Arms Control: Practice for a Drawdown

Following the instructions barked by a soldier straddling the warhead section of a Pershing II intermediate-range missile, a squad of G.I.s from the U.S. 56th Field Artillery Command began to “demate” the weapon, manually separating its five stages. Olive-green shipping canisters lay open, ready for shipment of the components from West Germany’s Mutlangen Army Base to the U.S. An empty missile launcher was marked with white tape to indicate the spots where cutting tools would slice it into scrap metal.

Far to the east, Soviet army engineers near the Central Asian town of Sary- Ozek stripped SS-23 and SS-12 missiles of their guidance systems, then moved the weapons to a desert area and tied square “cakes” of explosives to their exterior. Minutes later, the pile of missiles was transformed into a fireball.

Both events were dry runs, staged in preparation for the actual dismantling ordained under the intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) treaty signed at the Moscow summit. The drawdowns of both sides’ intermediate-range missiles will continue through May 1991. The commander of the 56th Artillery, Brigadier General Roger K. Bean, acknowledged that his men could finish sooner. But, said Bean, since the Soviets have 1,836 missiles to destroy, compared with only 859 for the U.S., the 56th will have to slow its efforts to maintain a symmetrical deterrence “until the end.”