The United States and SALT (1979)

[Russian speech] By 1972, the Soviets had already gained a three-to-two numerical advantage over the United States in ICBMs. This Soviet advantage was accepted by the U.S. in the first Strategic Arms Limitation agreement. SALT I was approved by the U.S. Senate in 1972, but with the Jackson amendment, which required that the next SALT treaty must be equal. - As a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, I was deeply concerned about the imbalance inherent in the SALT I treaty. However, because of President Nixon's firm commitment, which was in turn, supported before the Congress by the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, leading to modernization of our strategic forces, I did support the treaty.

This modernization was to include the Trident submarine, the MX missile, the cruise missile, the B1 bomber, and advanced research and development as well. - Every one of the United States' defense programs that was promised in order to get SALT I has now been either canceled, delayed, or stretched out, and it puts us in the position of facing the threat of the '80s with equipment designed for the '60s. Meanwhile, the Soviets have modernized their forces by spending $104 billion, more than the United States on strategic weapons in the last decade. In 1979, the Carter administration settled for a SALT II treaty which only appears to be equal. - The SALT II treaty reduces the danger of nuclear war. For the first time, it places equal ceilings on the strategic arsenal of both sides, ending

a previous numerical imbalance in favor of the Soviet Union. - But this treaty does not meet the standards of the 1972 Jackson Equality Amendment to SALT I. - To enter into a treaty that favors the Soviets, as this one does, on the ground that we will be in a worse position without it, is ladies and gentlemen, I think, appeasement in its purest form. - I think the treaty almost guarantees that you're going to have a strategic inequality and a very significant inequality, not only now at the beginning of the treaty time, but in 1985, when the treaty ends. In a word, I think we got out-negotiated. SALT II will codify the current American military position vis-a-vis the Russians, and will, in fact, concede superiority to the Russians, and at the same time, cosmetically give the

impression to the American people of "well done." - From a historical point of view, it's clear that we cannot trust the Soviets to keep SALT II. Out of 27 summit agreements with the Soviet Union, they have broken or cheated on all but one, and that, of course, includes SALT I. I think it's quite clear that we must have some form of positive verification of this treaty. - The administration claimed that this treaty is verifiable is simply not true. There is no way that intelligence, for instance, can tell you how many of a certain missile are being manufactured in the Soviet Union. We can't verify that. We can't verify the range of a cruise missile. Any more than you can verify how far an automobile will go if you go out and take a picture of it in the parking lot. And furthermore, you can't tell, and this is very important, you can't tell, for sure, how many individual warheads are within a Soviet missile nose cone. - The trouble with signing these agreements is that, as well meaning as we are, we live

up to them and the euphoria sets in and the Congress just simply will not vote in increased conventional weapon spending following SALT II as they did not after SALT I. - That agreement will now in effect codify some fundamental deficiencies between the United