75-03-B5
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Arms Limitations[edit]
Transcript[edit]Does the proposed arms limitation agreement provide for nuclear equality between the United States and the Soviet Union? Outwardly yes but the reality may be another story. I'll be right back. When President Nixon concluded the first phase of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, SALT I, in 1972, he conceded there would be continued Soviet superiority in land-based missiles and permission for the Soviets to catch and surpass our lead in submarine-based missiles. since the SALT I agreement simultaneously foreclosed development of effective anti-missiles by either side, it seemed to many that the agreement could leave the United States vulnerable once the Soviets had completed deployment of the superior number of missiles allowed. So Congress attached a rider to the SALT I agreement authored by Senator Henry Jackson stipulating that in any future SALT agreements the principle of equality be maintained. President Nixon agreed to the amendment and then Congressman Gerald Ford voted for it. In the House following his trip to Vladivostok late last year President Ford announced he had reached preliminary accord with Secretary Brezhnev on a SALT II agreement. The new agreement groups together the major delivery systems: land-based missiles, sea-based missiles and long-range bombers, and establishes a ceiling of 2400 vehicles for each side. 1320 of the vehicles may be missiles with multiple independently targeted warheads, what we refer to as MIRVs. A merved missile multiplies the destructive power of the missile several times, it sounds like equality, just what Congress had in mind. But hold on, the agreement outlined by President Ford only equalizes the number of missiles, it does not put an equal limit on their size. Instead it freezes the size of the missiles in each nation's present arsenal with only minor modifications permitted. It so happens that the Soviets have much larger missiles right now than we do. Once the Soviets have MIRVed the 1320 missiles they're permitted, and our satellite reconnaissance suggests they've already started to; they'll be able to deliver something between five and ten times as many hydrogen bombs on us as we're able to rain on them. Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger has already conceded that this would give them first strike capability that is the ability to destroy our land-based missiles and bombers, leaving only our sea-based missiles for possible retaliation. This is not equality. Some people will always say that when so much destructive power is involved, numbers don't matter. But I've never been able to understand why those who say numbers don't matter are invariably the same people who are most anxious to limit the numbers via a SALT agreement. In the real world balance of destructive power matters greatly both factually and psychologically. If we're going to have a SALT II agreement this year, the president should order his negotiators to get a real equality in every area. If not, it would be better to start from scratch. Now I know that I've thrown a lot of figures at you and they're hard to absorb just hearing them at this one broadcast. You can get a copy by writing to the station. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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