Moscow’s Disinformation Adds Insult To The Injury Caused By Its Arms Control Cheating

The Center for Security Policy today renewed its calls for the Bush Administration to commission an independent review of Soviet behavior and likely future policies in light of recent evidence of Moscow’s bad faith. Published reports indicate that the Soviet Union has violated its commitments under the INF Treaty, prompting the Administration to respond with a written protest by Secretary of State James Baker and a statement made on behalf of President Bush by his spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater, saying "We do consider the matter serious."

The apparently illegal activities involve two different Soviet obligations. The first concerns compliance with Moscow’s commitment to declare and destroy all shorter- and intermediate-range missiles. Recently, the U.S. government discovered in East Germany a number of undeclared, operational launchers (reportedly 6) for the INF Treaty-limited SS-23 shorter-range missile system, together with a significant quantity of associated missiles (reportedly as many as 24).

According to today’s Washington Post, the Soviets have told the United States that "the missiles do not have nuclear warheads and were sent to the East Germans prior to signing of the INF accord." The article, entitled "Missile-Inspection Technicality Provokes Top-Level Protest to Soviets" goes on to say that "both sides agree [the Soviet pretext] is legal."

In fact, the presence or absence of nuclear weapons is immaterial to the issue of compliance: under the treaty both nuclear and conventional missiles with ranges of the SS-23 are banned. Furthermore, even if the Soviets had transferred the SS-23s to East Germany before the INF Treaty was signed — a contention unsupported by any public evidence at this time — the existence, declaration, and elimination of all such weapons would have been directly relevant to the negotiation of that accord. After all, Moscow insisted that non-nuclear West German shorter-range missiles (the Pershing IAs) be dismantled concurrent with the implementation of the Treaty. U.S. statements minimizing the significance of what is, at the very least, egregious Soviet bad faith, can only encourage more of the same.

The second breached obligation involves Soviet infringement upon U.S. monitoring rights at the Votkinsk missile factory. As a result of conscious — and evidently officially sanctioned — actions of Soviet personnel, the United States was recently unable to exercise its right under the INF Treaty to scan canisters exiting this facility. The purpose of such scanning is to assure the United States that SS-20 missiles banned by the INF Treaty are no longer being assembled at this facility. On March 9 and 10, the Soviets removed three missile canisters from Votkinsk without permitting the United States to use its "Cargoscan" monitoring device or otherwise inspect the contents. This is an irreversible action since the United States will never know what was in the removed missile canisters.

Ironically, last Friday — the same day that the Votkinsk incidents were reported by columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak — another instance of Soviet disinformation was accepted at face value by the New York Times. In an article entitled "U.S. Lessons for Soviet Reform," Leonard Silk reported that the Deputy Chairman of Gosplan, Leonid Vid, had stated in the Soviet weekly Ogonyok that "the Votkinsk plant in the Urals, which previously built the SS-20 medium-range (sic) missiles…has started producing heat resistant storage containers. He [Vid] added: ‘The trucks which used to carry missiles will now take tanks of cooled beer, juices and milk to consumers. Each container can hold 24,000 pints of chilled beer, enough to satisfy the thirst of a small town.’" (Emphasis added.) It strains credulity that the Soviets could be going to such lengths to keep beer-transport canisters from U.S. arms control inspectors.

The Center for Security Policy believes that these examples of Soviet violations, bad faith and disinformation should give the Bush Administration pause as it rushes headlong toward new — and strategically much more significant — arms control agreements. It especially urges that a "second opinion" be obtained before CIA Director William Webster’s benign view of current and prospective Soviet policy is adopted as a prescription for radical, and possibly irresponsible, surgery on the United States’ security posture.