Defense: The Missing Card

Defense Secretary Robert S. Mc-Namara’s announcement that the U.S. will build a “thin” anti-ballistic-missile shield against a possible Chinese attack (TIME, Sept. 22) came under attack itself last week as proposing both far too little and much too much.

The Administration had had the option to build no ABM system at all, or to construct either the thin shield, aimed at blunting a strike from Peking, or a “thick” shield, designed to cope with an all-out onslaught from Moscow. As usual, Lyndon Johnson staked out the middle ground, and, as usual, he and McNamara came under crossfire from both flanks.

McNamara had long been a precise and persistent opponent of any ABM system, chiefly on the ground that in the lethal game of nuclear deterrence, the best defense is a powerful offense. But when the Russians started deploying an ABM network—however thin—around Moscow and other cities, the Administration came under heavy pressure to follow suit. The reason for the U.S. decision, McNamara told 500 United Press International editors in San Fran cisco’s Fairmont Hotel, was the threat that Red China would probably be able to strike the U.S. with nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles by the mid-1970s. “It would be insane and suicidal for her to do so, but one can conceive conditions under which China might miscalculate,” he said. For that reason, construction of the minimal ABM shield will begin before the end of the year.

Spartan System. The project will involve more than 1,000 contractors and will take five or six years to complete, at a cost of $1 billion a year. The Army, which will have operational responsibility for the system, makes no apologies for the amount of time involved. “Some of the people on the Hill think that all you have to do with a missile site is plug in for water and electricity as you do at a trailer park,” said one officer. The fact is, said another, that “the ABM requires a more complicated system than that needed to land a man on the moon.”

Indeed it does. The forward line of defense will consist of five or six “perimeter acquisition radar sites” (PARS) along the northern U.S. border to identify and track incoming ICBMs. The radar sites will send information back to missile-site radar (MSR) equipment at 14 or so areas where long-range Spartan missiles will be poised to intercept enemy vehicles as much as 400 miles from their targets. Each Spartan battery will protect an elliptical area of the nation—in Pentagonese, a “footprint.” Present plans call for batteries in each of the overlapping footprints, others in Alaska and Hawaii.

Each site will also have batteries of short-range Sprint missiles, designed to intercept, at ranges of up to 25 miles, any ICBMs that escape the clouds of X rays and neutrons laid down by the Spartans. In addition, five or six independent Sprint batteries will be deployed to protect the long-range radar sites and Minutemen in the U.S. Northwest. Though the number has not yet been determined, each Spartan site may have as many as 50 missiles.

A Terrible Bagatelle. The Administration was worried that its announce ment would diminish the chances of negotiating a nuclear nonproliferation treaty, but that fear—initially at least —seemed unfounded. In Geneva, where Soviet and American diplomats have come to terms on everything but an inspection clause, Russian officials offered no adverse comments. In Washington, Italy’s President Giuseppe Saragat quickly welcomed the U.S. decision on the ABM. None of the other NATO nations raised serious objections; in fact, Secretary-General Manlio Brosio said the organization has been discussing an ABM cloak for itself.

The chief congressional critic of the ABM system, Arkansas’ William Fulbright, protested that the U.S. decision would cause “a breakdown in negotiations” with the Russians. On the specific question of limiting ABM deployment, however, Moscow never really allowed talks to get started. Other critics complained that the possibility of a Chinese attack was “just an excuse,” and that the thin ABM net was really aimed at two other targets—the Russians and the Administration’s domestic critics.

The system, said France’s top nuclear strategist, retired General Pierre Gal-lois, is “absolutely useless” except as “a sop to the U.S. hawks, with the 1968 election in the offing.”

Simon Ramo, former chief scientist for the Air Force’s ICBM program and now vice chairman of the industrial conglomerate TRW Inc., warned that the system might cost as much as $4 billion more than is estimated, and could be bypassed by smuggling nuclear weapons into the U.S.

Perhaps the most cogent objection was that there would be intense pressure to turn the thin shield into a thick one, prompting the Russians to do the same. Said the London Times: “Frederick the Great once advised his generals to ‘sacrifice the bagatelle and pursue the essential.’ Mr. McNamara has bowed to pressure to ignore this advice. The ABM is not essential, but it is a bagatelle of a terrible dimension.”

Men as Well as Minutemen. Chief proponents of the thick defense include the Army, members of the Joint Congressional Atomic Energy Committee (particularly such Democratic Senators as Rhode Island’s John Pastore, New Mexico’s Clinton Anderson and Washington’s Henry Jackson), and such Republicans as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and the G.O.P. congressional leadership. “The main threat is from Russia, not China,” said one top-ranking Army general, “and you protect against your main threat.”

The thick-system advocates argue that the U.S. must protect cities as well as silos, men as well as Minutemen. They point out that with a thin defense, a Soviet sneak attack would claim at least 120 million American lives; with a thick defense shielding the 50 largest cities, the losses would be cut to 30 million.

McNamara argues, however, that if the Russians were confronted with a heavy defense, they would simply step up warhead production—and casualties would zoom right up to 120 million again.

One fear voiced by the proponents of an all-out ABM defense is that if the Russians get a big enough jump on the U.S., they may be tempted to launch a pre-emptive war. During hearings last January, General Earle Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, pointed out that a thick ABM shield would “introduce uncertainties which would inhibit Soviet leaders from concluding that the U.S. could not survive a Soviet first strike or that the U.S. would not pre-empt under any circumstance.”

A Mad Momentum. McNamara does have some powerful defenders. The Air Force favors a thin defense and greater reliance on offensive missiles and bombers. One expert at California’s Rand Corp. pointed out thathe ABM decision was not so much defensive, since “there can be no perfect defense against nuclear missiles,” but diplomatic—and a sound move.”At the top power levels, you have to have the cards to play,” he said. “We were missing a card. This is it.” Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield opposes a thick defense as too likely to touch off a new spiral in the arms race. But he approves of the thin defense because it “may prove to be a prelude to negotiations seeking to prevent a race which would cost the U.S. and Russia $40 billion each.”

In his San Francisco speech, McNamara made much the same point. “There is a kind of mad momentum intrinsic to the development of all new nuclear weaponry,” he said. Urging talks between Moscow and Washington on the ABM issue, he warned that a breakdown in negotiations would set both countries off “on a foolish and feckless course.” Concluded McNamara: “What the world requires in its 22nd year of the Atomic Age is not a new race towards armament. What the world requires is a new race towards reasonableness. We had better all run that race. Not merely we the administrators, but we the people.”