Americans should rejoice, not mourn, at the collapse of the strategic arms negotiations in Moscow. It is unlikely that any agreement that could have been reached would have been advantageous to us militarily, and it is almost certain that any agreement would have been disadvantageous psychologically.
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance would not have been so surprised at the Kremlin’s abrupt rejection of our proposals if he had kept on his desk a quotation from a great American phrasemaker, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: “A page of history is worth a volume of logic.”
Our diplomats were apparently relying on their own logic that “the Soviets want an arms control agreement just as much as we do” and 4t’s in the Soviets’ self interest to sign a treaty limiting nuclear weapons.” “A page of history,” plus Al Smith’s still-valid maxim “let’s look at the record,” would have braced our State Department for their verbal confrontation with Soviet negotiators.
Reliance on nonaggression treaties with the Soviet Union is the most fatal mistake any country can make. In 1964 the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee completed a lengthy study of the Soviet record of treaty violations. The conclusion was that the Soviets had violated every major agreement they ever entered into, except the August 1939 agreement they signed with Adolf Hitler, which started World War II.
A separate research study was made by the distinguished historian Dr. Anthony Bouscaren. He listed 93 major treaty violations committed by the U.S.S.R.
Soviet doctrine is wholly in harmony with Soviet practice. As Lenin stated the principle, “Promises are like piecrusts, made to be broken.” Stalin’s description was just as colorful: “Good words are a mask for concealment of bad deeds. Sincere diplomacy is no more possible than dry water or iron wood.”
The speed record for treaty-breaking was set on August 20, 1968 when the Red Army invaded Czechoslovakia with 600,000 troops. The Soviets had signed a treaty guaranteeing Czechoslovakia’s “independence” and “freedom” only 17 days before.
Soviet treaty doctrine reached its most sophisticated implementation in the SALT I Agreements of 1972. They were cleverly crafted with one-way loopholes that only the Soviets could exploit.
First, the SALT I Agreement restricted only new fixed-base ICBM launchers. The Soviets adamantly refused to include mobile ICBM launchers. Within several months of the SALT I signing, the Soviets began testing their new SS-16 mobile ICBMs. The United States has no mobile missiles, not even under development.
Second, the SALT I prohibition against a more-than-15-percent enlargement of ICBM silo dimensions was supposed to be a “safeguard” against converting “light” missiles into “heavy” missiles. Immediately after the SALT I signing, the Soviets started testing three new types of ICBMs, all far more powerful than the older missiles they replaced.
Third, SALT I restricted merely the number of launchers, not the number of missiles, thereby putting no restraint on reloads. Immediately after SALT I was signed, the Soviets unveiled their new “cold-launch” or “pop-up” technique which makes reloads practical to stockpile. Since we have no cold-launch-type ICBMs and are not developing any, we cannot use reloads.
The Soviets are obviously stalling on SALT II until they can devise a new series of one-way loopholes to bind us, but not them.
