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STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1985

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC AND

THEATER NUCLEAR FORCES,
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES,

Washington, DC.

POLICY AND TECHNOLOGY OBJECTIVES

The subcommittee met in executive session, pursuant to notice, at 9:06 a.m., in room SR-222, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator John W. Warner (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators Warner, Goldwater, Thurmond, Quayle, Wilson, Nunn, Hart, Exon, Levin, Bingaman, and Glenn. Also present: Senators Wallop and Gore.

Staff present: James F. McGovern staff director and chief counsel; Arnold L. Punaro, staff director for the minority; Jeffrey H. Smith, minority counsel; Robert G. Bell, Robert F. Bott, Douglas R. Graham, William E. Hoehn, Jr., George K. Johnson, Jr., Gordon G. Riggle, and Carl M. Smith, professional staff members; Colleen M. Getz and Russell C. Miller, research assistants; and Karen A. Love, staff assistant.

Also present: James M. Bodner, assistant to Senator Cohen; Henry D. Sokolski, assistant to Senator Quayle; Mark J. Albrecht, assistant to Senator Wilson; Allan W. Cameron, assistant to Senator Denton; Alan Ptak, assistant to Senator Gramm; Janne E. Nolan, assistant to Senator Hart; Jeffrey B. Subko, assistant to Senator Exon; John B. Keeley, assistant to Senator Levin; Edward McGaffigan, Jr., assistant to Senator Bingaman; and Milton D. Beach, assistant to Senator Glenn.

OPENING STATEMENT BY SENATOR JOHN W. WARNER,

CHAIRMAN

Senator WARNER. The subcommittee meets in executive session this morning to continue receiving testimony from administration officials on the President's Strategic Defense Initiative [SDI].

This is the second of five hearings currently planned by the subcommittee on this important program. Next Tuesday morning, the subcommittee will be briefed by representatives from the intelligence community on Soviet strategic defense programs.

Last Wednesday, the subcommittee received testimony in open session regarding the policy and technology objectives of the SDI Program. Today, we will continue with this testimony, as well as

receive testimony on the system architecture options that have been developed by the SDI Program.

Our witnesses this morning are Hon. Richard Perle, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, and Lt. Gen. James Abrahamson, the Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization [SDIO]. General Abrahamson is accompanied by John Gardner, the Director of Systems for the SDIO. I would like to welcome our witnesses this morning.

After the opening comments of my colleague from Colorado, Senator Hart, we will proceed with Mr. Perle's testimony. This will be followed by a brief round of questions for Mr. Perle, with each member limited to 5 minutes.

Then, General Abrahamson, I invite you to elaborate on any issues that you felt constrained to discuss in last week's open session. We can then proceed with Mr. Gardner's presentation.

Senator Hart.

Senator HART. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Our last session left very much in doubt the question of the administration's interpretation of what the ABM Treaty does and does not permit. Even though much of what we will hear this morning will continue to be technical and technological in nature, we must remember this committee is tasked with overseeing not only technological developments, but policy developments, as well. So, we still confront the problem of the administration's position on ABM and what is permitted and what is not.

Since our last hearing, there have been several remarkable developments.

First was the President's so-called open labs proposal which caught many Members of the Congress off guard, as well as the public at large.

I think it is fortunate that we have Mr. Perle here to tell us what that means and how that is going to be implemented.

Second, was the statement by the President to Izvestia that the SDI system would be deployed only after reaching an agreement with the Soviet Union eliminating offensive weapons on both sides.

It is my understanding that there is a news account this morning in which the White House Press Corps attempts to state that is not really what the President meant after all.

Finally, there is Secretary Weinberger's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in which he said SDI would be deployed even if it were not cost effective at the margin, which I understand to be almost a total policy departure from everything we have heard previously from virtually everybody in the administration.

While we are here to continue to hear General Abrahamson discuss the technological evolution of the SDI system I for one will want to pursue those topics with any of the witnesses who will want to respond for the administration.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator WARNER. Senator Wilson.

Senator WILSON. Mr. Chairman, I commend you and Senator Hart for convening this set of hearings. I think they are essential. I think the timing is superb.

I will not take more time. I am delighted that our colleague, Senator Wallop, is here. He shares a keen interest and I thank you for the courtesy extended him.

Senator WARNER. You are all welcome.

Mr. Wallop, do you have a statement you would like to make? Senator WALLOP. No. I wish to express my appreciation for being allowed to sit in here.

Senator WARNER. Senator Gore.

Senator GORE. Ditto.

Senator WARNER. Mr. Perle.

STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD N. PERLE, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (INTERNATIONAL SECURITY POLICY) Mr. PERLE. Thank you very much.

Forgive me for not having a prepared statement. What I would like to do in a few words is make a couple of points and perhaps comment as well, briefly, on the questions that Senator Hart has raised. I do not think we have seen the last of the remarkable developments that are likely to take place between now and the summit in Geneva.

The first point I would like to make is that the Soviets have had for some time and will continue to have an aggressive program aimed at strategic defense of all types, defense against bombers, defense against submarines and defense against ballistic missiles.

In the latter case the Soviets are moving aggressively with systems of the classical type, the sorts that were envisioned at the time the ABM Treaty was signed in 1972. They continue to make a substantial investment in the Moscow ABM system which is intended to be improved and upgraded. It now resembles the concept for the classical defense we had in mind in 1972 and it has gone beyond that.

In addition, there are serious questions, about which it is not now possible to be definitive, as to whether the Soviets are even now in the early stages of breaking out or creeping out of the ABM Treaty.

By deploying the necessary national infrastructure of large phased array radars, by having developed components, small radars and interceptors that could be quickly deployed, the Soviets have raised the prospect that the leadtime we anticipated before such a development could take place-a leadtime paced by the 5 to 7 years it takes to build a large radar infrastructure-may be shrinking to near the vanishing point.

I say it is not possible to be definitive because we see only early developments with respect to some of these Soviet activities. But I think it is possible to say, even now, that one can no longer be sure that we will not see the sudden emergence of a Soviet territorial defense.

The Soviets have a doctrine that supports the concept of strategic defenses, a doctrine that has never changed. It was adopted before the ABM Treaty, and it has persisted since the ABM Treaty.

It is associated with an awesome buildup of offensive forces. I think it is fair to summarize Soviet policy this way. They anticipate attacking U.S. retaliatory systems with their offensive forces

and absorbing as much as they can of our retaliatory response which would be made with significant but degraded capability, using a variety of defenses at their disposal.

The debate on whether to proceed with the SDI reminds me of an earlier debate, a debate in the 1950's over whether the United States should proceed to build the hydrogen bomb. As in that debate, the scientific and technical community is divided.

Indeed, one of the participants in that debate is a participant in the current debate over SDI, Dr. Edward Teller. As I recall, it was Edward Teller's view that we ought to proceed with the development of the hydrogen bomb. He believed that the Soviets would do so whether we did or not and if we did not proceed the Soviets would emerge with a monopoly of thermonuclear weapons.

Robert Oppenheimer and most of the scientific community, took the opposite view, that we ought not to proceed, that if we did so the Soviets would surely follow suit and the world would be worse off.

We now know that even as that debate was taking place, as President Truman was listening to the arguments of the Teller camp and Oppenheimer camp, Andrei Sakharov had been inducted in the Soviet program to develop the hydrogen bomb.

Indeed, he went to work on that program before President Truman made the decision to proceed with ours. Had Oppenheimer prevailed over Ed Teller we would have faced in the 1950's a Soviet monopoly in thermonuclear weapons and I leave it to the members of the committee to imagine the consequences of such a development.

I think we are in a similar situation with respect to strategic defenses. The Soviets will go forward independent of what we do. The risk of not going forward ourselves is the prospect that the Soviets will emerge with a monopoly of strategic defenses.

I believe that the deployment of strategic defense can greatly reinforce deterrence by diminishing the prospects that a Soviet strike against this country could succeed in sufficiently degrading our forces so that facing massive Soviet reserve forces and some substantial Soviet defense capability, we would be deterred from retaliating.

I think it is likely to be the case that a first generation SDI, whether it proves to be capable of defending the population or not, it would greatly improve the credibility of our deterrent, and I think it is worth pursuing for that reason alone.

If it leads ultimately to the sort of defense that is part of the President's long-term vision, so much the better, but I think one need not assume that in order to justify carrying on with our program.

It seems to me the alternative to moving in the direction of a strategic posture based on a greater reliance on defense is to continue to compete with the Soviet Union in the offensive area. I believe that is an area where the Soviets hold all of the significant advantages. They do not have a protest movement that makes it politically difficult to deploy new offensive weapons. They do not run the risks associated with mobile systems because they have a population that they can count upon to permit the deployment of those systems wherever the leadership may choose. They do not

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