An agreement on a new strategic arms limitation treaty with the Soviet Union is expected to be announced within weeks, and that treaty is likely to be the subject of the most heated discussion in this country. Since last year's controversial Panama Canal debate. There are many different viewpoints on the relative need for a strategic Arms Treaty, but three opinions standout many conservatives generally hold that salt to is weighted in favor of the Soviets and should be opposed many political Liberals are forming an unlikely Coalition with conservatives in opposing salt to but on the grounds that too much has already been spent on defense at the expense of social programs in this country The Carter Administration is of course in favor of Saul calling it the only realistic means of maintaining a strategic arms balance with the Soviets without a major arms escalation audiences at Carleton College in Northfield last week heard from two of those political camps on Thursday liberal author. Sidney lens spoke against all 2 on Friday Carter Administration setTerry of Defense Harold Brown spoke in favor of it Sydney Lenz will be the first speaker will hear the arms race. such a complex phenomenon so confusing, so bewildering That is spawned two different kinds of politics. What is the politics of abdication what Erich Fromm called escape from freedom? This thing is so mammoth. So enormous so understandable counterforce count the city damage-limitation countervalue restrain counterforce and so forth and so on all the esoteric terminology that comes out of the Pentagon in droves. That is understandable only to one or two people there. All of that, so bewildering the people just resign they escape from Freedom politics by application or we have something else called politics by idolatry. We say those guys in Washington. They must know what they're doing their elected. They get $60,000 a year, they run around and airplanes with Secret Service people tailing after them. They have access to a hundred million documents a year with they themselves classify a secret an ordinary Mortals like you and I can never look at these guys must know something and so we say okay if they tell us that this makes sense it makes sense. but of course When you take a little bit of a closer look. You begin to wonder how much these people really know. And how much they how often they have been right? my minimal Research indicates That the prime for requisite for being promoted in Washington. Is to be either inconsistent or wrong or preferably both. This is what mr. Brown said in July 1968. He said at the present time this was a time when the United States had about 3,000 strategic Warheads 1/3 of what it has now. United States forces have the capability to eliminate the entire Urban population of the Soviet Union by blast and thermal effects alone leaving aside radiation just by blast and Fire. Can eliminate the whole Soviet population Urban population after absorbing a Soviet first strike? Now cording to what the officials in Washington have been telling us for 30 years. Their policy is deterrence. That's another one of those. indigestible words according to them deterrence is a synonym of something called Mutual assured destruction. Which is an acronym for Med, which it is. now they say that if The United States has enough Weaponry to kill every Russian after the Russians have attacked us and if the Russians have enough missiles to kill everyone of us after we've attacked them. Then because we're both rational nations with rational leaders, we won't make war on each other. Well now if according to mr. Brown. We had that capability 11 years ago. Why in the hell we've been building three new nuclear weapons everyday and why are we now negotiating a SALT Treaty which will increase the Strategic weapons of the United States by 4000 and the Strategic weapons of the Soviet Union by 4,000 and will make put no impediments in the way. Oven creasing and improving the accuracy of those weapons and most of the qualitative characteristics of those weapons. I don't understand that at all. I just cannot understand why the Soviet Union and the United States which have been able to kill each other many times over a long time ago why they have to keep building one weapon after another. now if you listen to the esoteric language Are these people you'll have a headache? You won't be able to understand anything because what they'll be talkin about. It's something that's on understandable. They going to be talking about strategic balance. We have to be equal to the Russians and they have to be equal to us. Now in the heavens named can there be a strategic balance where nobody knows what the effect of a nuclear weapon is and nobody knows how to compare a nuclear weapon with a tank. Let me give you a few examples. 1945 on August 6th. We dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. A scientist in our political leaders thought that the bomb would kill 20,000 people. It killed a hundred forty thousand. They were wrong by 700% or at least 30 people tell us you must follow our leads and you must take our advice and You Must Believe in Us. Because we're born again Christians. Are we are the leaders of your country all these people they were wrong their predecessors were wrong on Hiroshima by a factor of 700% take another example of how the government is always, right and we the poor people would always wrong particularly those of us in the anti-war movement. at Three Mile Island the government concedes Got a dose of 100 mg. That's one tenth of a rem of radiation is dangerous. You know that reactor that leaked they Harrisburg couple of weeks ago. in the 1920s the government also considers into that lie that is safe dose is 170 mg. According to John gottman who used to work for the atomic energy committee until he began questioning these figures. 170 mg will produce 33000 cancer deaths and 588000 each year and 588000 genetic defects. But the government considers that a safe dose and let's assume that their rights. Back in the 1920s. They considered a safe dose 200 Rim 200000 mg 1200 times as much as what they now consider a safe dose. And yet in our politics by idolatry, we have a tendency to follow these people to accept their words and everything. They tell us the arms race the salt II agreement and so on. We're not dealing with a minor issue. We're not dealing weather we had with a problem of whether I have 7% or 6% unemployment. We're dealing with the survival of the human species. Don't take anybody's word because this is the most important problem in the history of the human species. And if you are generation doesn't find a solution to this problem. There will be no human species in the 21st century. What are we dealing with? The biggest bomb in World War II was a blockbuster. It busted a block was 10 tons of TNT. the bomb that fell in Hiroshima What's a 13 kiloton bomb equal to 13000 tons of TNT 1300 times more powerful. It killed a hundred forty thousand people within a few weeks. It still kills 40 to 60 people. The United States has in its Arsenal. 31000 Warheads equal to 8 billion tons of TNT equal to 635000 bombs like the bomb on Hiroshima. Capable of killing everybody on the planet if they could be instantly reincarnated 12 times over and capable of killing everyone in the Soviet Union 36 x over. Now the leaders of this nation are telling us that if we can kill everyone in the Soviet Union 38 x will be safe will be secure. That's the essence of what they're talking about. And at the same time that they talkin this language. They don't dare to tell us what will happen in a nuclear war. What will happen if you're irradiated, let me tell you what would happen. If you got hit if you were within 200 yards of a neutron bomb. The first thing that would happen is your brain with swell against your cranium. And you have a permanent headache as long as you live, which would only be a week or two. The fillings in your teeth would become your radiator and would burn holes in your tongue. Your alimentary canal would be filled with little holes and simultaneously you would be vomiting and you have bloody diarrhea. Your hair with fall out and you would die within a couple of weeks. This is what we're talkin about. This is an issue that our leaders take so cavalierly. And what would happen if you actually had a nuclear war? People were going to shelters if they could have it find shelters. And then they would come out if it was possible to come out after a couple of weeks. And what they would see would be hundreds of thousands of cadavers. I'm feeding on those cadavers. Would be Biggins of rats who are more immune to radioactivity. them people are a feeding on the rats would be trillions and trillions of cockroaches for more immune and rats and feeding on the Cockroaches would be trillions of trillions and trillions and trillions of one-celled animals for more immune than roaches. This is a game they're playing with and I telling us has nothing to worry about just like they told us about radioactivity at Three Mile Island. Just like they told two people in Utah when they had those tests a poor woman has 22 members of her family with cancer. A rate of cancer in that area many times higher than the rate in the country. And they said nothing to worry about these tests. Don't mean anything. Edward Teller the father of the h-bomb even wrote an article Few weeks a few weeks ago in the Chicago Tribune and what she said radiation can sometimes help you. And if you go back a few years 20 years ago, they were using radiation to take out your tonsils and the treat acne. This is an area of knowledge. They know little about but yet they are using us for a game that we'll talk about in a few moments that using us for game of chicken, but they're playing with the Soviet Union in which if I'm a mix a metaphor in which we are the Pawns. Not in the midst of this game has been going on for 33 years. They have come up with a treaty with the Soviet Union called strategic arms limitation number two. You know how strategic arms limitation talks came about. A 1964 neutral diplomats had despaired of ever convincing. The Americans are the Russians to disarm. They had thousands of meetings at the United Nations alone. The figure is now 6,000 6000 meetings and all the great minds of Russia and the United States couldn't come up with a formula to destroy one rifle. or one nuclear bomb So the neutral Diplomat said maybe we can get these people if they want this arm. Maybe we can get them to have a moratorium to stop freeze. I need call Lyndon Johnson in the euphoric moment. And he said okay. From 64 to 68 Johnson conducted talks with the Russians on how and where the talk should be conducted for this moratorium and just as he was ready to sit down with the Russians the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia. And he said no soap. That makes it and Kissinger came in. They began to talk and 69 by 72 they had. strategic arms limitation Talk number one and what did I do? It didn't friesians race. It escalated in tandem. The Russians had 30 submarines at that time. They were allowed to increase it to 65. The Americans had 1054 missiles strategic land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles. They were allowed to keep And the Russians were allowed to keep 1410 missiles and that sounded very good. No increase. The only thing they were allowed was what they already had or what they were building. no increase except At the things that the Russians and the Americans wanted most we're not prohibited the things that the Americans wanted most was the Merv the multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicle to put it in plain English. They wanted the right to put more than one Warheads on every missile. Now. I'm a minute man. Those lovely missiles used to have one Warheads. Now they they tested it for 7 warheads and they put 3 on it. In effect instead of one missile. They had three now. The number of launchers was the same the number of missiles, but the death-dealing quality of those missiles was tripled or consider the American submarines. The Polaris submarine has 16 missiles. We have 10 of them each missile has one Warhead. Then we started building pulsating submarines. We have 31 of them. They also have just 60 missiles. But each missile has 10 to 14 Warheads. One pasaydan submarine. We have 31 of them can kill Any Nation on Earth can destroy it without without recovery and we have Thirty one of them, but you see by adding missiles that multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicle. We made some enormous changes in the capability Westin at the ink was not dry on the salt 1 agreement. When the United States government says, you know in order to make the salt 1 agreement really work. We got to have a whole bunch of new weapons. We needed a cruise missile. We needed as a bargaining chip. We don't need it to build it. The United States said we're against mobile missiles like the cruise missile and they asked the Russians to please. Agree to that they were just building the cruise missile as a bargaining chip or researching and developing it. Now, of course, it's a very important weapon in the American Arsenal then they said they had to have a trident. a B-1 bomber A long-range new missile system a new Communications. In other words, the ink wasn't dry and they were already escalating the arms race now we have sold to and what are the statistics on Saw 2 same thing? at the time short one was agree to the United States had 4600 strategic Warheads now. This is an addition to the 20 mm tactical Warheads that we have on ships that we have in your that we have in Korea that we have another place has enough to kill everyone on Earth 12 times. We have 4600. Warheads strategic Warheads in 1972 the day we have 9500. And under the salt II Treaty. This is supposed to be on control arms limitation. We're going to go up from 9500 to 13400. Which 2840 will be cruise missiles a perfect fourth strike weapon a cruise missile is 1214 ft long. Very cheap cost only $800,000 tremendously accurate it flies under radar. And a 2000 feet away it will hit a Target within 30 feet. That increases what they call the lethal power. I'll do a weapon in other words if you were to take that same amount of plutonium. And double it. Safe for my 20 kiloton to a 40 kiloton bomb you would increase The lethality either killed capacity by maybe 20 30% But if you increase the accuracy you increase the kill capacity by 50 100% or more. Now these cruise missiles are now the main bone of contention and saw two we're going to have twenty-eight hundred and forty of them. The Russians were forced to agree and I can't see how increasing the American weapons from 9500 to 13400 is arms limitation or arms control. I know you can find all kinds of people in the Pentagon a macadamia. To say that 13000 is less than 9500, but I'm a simple Auto worker and I've never mind that kind of arithmetic. The Russians are doing the same thing. The Russians had 2100 strategic Warheads in 1972. They not have 4,000 245 4002 4500 and I'm just sold two they will be permitted to go up. 280 I want to give you the exact figure because maybe mr. Brown will give you the real fact here tomorrow night. They'll go up to 80 276 from 4000 4580 to 76 and the make matters worse. This agreement is not yet concluded let alone sign and again the United States is making 9 specific escalations in the arms race. Escalation number one in October the United States decided to go ahead with the neutron bomb. They are manufacturing the components of the neutron bomb and they will be able to assemble them in Europe or wherever else but they are manufacturing the components and they admitted it to an editor of the progressive with which I am Associated incidentally. They admitted it last summer. Number two, they have tripled expenditure on civil defense. Which is a story in itself number three, they have stated that they're ready to go ahead with the MX missile and they're testing the best way to go ahead with it. Whether to take it from one home to another hole or whether it's ended up in airplanes number for you may be interested in this they are preparing. The Pentagon has said that we need a draft. We need to go back to Selective Service. Number 5 they've appointed a general for the first time to be the head of the arms control and disarmament Agency number 6. Why not? Everything else is crazy? They might as well have something crazy in the arms control Agency number six at a time when they're reducing expenditures on human needs. I'm cutting the budget back eliminating jobs for young people in the summer eliminating lunches for children in grammar school. They are increasing the military budget by 11:12 billion dollars. 3% above inflation number 7. They're playing the China card against the Soviet Union number 8. They giving that little country Yaman 300 million dollars to defend one. Yeah, man against another gaming and both yeamans aren't Worth to American lives. I went three hundred million dollars to this little country and we're offering to send advisors to Saudi Arabia. Now this is the result. Ab-Soul to it's an escalation of the arms race, but it's an escalation in tandem. I thought Professor just walked out that bothers me the professor of international relations cuz he hasn't heard my full argument, but he's going to be arguing against it. In what way? In what way the salt to reduce the arms race limit the arms race the people Advocates all too. But the government and some people in the peace movement, so I think I'm his guided. Say that it's going to reduce. The number of launchers. A launcher is an InterContinental missile a submarine missile and a bomber. I live is true that there won't be a cap on the number of launchers. But what these people don't tell you is that the United States has been retiring launchers for the last 15 years. The Pentagon doesn't want any more launchers. It has retired 1000 launchers in the last 15 years and it will not build up even to the 2250 that is loud allowed because the pentagon's emphasis is on. Quality on accuracy rather than on launchers if you want this Armament in Heaven's name disarmed and if you want rearmament it Heaven's name tell the American people the truth that you're trying to get a superiority so great that you can destroy the Soviet Union. The arms race the most important problem any of us will ever face. There are dozens of scientist. Who now believe that the human species will not enter the 21st century unless we end the arms race. They mean not literally not figuratively. Don't take the word of Harold Brown on Jimmy Carter acid lands or anybody else look into it and see if you don't agree with me that we're moving in a self-propelling way towards an actual nuclear war that is becoming impersonal process. There have been since the year 600 BC. They have been 1656 Andres has all but 16 of them ended in war. This one has a greater chance of ending in Total War than any of the other 1656 unless your generation stops it unless you open the windows as they showed in that movie and yell at the top of your voice stop this stop this lunacy unless you commit a thousand Boston Tea Parties the force the government to listen to your cry. I want to live I want to bring up a family. The image I hope you have for the rest of your lives as you fight. This lunacy is the image of Hiroshima. At Hiroshima there's a museum. And outside that museum there's a rock. And on that rock brothers and sisters as a shadow. That shadow is All That Remains of a human being who stood there on August 6th 1945. Sure is with sitting here tonight. Your generation will either end the arms race. or we will all be shadows on the rock. Thank you. Author Sidney lens speaking at Carleton College Thursday night. Friday evening Secretary of Defense Harold Brown address to Carlton audience. He was met by about 40 and he saw protesters who presented him with a petition signed by about a third of the Carleton student body calling for an end to the arms race despite the student protest. However, Brown was warmly received by the majority of the audience at Carlton or his daughter is assistant professor of art Secretary of Defense Harold Brown. Against the background of an emerging strategic arms limitation agreement. Questions to National Security have been occupying the country's attention to an increasing extent. Soon. I hope the debate on soft to can begin. in the side with the signature of a treaty But it's not too early now for that debate to commence at centers of thought throughout the nation. One of my purposes tonight is to invite you to focus on understand and join in that debate. Recently, for example, there's been a great deal of discussion about the basic relative strength of the United States as compared with that of other countries. song crap some here tonight. maintain that our power has declined to such an extent that we can no longer maintain adequate National Security. others including very likely some here tonight. Argue that we've devoted far to Greater proportion of our precious National Assets to defense. Indeed that excessive US military strength is the principal danger to World Peace. Realistic assessment I think would arrive at neither position. Today the United States is by most measures. the strongest nation in the world But by one measure and it's an important measure. Military capability one country the Soviet Union has achieved rough equivalence with the United States. For 20 years in Soviet Union has steadily increased its defense efforts as a consequence. We reached a point where a continuation of that Trend unbalanced by countervailing efforts on our part over the next few years would in my judgment create potential and in some cases real military advantages for the Soviet Union. This is selling part because in constant dollars Our defense budget this year is less than it was in 1963 before the expansion of the Vietnam War. What are the Soviets would use an overall Advantage militarily? No one can know? But certainly it would have a political effect. That would be of a Kind an unpleasant kind that the US has never had to contemplate before. To prevent this from happening. The president has submitted defense program that calls for real increases in defense spending. He's done. So in part because military strength is the Cornerstone of our national security. We must continue to make major investments in defense in a light of a 20 year history of three to 4% annual increases by the Soviets in their defense effort pattern that shows no signs of changing these efforts of ours will have to include such annual real increases as a president has proposed, you know, her own defense budgets more over the president is a sterilized in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization do the same and they responded with action and average growth in defense spending by these other NATO countries with just under 3% in the fiscal year 1978-79 Do not misunderstand me. The defense budget has not grown and is not now growing. At the expense of other very necessary defense domestic. Its 10:15 my time program. this year outlays for defense Boulevard to approximately 4.9% of the Gross national product and to 23.1% of all federal spending the lowest portion of the budget devoted to defense in nearly 40 years. To take an example, which I would not ordinarily quotes because I don't like to select out other. Cabinet departments, but it was given to me my my colleague Joe califano when it's about his so I think I can use it. The health education and Welfare budget will increase by 10.3% in budget Authority while defense budget Authority will increase by 7.3% Moreover chew budget is now 50% greater than that of the fence. So the actual increase from this fiscal year the next in dollars committed to h e w social programs will be back twice then of the increase in defense and there's a good reason for that. Over all those social programs are vital to another part of America strength, its social cohesion without which military strength by itself will not avail. In any event, the US has the capacity and the programs to match Soviet military efforts as necessary. and will do so but at the same time that we improve and modernize our forces we must not lose any opportunity to reduce military competition with Soviet Union through Equitable and verifiable arms control agreements. Such a grievance not only enhance our national security. We're also help to prevent or at least slow wasteful and potentially dangerous arms competition. In the debate over the perspective salt 2 treaty. The question each Senator will have to ask himself or in one case herself. Is this one? Will our security be better sure to the acceptance of the treaty or by its rejection. the alternative to Saw 2 which we will have spent six years ago she dating. Is not some abstract perfect document but no agreement at all. I'm convinced that the prospective salt to agreement will be better for our security than the risks and costs of rejection. The limitations it will establish or important new elements in promoting stability. This is so quite aside from the salt process itself. Which is however most important to the further development of us relations with the Soviet Union. To the development of improved East-West relations in general and to stability in the global political balance. The agreements will contain both quantitative reductions and qualitative constraints. We've been able to negotiate reductions below the limits arrived at in the 1974 Summit then President Ford had with present Brezhnev in Vladivostok Those new lowered limits are 2250 strategic nuclear delivery vehicles. Among the watch can be as many as twelve hundred missiles with multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles. We've also achieved a an agreement to impose a new supplement. Of 820 on land-based murdered intercontinental ballistic missiles, which is all explaining a moment to those of you who aren't familiar with all this Arcane language are the most destabilizing strategic Force element. in addition we've broken significant new ground in a qualitative area by placing limits on the number of separate or heads. Of each type on each type of intercontinental ballistic missile and submarine launched ballistic missile and by allowing each side only one new type of ICBM during the. Of the treaty. The result is a significant step forward. I'll be at the modest one. In The Arms Control process we would have liked to go farther. Geordie Productions toward more control your call President Carter proposed such a more comprehensive approach in March of 1977. It was not accepted by the Soviet Union and the administration van and since then more than sense received a good deal of public criticism for being so naive something like that. The basic elements of the perspective salt to agreement may already be familiar to you. They include a tree to last until 1986 that will First set equal limits on strategic nuclear delivery vehicles that is intercontinental ballistic missiles submarine launched ballistic missiles and heavy bombers. Second establish various supplements on merge systems, which is I indicated are ballistic missile systems that carry multiple Warheads so they can hit more than one target. and thereby Are Sahara 10 do? BG stabilizer and on heavy bombers that carry air launched cruise missiles 3rd limit each side the only one new ICBM type during this period with a maximum of 10 reentry vehicles on it. fourth prevent increases in the number of reentry vehicles on existing intercontinental ballistic missiles and 5th and quite importantly provide measures to permit unimpeded verification by National Technical means second part of the prospective agreement is a so-called protocol that would last about three years. to the end about 1980 and Ward bar deployment of ground-launched and ship launched cruise missiles with range is greater than 600 km during that. But permit unimpeded testing and development of such vehicles at any range. and second bar deployment of mobile icbms or during that protocol. The treaty will permit the deployment of these ladder systems after the protocol expires. The overall software agreement would also include a statement of principles to guide Saw 3. And and an exchange of statements on the Soviet backfire bomber about which there's been controversy as to whether it is a strategic weapon or whether it is a theater that is medium-range weapon. I think that the salt II Treaty whose final details are being worked out will serve us interest will enhance the stability of our nuclear deterrent and it will allow us the flexibility to embark on. modernization of our strategic forces as needed without stimulating and expensive and potentially destabilizing arms race. Without Saw 2 we would almost certainly a durani ra of greater military and political uncertainty that would result in increased strategic forces on both sides as compared to what will be the case with the agreement. Salt to will mean greater stability and predictability in the Strategic challenges we face and as a result will enable a balance to be maintained at a substantially lower level of destructive power than would. Otherwise be the case. It will not affect our ability to Carry Out programs to deal with strategic challenges and their real ones that we continue to face. We can for example develop test and deploy such programs. In the passion and on the schedule that we planned. Cruise missiles Trident submarine and its do ballistic missile. A new land-based mess hall called MX. We can under salt to continue with current programs, which are needed to balance Soviet programs that are allowed by salt to and that are in large measure already in place or in process of development and deployment. We can. arrange to Reduce, but unfortunately not prevent. The erosion of survivability of our Minuteman land-based icbms with salt to because of the combination of limitations on missile launchers and numbers of warheads. Those restrictions sharply reduce the significance of the Soviet advantage in total payload that they can deliver with their missile which would in the absence of those limitations enabling for example to put 20 or even 40 Warheads each on their largest icbms. we will find that with an agreement of this sort it will be more feasible to deploy in a survivable way a new mobile ICBM system, whatever basing mode we pick because the agreement places in Upper bound on the number of warheads that the Soviets could attack them with will be able to continue as we are now to be free both to pursue with our allies. The important issues of modernization of NATO's forces and to consider Arms Control initiatives in the area of medium-range forces, which with few exceptions are not covered by the existing salt 1 agreement or the song to agreement, but which do need to be faced up to? let me turn for a moment now to an issue that's been the focus of much of the most recent debate on the soldering verification I want to begin by pointing out that we need to know the nature and size of Soviet forces weather. We have a salt 2 treaty or not. That is to say not having a salt 2 treaty does not free us from the need to be able to tell what the forces are on the other side. We need that knowledge for defense planning. We need to know with considerable confidence makeup of the Soviet strategic Force the characteristics of its systems and how it could be deployed now and in the future and to repeat we need to have that knowledge with Saw 2 or without it. We need and we will continue to have and to improve the basic means including photo reconnaissance satellites and other technical measures. to get the information necessary to measure to evaluate Did the Toronto respond to Soviet strategic forces as well as to verify Soviet compliance with the soft to tree? The loss of the intelligence sites in Iran, which has received a great deal of attention must be evaluated in this context. replacement of the intelligence capability of these sites and replacement of that part of their abilities needed to monitor saw it's not a question of whether we will do that whether we will replace that keep capacity, but how where and how quickly we can do it. Any thoughtful assessment verification measures for the salt II agreement should also consider is what should also consider what the Soviets would have to do in order to cheat. To develop a new or significantly improve strategic weapon system and violation of the agreement would be a formidable task. Developing a strategic weapon takes several years to accomplish. It involves numerous tests and then has to be followed by series production and then by large-scale printing in deployment. There's ample opportunity during this cycle to acquire the information that we will need to determine the basic characteristics of an evolving system. For example during the testing phase heavily instrumented prototypes are evaluated under realistic flight conditions and after that extensive training and deployment follow offering other opportunities for observation. by various methods we have very considerable into tail knowledge of the right now the Soviet strategic force and that it seems to me is very good evidence that our intelligence systems are capable of detecting minor and certainly major modifications in the makeup of the Air Force. The verifiability issue essentially comes down to a single question. Can we detect violations of the treaty before their impact would hurt our security? I'm confident so we can and will continue to be able to do so. Finally, there are two important factors about verification that they're remembering first. verification does not involve trusting the Soviets whether your attitude is that we've They are trustworthy or that we need to trust them or whether your attitude is that you can't trust them as far as you can throw a 300lb Soviet Marshall. It does not involve trusting. It does involve confidence that our intelligence systems will prove capable of monitoring performance of salt obligations. Those systems have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Second the salt agreements already have and will in case of future agreements help verification and the process by which we keep track of strategic Force. Agreements provide for example the night of the us nor the Soviet Union will interfere with the others National Technical means for verification and the agreements van concealment measures that have fever fication. If these Provisions were to expire or if no agreement were to be signed and thereby no agreement signed containing them. It would be an open invitation to countermeasures to camouflage and two cheating of all sorts. The simplest way to measure the contribution of salt to to our security is to consider that without this agreement Soviet Union would almost certainly deploy more strategic systems perhaps as many as 1/3 more. In the light of such a Soviet build-up we would have to respond in order to maintain the necessary essential equivalence. nspg balance a rejection of Saul to Wood with considerable likelihood result in A Renewed more costly and potentially destabilizing strategic arms competition. And verification of what the Soviets were doing would be no less necessary. merely more difficult summarize a strong defense posture remains vital for security And over the next few years, we're going to have to reverse. The reduction in defense spending measured in constant dollars that took place as compared with 15 years ago. boy many other factors also make significant contributions to our National Security the satisfaction of domestic needs political cohesion at home a healthy economy. And these requirements set. An upper limit on what is wise to spend for defense and on what? president will call for in the way of defense spending what the American people should be willing to spend on defense. In concert with an increased defense budget and the corresponding force modernization and Improvement programs. We need to enhance our security through Equitable and verifiable arms control agreements Saul to is the most urgent and important to these there are others that we are working on. including Mutual unbalanced force reductions in Europe a treaty to limit the likelihood of anti-satellite warfare in space and others Futsal to because it deals with strategic arms which are Central to the security of the US and of the Soviet Union And who use would lead to? Devastation unimaginable saltu is the centerpiece Keystone. of These Arms Control efforts it will help our security. Without giving us a false Euphoria about the continuing competition between ourselves and the Soviet Union. competition that will continue because basic political differences are involved because great powers are involved because great steaks are involved. Saw 2 can and we'll set the stage for future progress in Dayton and we hoping and tend toward. Deep reductions in strategic arms and toward disarmament. Thank you. Secretary of Defense Harold Brown Once the salt agreement is reached the Senate will debate treaty ratification The Carter Administration says it does expect the treaty to be ratified with few changes treaty opponents are not so sure but even if salt 2 is not ratified President Carter says he'll abide by its terms if the Soviets do the same. This is Pat Kessler reporting.