Constitutionally speaking, it is impossible for a ratified treaty to be amended or changed unless it goes through the original prescribed process: signed by the President and then ratified by a vote of two-thirds of the Senators. But the New York Times is trying to amend the 1972 ABM Treaty by newspaper analysis.
The ABM Treaty is the document that made Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) our official policy. That’s why we call it the MAD ABM Treaty. MAD is the perverse notion that the American people must be absolutely undefended against Soviet missile attack.
The MAD ABM Treaty was written in obscure, convoluted language difficult for lawyers and diplomats, much less laymen, to understand and interpret. It was probably written that way on purpose so that the semantic confusion would allow the Soviets to go ahead with whatever they wanted to build, while the United States would be constrained from doing what we ought to do for fear that we might be accused of violating the letter of the treaty.
The New York Times recently undertook to explain the MAD ABM Treaty to its readers. A bordered box in the newspaper was titled: “The 1972 ABM Treaty: 2 Ways to Read Key Parts.”
Column 1 gave the pertinent provisions of the Treaty. Column 2 was divided into what the Times called “Administration Interpretation” (that means the Reagan Administration’s interpretation), and the “Traditional Interpretation.”
“Traditional” is a curious choice of word. That section should have been called the Carter Administration’s interpretation, or perhaps the interpretation that the Soviets hope to foist on us.
The New York Times explanation of these interpretations was lacking in candor. It failed to point out that the joker word in the MAD ABM Treaty is “currently.” Article V prohibits developing, testing or deploying ABM systems, but Article II defines ABM systems as those “currently” in use in 1972.
The importance of the word “currently” was reinforced in “Agreed Statement D” by which the United States and the U.S.S.R. agreed that, if “other” ABM systems “are created in the future,” they will be “subject to discussion” and to future agreement. We’ve had no such discussion and agreement, so both sides are free to do as they please about systems that were not currently in use in 1972.
The negotiating record sustains this interpretation. The U.S. negotiators pressed hard to persuade the Soviets to agree to ban future systems, but they adamantly refused.
Meanwhile, the Soviets have gone right ahead with their future systems. A couple of months ago, Deputy Director of the CIA Robert Gates confirmed that the Soviets are constructing three more huge phased-array radars in western U.S.S.R. That makes nine radars which the Soviets now have guarding the corridors through which any missiles directed at them would have to arrive.
These radars are huge, each one the size of a football field. They take several years to design and at least five years to build. The Soviets must have started working on the first of them at the same time that they were negotiating the 1972 MAD ABM Treaty.
The CIA report calls the Soviet ABM buildup “ominous” with “awesomely negative implications” for U.S. security. Coming from the CIA, which has a long record of underestimating Soviet military capability, those are alarmist words, indeed.
The New York Times is not only trying to redefine the 1972 Treaty by newspaper analysis, but also to direct all discussion about the treaty. The newspaper set forth what it calls the “four main questions in the current debate.”
On the contrary, the four main questions (which were NOT mentioned by the Times) are the following: What is needed to fulfill the constitutional duty to provide for our common defense? Do we have a system to defend the American people from attack and, if not, why not? How have the Soviets violated the MAD ABM Treaty? Since these violations jeopardize our supreme interests, how soon will we use Article XV and give the Soviets six months’ notice that we are withdrawing?
It is wrong for the United States to continue to comply with an interpretation of a treaty that is dangerous to American national security, which the Soviets are massively violating, and which cannot be justified by the treaty’s language anyway.
