system concepts and components that would respond in a predictably safe manner even in severe accident environments such as fire or crashes.

Another area of recent improvement is the type of high explosive used in our modern weapons. The possibility of scattering radioactive material in potential accidents involving nuclear weapons has been greatly decreased by use of insensitive high explosive (IHE) rather than conventional explosives used in older weapons. Developing an IHE suitable for use in nuclear weapons required more than ten years of dedicated research and development. IHE is now generally used in all warheads and being produced or in engineering development, unless clear operational penalties preclude it.

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR STROM THURMOND

NUCLEAR FREEZE AND STABILITY OF NATO

Senator THURMOND. Mr. Perle, if the United States and the Soviet Union were to enter into a nuclear freeze, what would be the impact on the stability of NATO:

Mr. PERLE. The impact on the cohesion of NATO, American leadership, and spirit of bipartisan diplomacy would be extremely serious. First, an American negotiation of an immediate freeze would unilaterally repudiate the NATO Alliance-wide 1979 dual-track decision to deploy Pershing II and GLCMs to counterbalance Soviet SS-20s and to seek U.S.-Soviet arms reductions providing equal ceilings and equal rights. NATO leaders oppose a freeze for precisely these reasons. Second, a freeze today would increase fear in Europe that NATO would be "decoupled" from the American nuclear umbrella, a fear which led European leaders to press for the dual-track decision in the first place.

NUCLEAR FREEZE AND NEGOTIATIONS

Senator THURMOND. Mr. Perle, last year you read the committee a quote from Sir Samuel Hoare about the disastrous way negotiators are pressured into reaching an agreement just for agreement's sake. I agree with Sir Samuel except that only negotiators from democratic countries are subject to such pressures. Negotiators from totalitarian regimes are independent from public opinion.

Do movements such as the nuclear freeze campaign have such an impact on our negotiators today?

Mr. PERLE. AS Ambassador Rowny wrote in a letter to Congressman Broomfield last June 25, passage of a nuclear freeze resolution "would make my job as a negotiator much more difficult". The reasons for this are two-fold. First, a U.S. nuclear freeze vote would signal to the Soviets that Americans were neither serious, nor united, on the vital issues of American strength and American determination to negotiate far-reaching, equitable and verifiable reductions in nuclear forces such as we have proposed at the START and INF talks. Second, by permanently codifying existing Soviet advantages and preventing the U.S. from carrying out our long overdue modernization program, a freeze would undercut any Soviet incentives to negotiate seriously on reductions. In short, a freeze would replace reductions, and virtually eliminate the likelihood that they would ever

occur.

[Whereupon, at 1:33 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned, subject to the call of the Chair.]

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION FOR APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 1984

FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 1983

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC AND

THEATER NUCLEAR FORCES,

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES,

Washington, D.C.

STRATEGIC COMMAND, CONTROL AND

COMMUNICATIONS

The subcommittee met in open session pursuant to recess at 2:08 p.m., in room SR-222, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator John W. Warner (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators Warner, Wilson, and Exon.

Staff present: Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., George K. Johnson, Jr., and Patrick L. Renehan, professional staff members; Karen A. Love, staff

assistant.

Also present: John Campbell, assistant to Senator Warner; Greg Pallas, assistant to Senator Exon, and Ed McGaffigan, assistant to Senator Bingaman.

OPENING STATEMENT BY SENATOR JOHN W. WARNER, CHAIRMAN

Senator WARNER. The subcommittee will now commence our afternoon session. We had a very extensive and profitable closed session this morning with the commander of the strategic Air Command, General Davis.

This afternoon we will begin consideration of what has become, in recent years, one of the most important and broadly supported aspects of the President's strategic force modernization program. As our witnesses well know, this committee 2 years ago, took steps at its own initiative, to provide for important improvements to the Nation's C3 network.

Since that time, we have followed with interest developments in the administration's thinking about and funding for enhancements of this vital central nervous system of our strategic deterrent. We look forward to receiving an update on this subject from the distinguished individuals appearing before us today.

Mr. Don Latham, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Communications, Command, Control and Intelligence, has been a driving force behind these long overdue system upgrades.

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Similarly, the Joint Strategic Connectivity Staff, today represented by Rear Adm. Paul Tomb, has provided much of the supporting analysis and program options.

We look forward to hearing from these gentlemen on how the initiatives funded thus far have improved our strategic connectivity posture and what remains to be done.

In addition, we are pleased to have Vice Adm. Gordon Nagler, Director, Command and Control and Maj. Gen. Bernard Randolph, Director, Space Systems and Command, Control, Communications, representing the two services directly involved in the strategic mission.

We will proceed briefly here in open session. A vote is anticipated in about 20 minutes or so and that may well be the appropriate time to go into closed session.

the gentleman from California have any opening

Does the observations?

Senator WILSON. No, sir, Mr. Chairman.

STATEMENT OF DONALD C. LATHAM, DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (COMMUNICATIONS, COMMAND, CONTROL, AND INTELLIGENCE)

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you very much for having us here this afternoon. Indeed we will attempt to summarize for you the progress we have made during this last fiscal year and what we intend to do with the fiscal 1984 funds that we have requested.

Specifically for fiscal year 1984 the total communications, command and control budget to the President is $16.7 billion which is up approximately 18 percent from the fiscal 1983 request, and of that $16-odd billion, about $4.6 billion is the strategic C3 area, up approximately $1 billion from the fiscal 1983 request in this area.

We will summarize for you in the closed session in more detail the specific progress we have made and the details of what the 1984 moneys will bring in the areas of communications, command, and decision initiatives and tactical warning and in the attack assessment

area.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Latham follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DONALD C. LATHAM, DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (COMMUNICATIONS, COMMAND, CONTROL AND INTELLIGENCE)

Mr. CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE: It is my privilege to appear before you today to discuss the Strategic Communications, Command and Control (C3) elements of the President's program for revitalizing our strategic deterrent posture. It is our firm belief that a credible, reliable and survivable C3 system offers the greatest deterrent to any possible future war. Accordingly, our present budget request emphasizes improved reliability and survivability of existing systems and the initiation of programs that will improve surveillance and warning capabilities for both the air-breathing and ballistic missile threats. In addition, we will be initiating the acquisition of systems that will help sustain essential C3 functions during all phases of conflict. It is vital that we proceed with our major strategic C3 program to assure that the National Command Authority (NCA) is continually linked to our surveillance and warning systems, our command centers and our nuclear capable forces. It will be because of this assured NCA-to-Forces Connectivity that any adversary must consider an attack on the United States as a very high risk option. Our budget request for strategic

C programs is fiscal year 1974 is $4.6 billion. That is a large sum, and I am here to explain why these funds and your support are so essential. Before detailing our needs, I will provide a brief overview of C3 mission objectives.

I. OVERALL OBJECTIVE OF THE MISSION

Our C system must provide the means to transform individual combat units into an integrated, effective force. This system must satisfy the needs of all echelons of our forces to observe, provide warning and assess adversary intentions, collect and process information on the status of our own and hostile forces, support decision-making, and communicate commanders' decisions to the forces. Essential supporting functions include navigation and position-fixing to establish a common geographical frame of reference for intelligence systems and the forces and information systems to support operational planning of missions.

II. STRATEGIC C3 MISSION AREA

Since I reported to you last year, we have had some rearrangements in our mission areas. Satellite Communications, which was previously part of DefenseWide Systems, is now a part of the strategic C mission area. Strategic C3 requirements determine many essential features needed for satellite communications and this change facilitates better integration of our programs. This change accounts for the major portion of the increase funding request for tihs mission area in fiscal year 1984.

The difficulty of the C3 mission is intensified by the fact that our basic national security policy is one of deterrence, which requires that we sustain a capability to react quickly and effectively after the enemy has taken the first initiative. We have taken several important steps to improve our ability to develop, procure, manage and operate our C3 system. These include the following:

We are giving our C systems equal priority with the weapon systems they support, and treating the C weapon-system mix as a unified element. This perspective will help ensure that the needs of the Force Commanders for force management and force capabilities are balanced over a broad range of possible conflict environments.

We are pursuing a planning process which views the evolving C3 weaponsystem mix over a 15-year horizon to guide the direction and pace of that evolution. By adopting this perspective we hope to improve program stability and create a better integrated system.

We are designing and deploying an enhanced C3 system which, through emphasis on survivability and endurance, can resist the current and projected threat.

Our strategic C3 program addresses three primary areas: surveillance and warning, command centers and communications connectivity. The modernization initiatives contained in this program is considered the highest priority segment of the President's strategic modernization program.

A. Surveillance and warning

In the surveillance and warning area we subdivide programs into those directed toward the atmospheric threat and those associated with the ballistic missile threat. With regard to the missile area, we are continuing with the acquisition of the ground-based PAVE PAWS radars to eliminate gaps in our present SLBM coverage in the southeast and southwest areas. The southeast radar will have greater target detection capability than other PAVE PAWS radars, permitting it to perform a secondary satellite tracking mission. This will permit us to shut down the aging FPS-85 radar in Florida, which provides essential space-track data. We expect to complete the BMEWS missile impact prediction computer replacements at all sites and to continue the Thule radar modernization. These steps will improve our attack assessment capabilities. Two new early warning satellites will be acquired with fiscal year 1984 funds to maintain the existing space segment for ballistic missile launch detection. These new satellites will be of a modified design in order to improve system survivability relative to the existing space segment. We will continue to acquire mobile ground terminals (MGT's) that will provide an austere back-up capable of processing the satellite data and provide direct readout of warning information to the users. These MGT's are virtually impossible for the Soviets to target and that frees us from dependence on the very vulnerable fixed ground processing facility used today.

We will also be acquiring sensors for deployment on NAVSTAR Global Positioning System satelites to accurately locate and characterize nuclear detona\tions in near real time on a worldwide basis. This system known as the Integrated Operational NUDETS Detection System (1ONDS), will permit assessing damage we have sustained and the effects of our retaliatory strikes.

In the area of atmospheric threat warning, we are initiating the acquisition of new long range radars (LRR's) for the DEW Line and we expect to complete the R&D for new short range radars (SRR's). The LRR's will require minimal manning and no manning will be required for the SRR's. As a result of this reduced manning and improved reliability, we plan to deploy 19 more radar systems than are in operation today while cutting our operations and maintenance costs to about half of our fiscal year 1982 cost. This deployment will provide contiguous surveillance coverage of the northern attack routes and with the new Over-the Horizon Backscatter (OTH-B) systems being deployed in the Southern Area as well as in the East and West Coast areas, the U.S. will have a complete contiguous all-altitude surveillance coverage of all approaches to North America. The fiscal year 1984 OTH-B request provides for continuing the upgrade of the 60-degree experimental radar system located in Maine to its operational configuration, in addition to acquiring two additional 60-degree sectors for that same location to provide full East Coast coverage. These improvements are also an integral element of the President's strategic modernization program.

B. Command centers

In this area, we are upgrading the survivability and capability of command centers that would direct U.S. strategic forces during a nuclear war. This includes the continued deployment and upgrading of our E-4B airborne command posts to serve the National Command Authority in time of war. EC-135 airborne command posts serving military commanders will be hardened against nuclear effects and will be equipped with upgraded satellite and very low frequency/low frequency communications equipments. These communications upgrades will help sustain connectivity in the event of severe jamming.

C. Communications connectivity

Our strategic communications programs are structured to provide improved communication connectivity between command locations (including NCA), sensor sites and nuclear capable forces. New acquisitions will emphasize survivability and endurability. In fiscal year 1984, we will continue with the Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS) III program by procuring long lead items for four new DSCS III satellites. These new satellites will provide increased capacity, improved jamming protection and a high degree of autonomy which means that they will be less dependent on the single satellite control facility (SCF) located at Sunnyvale, California. We will also initiate full scale engineering development of the MILSTAR space segment with a projected first launch later in this decade. This program will provide a highly enduring satellite space segment for two-way connectivity to the forces. Operating in the Extremely High Frequency (EHF) band MILSTAR will provide improved AJ protection and be more capable of effectively operating in a nuclear environment. While we are still doing development work with some EHF terminals, we will initiate the acquisition of the EHF single channel objective tactical terminal (SCOTT) in fiscal year 1984. We are continuing with the Fleet Satellite Communications (FLTSATCOM) satellite acquisition; in fiscal year 1984, we will procure FLTSATCOM No. 7 which will have an EHF package on board in addition to the normal Ultra High Frequency (UHF) capability, as an interim measure until MILSTAR service is available. And finally, in the satellite area, we will be provided UHF leased service via LEASAT. This program has been delayed because of delays in the space transportation system program. We are now expecting a first satellite launch in May of 1984.

In areas other than satellite communications, we are initiating acquisition of modem HF equipment for our Theater Nuclear Forces that will provide communications connectivity in both a jamming and a nuclear environment. In CONUS, we will complete the second phase of the Ground Wave Emergency Network (GWEN). This system will operate at low frequency and provide essential connectivity to major command locations, sensor sites, strategic bomber bases and missile launch control centers. The system will ultimately