The New York Times

October 25, 1984

A Freeze Is Verifiable

By Herbert Scoville Jr.

Polls show that more than two-thirds of the American people support the idea of a nuclear freeze, a key issue in the Presidential campaign. Others, including the President, oppose it, calling its supporters naive, on the grounds that it couldn't be verified. The truth is that we could indeed verify the important provisions of a freeze and could certainly detect any violation that would significantly threaten our security.

Opponents of the freeze suggest that we could not verify a testing moratorium because the Russians encript telemetry - or jumble the data relayed to the ground from a tested missile. They also argue the numbers of warheads on Soviet missiles could not be verified without on-site inspection and that we have no way of assessing a halt in production of Soviet weaponry.

A look at specific cases shows that there is not a kernel of truth in these allegations. Consider a freeze on the testing, production and deployment of new long-range ballistic missiles, the most dangerous type of weapons being developed by either superpower today. Our intelligence capabilities can easily determine whether or not the Soviet Union is secretly acquiring such weapons. For example, our infra-red satellites can observe any testing of them, whether launched from land or a submarine. What's more, if the Russians tested any new missile - a weapon with characteristics different from those already seen - this could be determined by ground observation after it was launched and also on re-entry.

Even without intercepting Soviet telemetry, we can easily count the number of warheads on a tested missile, while also determining their weight and whether they are ''terminal guided'' for accuracy in hitting their targets. With telemetry, we can get even more detailed information, and presumably the encoding of any telemetry needed for verification would be forbidden by a freeze. Such encoding would in itself provide evidence of a violation of the freeze. We have also been able to observe the deployment of new missiles, usually several years before they are operational. Even were the Russians to develop mobile missiles, which almost certainly would be picked up in testing, it is highly probable that we would detect their existence before significant numbers were deployed. Adding verification of a ban on production to a ban on testing and deployment increases our overall confidence that the Soviet Union is not acquiring an important new missile capability. The monitoring of production is difficult, but public testimony indicates that we know where all Soviet missiles are built today. Any significant secret production would most likely also be spotted.

To verify a freeze on the production of nuclear explosives, as opposed to warheads and delivery systems, we can keep track of the Soviet Union's fisionable material. Twenty years ago, our intelligence was good enough to locate the plants that produced all Soviet fissionable material, and it certainly has improved since then. Since the Soviet Union already has more than 100,000 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium-235 and plutonium, any secret production would have to be quite large in order to be significant. There is virtually no chance that this would escape our eyes.

Yet another essential element of a freeze would be a comprehensive test ban treaty, along the lines of the agreement that was being worked out with the Soviet Union in 1978. This, too, could be satisfactorily monitored: verification provisions, including inspections and unmanned seismic stations, have been agreed upon. These, together with our vastly improved seismic discrimination techniques, would permit the identification of tests as low as a kiloton of explosive force or less. Herbert York, chief United States negotiator of the agreement, has testified that with the political will, we could have had a verifiable test ban in less than six months. As it happened, President Reagan abandoned negotiations in order to allow us to further improve our weapons - two years before Moscow broke off talks on intermediate-range and long-range missiles. These are only a few examples of how the most important aspects of the freeze can be verified. Indeed, it is much easier to verify a freeze - a complete ban on new weapons programs - than it would be to verify the reductions in numbers of nuclear missiles proposed by Mr. Reagan. Under his plan, testing, production and deployment of new missiles would be allowed to continue as long as the total number deployed did not exceed an agreed ceiling, and there would be no restrictions on new types of missiles, such as the cruise, that would be considerably harder to verify. President Reagan has never publicly stated how he would verify his proposal: the problem with verifying compliance with a ceiling is that some production and deployment is allowed. A total freeze would be much easier to confirm. Skeptics who denounce the freeze on the grounds that it can not be verified have misplaced their concern. The monkey of verification belongs on the President's back.

Herbert Scoville Jr. was formerly Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency for Research (Science and Technology).