Real Peace by Richard Nixon Read Free Book Online Page B

now require that we settle for nothing less than on-site inspection. The Soviets have always rejected such provisions. We must make them understand that the Administration will only be able to muster the two-thirds Senate majority needed for ratification of a treaty if we have absolute confidence that both sides will carry out its provisions.
    Fourth, it must restrict the testing of new missile technology that would destabilize the strategic balance. Technology is advancing faster than the superpowers can negotiate controls on the weapons it produces. The danger is that missile accuracy will advance to the point that neither side will have a nuclear deterrent that can survive a first strike. If we limit the testing of new missiles, we can prevent their deployment, because no country would stake its survival on missiles that had not been flight-tested.
    Fifth, it must reduce, not just limit, the nuclear arsenals of the superpowers. The United States has proposed such reductions several times, but the Soviet Union has always rejected the idea. The only conceivable reason for each superpower to maintain its nuclear stockpile at today’s levels is that the other superpower is doing so. Through arms control agreements, we can retire the aging and obsolete missiles on both sides and reduce the numbers of new missiles as well.
    Sixth, it should allow for the implementation of the Scow-croft Commission’s recommendation to replace fixed, land-based, multi-warhead missiles with mobile, single-warhead ones. It takes at least two warheads detonated simultaneously to destroy a land-based missile in its silo. If both sides had equal numbers of single-warhead missiles, neither would have enough warheads to launch a successful first strike against the other. If these missiles were mobile, it would make the success of such an attack so doubtful that one side would never risk attacking the other.
    The proposal to freeze the nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union at current levels is fatally flawed because it fails to meet these six criteria. Its proponents say that their goals are to achieve meaningful arms control and to reduce the danger of war. Their intentions are good, but their judgment is not. If we were to negotiate a nuclear freeze, its effect would be just the opposite of what they expect.
    A nuclear freeze would increase the danger of war because it would leave the Soviet Union, an offensive power, with an unquestionable first-strike capability. It would destroy any chance for meaningful arms reductions because it would eliminate the incentives for the Kremlin leaders to negotiate.
    The history of the negotiations that led to the 1972 SALT I treaty limiting defensive nuclear weapons illustrates this point. The Soviets already had begun to deploy an anti-ballistic missile system. When completed, it would protect their command centers and missile bases from a nuclear attack. We countered this by asking the Congress to approve funding for an ABM system for the United States. Our critics charged that we were escalating the arms race and destroying the chances for an arms control agreement. Only after intensive lobbying were we able to get the Senate, by a margin of just one vote, to go along with the proposal.
    The approval of the ABM program made SALT I possible. It was in the Soviets’ interest to stop us from going forward with our system because our technology was better than theirs. They were therefore willing to pay a price to stop us. But if we had lost the Senate vote, I would have had to ask Brezhnev to give up his ABM system without getting anything in return. He would have just laughed in my face.
    The Soviets are not philanthropists. Nor are they fools. They are tough, ruthless negotiators who will give nothing for nothing. In negotiating with them, we cannot get something from them unless we have something to give to them.
    The greatest threat to peace today is the Soviet arsenal of strategic