and scope and intended to remain in force
only five years. It was a holding act designed to complement the
ABM treaty by restricting competition in offensive strategic arms
and provide time for further negotiations, which culminated in
the SALT 2 talks. The Agreement essentially froze the number
of strategic ballistic missile launchers, operational or under
construction, at existing levels on each side. It also permitted
an increase in submarine missile launchers up to an agreed
level for each party only with the dismantling or destruction
of a corresponding number of older ICBMs or SLMB launchers,
conveniently allowing for development of newer generations
of missiles and launchers by scrapping obsolescent ones.
The Salt 1 treaty was signed in Moscow, May 26, 1972
and entered into force on October 3 that year. At the date of
signing the U.S. had an arsenal of 1,054 landbased ICBMs with
none under construction. The Soviet Union had an estimated
1,618 operational and under construction. Neither superpower
was to start construction of additional fixed landbased ICBM
launchers during the five year period of the Interim Agreement,
but mobile ICBMs were not covered. The Soviet Union held that
since neither side had such systems a freeze should not apply,
and opposed banning them in the future. The U.S., however,
was concerned about verification and wanted them banned.
A year after SALT 1 an Agreement on the Prevention of
Nuclear War was signed by Nixon and Brezhnev in Washington,
D C. The U.S. and USSR promised to make the removal of
the threat of nuclear war and the use of nuclear weapons an
“objective of their policies," to practice restraint in superpower
relations and toward all other countries, and to pursue a policy
toward stability and peace. The agreement basically covered
two areas:
The first outlined general conduct of the superpowers
toward each other and toward third countries regarding the
avoidance of nuclear war.
The second was the agreement of both superpowers to
consult with each other in case of nuclear confrontation either as
a result of policies toward each other or of problems elsewhere
in the world. These consultations were to be communicated
to the United Nations. Article VI stipulated that nothing in the
agreement would affect formal alliances or “the inherent right
of countries to defend themselves."
Six months after SALT 1 was signed talks began on
SALT 2. The purpose was to replace the Interim Agreement with
a long-term comprehensive treaty. SALT 2 was to provide parity,
to begin the process of reduction of nuclear delivery vehicles
and to impose crucial restraints on the incredibly rapid evolution
of nuclear weapons.
Initial discussions focused on weapons systems and
parity factors, which were to take into account important
differences between the superpowers. Because of the extreme
variance between them, it took two years before both sides
agreed to a basic framework for the talks. These included a
2,400 aggregate limit on strategic nuclear delivery vehicles
of the two sides; a 1,320 aggregate limit on MIRV systems;
a construction ban on new landbased ICBM launchers; limits
on deployment of new types of strategic arms; and incorporation
into the SALT 2 agreement vital elements of the SALT 1 Interim
Agreement.
The SALT 2 treaty restricted the U.S. and Soviet Union
to an equal overall total of strategic nuclear delivery vehicles,
which redressed an imbalance in favor of the USSR that had
existed since prior to signing SALT 1. The units included under
this ceiling were landbased ICBM launchers, heavy bombers
and air-to-surface ballistic missiles (ASBMs) with ranges over
600 kilometers, or about 350 miles. A number of subceilings
were placed on specific types of nuclear systems.
The initial ceiling of all ICBM launchers, SLBM launch­
ers, heavy bombers and ASBMs was to be 2,400, to be reduced
by 150 by the end of 1981. The Soviet Union, which was at a
level of about 2,520 in 1979, would be required to remove 270
while the United States, at a 1979 level of about 2,060 operat­
ional systems, was allowed to increase its nuclear arsenal.
Each superpower was to be allowed a combined total of 2,250
strategic nuclear delivery vehicles of all types within three years.
Of those 2,250, neither superpower would be permitted
more than a combined total of 1,320 of the following types:
launchers of MIRVed ICBMs and SLBMs, heavy bombers
equipped for long-range cruise missiles, and MIRVed ASBMs.
Of the 1,320, neither side was allowed more than a
combined total of 1,200 launchers of MIRVed ICBMs and
SLBMs, and MIRVed ASBMs.
Of the 1,200, no more than 820 launchers of MIRVed
ICBMs would be allowed to either side.
The construction of additional fixed ICBM launchers was
banned and neither superpower was permitted to increase the
number of its fixed launchers for heavy ICBMs — which were
defined as ICBMs with a launch-weight (weight of the total
missile) or throw-weight (weight of the useful payload of the
missile) greater than that of the Soviet SS-19 missile.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 12
GROUND ZERO
BY M. L. GRAHAM
VAN PUSEN BEVERAGES
ASTORIA, OREGON
325-2362
More brilliant than a thousand noonday suns the
flash and racing inferno poured down from the sky, and
in an instant a countryside turned to ash. Little girls with
delicate skin were cremated in pink dresses. Old men
on park benches vanished Gone also were the benches
and the shade trees flared into burning forests. Shadows
were burnt into the ground the instant bone and blood
burned away Seeds that had contained such promise
were scorched to lifeless pits by a cosmic zephyr traveling
at the speed of death Love and hope, in its way, were
disintegrated
The giants of war had flung their spears. With
unyielding and pitiless menace they had squeezed a
formula for horror out of the Earth, then shaped laws
around bombs that turned the simple atom into the
destroyer of worlds The bombs quickly became the
intent of laws, and the laws became hopelessly snarled
with the laws and bombs of enemies The drift to the final
war was inevitable because zero was done to prevent it.
A shower of radiation particles fell gently like
an invisible snow upon the charred land, covering the
smoking rubbish piles that had been alive moments
before There was silence A crazy kind of silence.
M L Graham lives in Arch Cape and is the Tire
marshal there He wrote Ground Zero' for the NCTE in
1980
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