eder@ssc-vax.UUCP (Dani Eder) (08/08/84)
[7 August 1984]
[from the July 23, 1984 issue of 'Military Space', an industry newsletter]
'ACDA: Soviets deceiving U. S. surveillance'
A high-level study of Soviet arms control violations has disclosed
a major Soviet program, initiated during the US/Soviet SALT I talks, to
deceive US surveillance and reconnaissance systems used to verify Soviet
SALT-related behavior. The study's findings may have a significant bearing
on future US surveillance planning, as well as US willingness to negotiate
space arms control agreements with the Soviets.
The study, which has not been released, was undertaken by the General
Advisory Committee (GAC) of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA)
following a Nov. 19,1982 directive from President Reagan to evaluate
Soviet observance of arms control agreements since 1945. The study
reviewed verification and compliance issues to distill 'lessons learned'
for future US policy. Completed in late 1983, its findings were given
to the President on June 11.
A copy of the breifing, made available to MILITARY SPACE, reveals
the following:
* Soviet behavior constituted "material breaches" of half the
agreements they signed, covering nuclear and non-nuclear forces. Of
25 arms control treaties, nine involved such breaches, with four
additional breaches in oral commitments (such as the Brezhnev promise
not to deploy more SS-20s targeted against Europe, Japan, and the US.).
Of 17 material breaches, 13 began in or after 1972, when SALT I was
ratified, with seven involving SALT. Ten other suspected breaches
were considered, of which "several could have major military significance."
* SALT II non-compliance areas included illegal deployments of
SS-16 ICBMs (described as "indeed deployed") and the new SS-X-25
("clearly a second new type" violating the one-new-type rule of SALT II).
The "peculiar properties" of Soviet violations since SALT II include
their initiation "at about the time of the SALT II agreement" and their
being done "in a fashion which should at least have caused US suspicion."
* The soviets also violated SALT I obligations fto dismantle older
ICBMs and sub-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), exceeded limits on
missile subs in 1976-1977 and conclusively violated SALT I ABM (anti-
ballistic missile) Treaty limits on ABM radars.
* The Soviets negotiated deceptively in SALT I and II and "sign
...arms control treaties they are planning to violate." The 1972
Biological Weapons (BW) Treaty was followed by a major expansion in
1972-1975 of Soviet BW facilities, while the Soviets submitted a
false data base for the SS-16 in SALT II negotiations.
* Soviet concealment and deception programs are centrally
managed and now include encryption. SS-X-25 flight tests are now
encrypted [de: refers to the data sent from missile, this is a treaty
violation], while SS-16 equipment is put under roofs when "US intelligence
platforms are near," presumably satellites. However, snow tracks reaveal
that SS-16 activity is occuring. These Soviet practices "(have been)
increasing through the SALT process."
* The US "attempted to obtain...data to show innocence...in
SS-X-25 and SS-16 cases but failed." Similar failure occured over
suspected Soviet violations of the Theshold Test Ban Treaty.
...[de: article continues. Talks about a department in the Soviet
Ministry of Defense whose purpose was deception and whose manager
was the senior military member of the SALT I delegation, General
N. V. Ogarkov. Also mentions that Soviets reportedly attacked a
US digital imaging satellite inearly 1983]
Dani Eder / Boeing Aerospace Company / ssc-vax!eder
norb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) (08/16/84)
Most of these charges are not new--they have been dealt with by the Standing Consultative Committee. There is little point in throwing around accusations when one is unwilling to take the legal means to resolve questions of treaty violations. If one signs a contract and feels it is not being honored then one should take the grievance to a court of law to be decided- NOT gather up every conceivable irrelevant supposed grievance and trumpet it to all one's neighbors to say "Look this person is evil, evil, evil." If the Reagan Administration believes that there have been Soviet treaty violations then why not take those alleged violations before the Standing Consultative Committee as all past Administrations have done? That is what past Administrations did when they believed that the Soviets were building another ABM site-when they did so the Soviets dismantled the site. It is hard to believe the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA and the State Dept. would all be willing to certify that the Soviets HAVE upheld past arms agreements when suspected violations have been brought before the Standing Consultative Committee unless this were the case. I will respond to the specific allegations in Dani Eder's article when I have had time to check my sources. Tim Sevener whuxl!orb Bell Labs at Whippany, N.J.
renner@uiucdcs.UUCP (08/23/84)
#R:ssc-vax:-4100:uiucdcs:29200142:000:1635 uiucdcs!renner Aug 23 00:20:00 1984 /**** uiucdcs:net.politics / eder@ssc-vax / 12:27 am Aug 10, 1984 ****/ > * Soviet behavior constituted "material breaches" of half the > [arms] agreements they signed, covering nuclear and non-nuclear forces. > Of 25 arms control treaties, nine involved such breaches, with four > additional breaches in oral commitments (such as the Brezhnev promise > not to deploy more SS-20s targeted against Europe, Japan, and the US.). I'm glad that somebody took the time to post this article. I think it establishes that the Soviets do in fact cheat on arms control agreements. From this, I conclude that: 1. Future agreements should be verifiable. In view of the Soviet efforts to deceive US satellite reconnaissance (described in the base note), I think that nothing less than on-site inspection by US military officers will serve. I don't understand why the Soviets should object, provided that they intend to honor the agreements. And if they are going to cheat, then the agreements are of less than no value. 2. We need to be prepared for the possibility that the Soviets may cheat on future agreements as well. Otherwise we may find ourselves back in an arms race, but five or six years behind. That is, we may find the Soviets starting to deploy new weapons when we haven't done the research on how to build them. (Granted, this hasn't happened yet. The Soviets always follow behind in new weapon types; eg. MIRV, cruise missiles. I'm just glad that so far they have followed us, rather than the other way around.) Scott Renner {ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!renner
mikevp@proper.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) (08/26/84)
<<This line is a figment of a deranged imagination>> Possibly the biggest problem with verification of any arms agreement is that there are lot of Soviet apologists out there who are ready and willing to "prove" (simply by vigorous assertion, mostly) that the violations unearthed by any verification program aren't "really" a violation. Some on this net have gone so far as to claim that "yellow rain" is simply pollen or such. Funny, I've never heard of any kind of pollen that causes people to die in agony, hemorraging (sp?) from every body orifice....
kissell@flairvax.UUCP (08/29/84)
(ahem) > Possibly the biggest problem with verification of any arms agreement is > that there are lot of Soviet apologists out there who are ready and willing > to "prove" (simply by vigorous assertion, mostly) that the violations > unearthed by any verification program aren't "really" a violation. Some > on this net have gone so far as to claim that "yellow rain" is simply pollen > or such. Funny, I've never heard of any kind of pollen that causes people > to die in agony, hemorraging (sp?) from every body orifice.... Let's talk about "yellow rain", then. The original story, as put forth the U.S. Department of State, was that the Vietnamese were spraying areas resistant to their control with deadly chemical warfare agents. This was supported by eyewitness accounts of spraying aircraft, clouds of yellow droplets, and horrible death. Survivors of such attacks were found to have mycotoxins (nasty compounds naturally produced by some fungi) in their bloodstream. This was good enough for Mr. Schultz. Since then, a number of findings by relatively apolitical researchers has cast doubt on the story. 1) The compounds found in the blood of the survivors were mycotoxins, but the blood tests were done several days/weeks after the exposure to "yellow rain", and the compunds detected are too unstable to persist in the body for that long. 2) Samples of "yellow rain" have been shown to contain measurable amounts of mycotoxins, but they have also been shown to consist largely of pollen, bound together in a manner consistent with that of bee excrement. I have seen photomicrographs of honeybee dung beside those of yellow rain samples. They look very much the same, and the pollen in "yellow rain" is obvious. Since then, etymologists have reported mass "cleaning flights" of tropical bees in southeast Asia, in which large swarms excrete considerable quantities of the stuff. The bee dung is a reasonable growth medium for all sorts of fungi, so the mycotoxins found in the "yellow rain" samples could have occured naturally. 3) Mycotoxins are a pretty dumb weapon of war. They are neither as swift, sure, stable, cheap, or easy as the usual run of organophosphate nerve gasses. These are not merely "vigorous assertions", but results of scientific investigation reported in Science, Science News, and the Economist. My own conclusion from all this is that, while the Vietnamese may well be spraying *something* unpleasant in Cambodia (did they capture any of our stockpiles of Agent Orange? :-{), the "yellow rain" mycotoxin hypothesis is not well supported. Kevin D. Kissell Fairchild Research Center Advanced Processor Development uucp: {ihnp4 decvax}!decwrl!\ >flairvax!kissell {ucbvax sdcrdcf}!hplabs!/
mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (08/31/84)
==========
Some
on this net have gone so far as to claim that "yellow rain" is simply pollen
or such. Funny, I've never heard of any kind of pollen that causes people
to die in agony, hemorraging (sp?) from every body orifice....
==========
No, but some people are mighty allergic. Haven't heard of any kind
of yellow rain that does that, either. (Or even that has been claimed
to do it).
Science (that Communist anti-realist rag) had some articles on the
evidence about "yellow rain" being chemical warfare a few months
(year or two?) ago. The conclusion: not the slightest evidence, and
considerable evidence that pollen was the right answer.
I didn't tear out those articles, so I can't give references. But I
can reference the article of 13 May 1983, p695-697, headed
"Scientists fault charges of Soviet cheating. Experts say that
the United States lacks good evidence of Soviet dishonesty on
strategic arms treaties." This one is not about yellow rain (I think
even the Reagan administration eventually backed down on that one),
but it does illustrate the point.
Another subhead from a Science article applies here as well as in
its original place (regaarding the FTC): "Reagan appointees complain
that too much scientific truth hurts." 24 Dec 1982, p1289-1292
From reading this and other newsgroups, I think "Reagan apologists
complain that too much truth hurts." At least they usually deny it
when truth is spoken about this administration.
--
Martin Taylor
{allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt
{uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsrgv!dciem!mmtneal@denelcor.UUCP (Neal Weidenhofer) (09/07/84)
************************************************************************** >Possibly the biggest problem with verification of any arms agreement is >that there are lot of Soviet apologists out there who are ready and willing >to "prove" (simply by vigorous assertion, mostly) that the violations >unearthed by any verification program aren't "really" a violation. Some >on this net have gone so far as to claim that "yellow rain" is simply pollen >or such. Funny, I've never heard of any kind of pollen that causes people >to die in agony, hemorraging (sp?) from every body orifice.... And I thought MY allergies were bad. :-) Regards, Neal Weidenhofer "The law is for protection Denelcor, Inc. of the people" <hao|csu-cs|brl-bmd>!denelcor!neal