Word: mirvs
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Behind SALT is the urgency to achieve a halt in the development of nuclear weaponry before one side or the other achieves another technical breakthrough that will start a new spiral in the arms race. Both are now working on MIRVs, missiles carrying clusters of independently targetable warheads, which would multiply the destructive ability of each ICBM. The U.S. is probably ahead in MIRV development and could deploy the weapon by late 1970. In ABM, on the other hand, the Soviet Union has ringed Moscow with some missiles, while the U.S. is still in the research stage on its Safeguard...
...talks will focus on "strategic weapons." which the Administration has so far refused to define. Presumably, they include the new weapons systems whose deployment threatens to overturn the once stable "balance of terror." The most prominent of these systems is the MIRV (Multiple Independently Targeted Reentry Vehicle). Fitted to the majority of existing Minuteman and Poseidon missiles, MIRV would give the U. S. capacity to launch some 8000 nuclear warheads instead of the present 1700. Without an increase in quantity, the same number of missiles could individually pack up to nine additional warheads aimed at different targets. Faced with this...
...MIRV brings advantage only to the attacker. As a weapon of defense, it adds nothing to the complexity of the target system which the offender has to penetrate. If perfected by more testing, the MIRVs and the SS-9 could make an arms freeze technically impossible. Unlike ABMs, they are difficult to detect and restrict. The size and shape of MIRVed missiles would be indistinguishable from the size and shape of single warhead missiles...
...negotiating position on MIRVs has been at best unclear and at worst, treacherous. When Nixon took office, he refused to suspend MIRV testing (which began in secret under McNamara) or seek an immediate mutual moratorium with the Soviets. Coincidentally, the Administration stalled the opening of SALT until the Pentagon completed the flight tests of the Minuteman and Poseidon missiles equipped with the MIRV system. Technological requirements outweighed diplomatic priorities. By going too far with the development and testing of MIRVs, the President killed in advance hopes of a mutual MIRV moratorium at Helsinki...
...this point, then, a weapons "freeze" is unlikely. A freeze would guarantee U. S. superiority. The Soviets would probably turn down an agreement which gives the U. S. a first strike capacity and the right to deploy Poseidon and Minuteman III missiles, both MIRVed. A limitation on ABMs would be easier to agree on and easier to enforce than an agreement on MIRVs. The Nixon Administration has offered to give up the ABMs if the Russians stopped work on the SS-9. It has declined to say that it would do the same if the Russians gave up their ABMs...