Pro and Con

Should U.S. Kill the MX Missile?

YES-"After spending 100 billion dollars, we'll still be vulnerable"

President, Arms Control Association

A In the first place, I believe the MX is a dangerous missile because it can provoke a Soviet attack on the United States. Secondly, the basing scheme that has been proposed will not work in terms of providing invulnerability, to our deterrent force. What we will end up with is a missile system that will provoke an attack by the Soviet Union and that will be vulnerable.

Q How will it provoke an attack?

A Because the MX-missile system is specifically designed to have enough warheads with the characteristics to threaten the entire Soviet intercontinental-ballistic-missile portion of their deterrent-or about 75 percent of their strategic deterrent. The Soviets will obviously have to do something to combat that.

Q With the Increasing vulnerability of the Minuteman-missile system, doesn't the U.S. have to do something to preserve its land-based deterrent force?

A I, too, do not like the situation where an important part of our deterrent is becoming at least theoretically vulnerable. But I think one should differentiate between actual and theoretical vulnerability.

The Soviets could never rely on being able to knock out a thousand American land-based missiles in a single, essentially simultaneous attack. And even if they did, we would always be able to retaliate against military as well as industrial targets with our submarine missiles and with our bombers.

So it is essentially a theoretical vulnerability--which I don't like. But since it is theoretical, one does not have to panic and rush into the first solution that comes along-particularly when this particular proposed basing mode for the MX really will not provide the invulnerability we seek.

A Because the whole principle of this "race track," multiple-launch-point type of basing depends on the Soviets' not having a significantly larger number of warheads than we have launch points. In other words, we are playing the shell game with the Soviet Union. But if they have more warheads than we have launch points, then they can just attack them all, regardless of whether these launch points or shelters have a missile in them or not.

Now, it might have been all right if we had had a SALT II treaty that would last beyond the expiration date of 1985. But now, without any SALT II treaty and very little prospect of getting one, we are in a situation where there is no upper limit on the numbers of Soviet warheads. The Soviets can build warheads faster and probably about as cheaply as we can build the additional silos. So after spending what is now estimated to be about 60 billion dollars-and will probably prove to be 100 billion dollars-we will have a system that will still be vulnerable to the Soviet warheads.

Q Pentagon officials say they're concerned that the Soviets may be able to concentrate on one leg of our strategic triad after another, making each of them vulnerable. Does that worry you?

A That's the major reason for having a triad and why, in my view, our strategic policies were very sound when we split our forces about evenly among land-based missiles, sea-based missiles and bombers. The Soviets made a very bad mistake by essentially putting most of their eggs in their ICBM basket. In the long run, they're going to pay the price for that.

Now we are seeing one leg of our deterrent becoming theoretically vulnerable. But that's why we were smart and built the other two legs. It's true, if the one leg were completely vulnerable, the Soviets could concentrate on another one. But they're still a long way from having any kind of capability to negate our submarine ballistic missiles.

Q As our Minuteman-missile system becomes increasingly vulnerable, does that mean that we would have to go to a launch-on-warning or a launch-under-attack strategy?

A That is obviously the cheapest alternative. But it is a very dangerous alternative because we would run the risk of getting involved in an accidental nuclear war. Frankly, I don't want to rest the future of myself or the whole world on the hope that computers will work perfectly.

Q If the U.S. doesn't build the MX, do we need some other new form of strategic-weapons system?

A I would like to see some plan for the replacement of the land-based system. The best solution would be for both sides to phase out their ICBMs. But this is not very promising in the current political climate.

There is one weapon that looks extremely interesting at the moment. This one, to date, has not been found unworkable, as all the others have been. It would use a 1,000-ton submarine that would have, say, a crew of 15 people, and would operate in coastal waters--in relatively deep water but near the shore. On the West Coast, you could be very close to the shore. On the East Coast, you'd be out toward the edge of the continental shelf-maybe 100 miles out. This is in order to make sure that the submarines would not be vulnerable to the tidal waves that could be caused by a nuclear explosion under the water.

These submarines could each carry two MX missiles, although I personally would recommend the existing Trident I. These would be untargetable, and we would avoid getting into a race between Soviet warheads and numbers of American missile-launch points.

Q Are you opposed to the MX only on strategic grounds?

A The environmental effects in Nevada and Utah would be cataclysmic. These missiles will be deployed in a rectangle encompassing about 42,000 square miles, with some 10,000 miles of highway that can handle a 1-million-pound vehicle.

The entire U.S. federal highway system built since 1955 is only 40,000 miles. And here we are building about one fourth of that length out there in the middle of the desert. If that isn't going to have an environmental and economic impact on that area, I'll eat my hat.

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