ARMS CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT AGENCY WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1974 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENTS, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 2:15 p.m. in room 2200, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Clement J. Zablocki (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Mr. ZABLOCKI. The subcommittee will please come to order. We will resume this afternoon the subcommittee's hearings on the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Our witnesses today are the Honorable Paul Nitze, former Deputy Secretary of Defense and until recently, a member of the U.S. SALT negotiating team; and, Prof. George Rathjens of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Rathjens' previous Government experience includes terms on the staff of the Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and 2 years as Deputy Assistant Director of ACDA. Gentlemen, we indeed are very pleased and honored that you were able to get the time to come before this subcommittee to share with us your views on how the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency can be upgraded, so to speak. The biographical data on Secretary Nitze and Professor Rathjens will be made a part of the record prior to their statement. Secretary Nitze, I understand you do not have a prepared statement but you may begin, sir. STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL NITZE, FORMER DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE AND MEMBER OF THE U.S. SALT NEGOTIATING TEAM Dr. Paul Nitze has led a varied and distinguished career in government and private industry. Born in Massachusetts, he received his LL.D. from Johns Hopkins University. Positions he has held in the State Department are Deputy Director, Office of International Trade Policy; Deputy to Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs; and Director, Policy Planning Staff. He also erved in the Department of Defense as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, 1961 to 1963; Secretary of the Navy, 1963–67; and Deputy Secretary of Defense, 1967–69. Dr. Nitze is a former member of the U.S. delegation to SALT in Geneva. (59) 41-421-74—5 NO REASON TO RECOMMEND CHANGES Mr. NITZE. Mr. Chairman, I testified before the various committees of the Congress in 1961 in support of the ACDA legislation of that year, and since that time I have had the opportunity to work closely with the various heads of the ACDA agency and with their staffs. It is my view that the act has worked well. I am unaware of any limitation that the act has put upon what have seemed to me to be the proper responsibilities and exercises of responsibility by the Agency. Therefore, I would not recommend, or at least I see no reason to recommend, changes in the act. That is the end of my testimony. Mr. ZABLOCKI. That was very brief. Well, we look forward to the question period. Professor Rathjens. STATEMENT OF PROF. GEORGE W. RATHJENS, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Born in Fairbanks, Alaska, Professor George W. Rathjens received his Ph. D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1951. Both scientist and educator, he has been professor of chemistry at Columbia and political science at MIT; and research fellow, Harvard. In government he has served as special assistant to the President for science and technology, and was chief scientist, Advanced Research Projects Agency, DOD. From 1961 to 1965 he was with ACDA as deputy director; deputy assistant director; and special assistant to the director. He has also served as director of the weapons systems evaluation division, Institute for Defense Analyses. Mr. RATHJENS. Well, I do have a short statement, so perhaps I might read it. I have long had a deep interest in arms control and, since its establishment, in the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Accordingly, I welcome the opportunity to appear before you, and hope that I can be of some help to you in your deliberations. I have read the report that was prepared for you by Philip Farley with great interest, and I believe it is a very balanced and useful commentary on the accomplishments of the Agency, on its strengths and weaknesses, and on some of the policy choices that lie ahead. With more time I would be tempted to reenforce a number of Mr. Farley's points, but as it is, I will confine myself to just two or three broad issues. FOCUSING ATTENTION NARROWLY ON TERMS OF AGREEMENTS Let me turn first to the question of the major problems and opportunities in arms control. I am persuaded that focusing attention narrowly on the terms of agreements that might be negotiated to limit or reduce arms is an approach of limited utility. Those who do so will be looking at a small part of the problem because many of the most important, and troublesome, decisions that are made with respect to weapons development and procurement are quite unrelated, or only marginally related, to any negotiations. Recent examples in the case of the United States are the decisions to go ahead with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV's), maneuverable reentry vehicles (MARV's), the Trident submarine, the B-1 bomber, changes in U.S. strategic targeting doctrine, sales of arms to various countries, the deployment of the Enterprise into the Bay of Bengal during the Bangladesh war, and the enlargement of the naval base on Diego Garcia. To the best of my knowledge, ACDA has had little influence on these decisions and many others of the same kind. Yet, such decisions will very likely have far greater effect, for better or worse, on our security than many of those in which ACDA has been involved, for example, those relating to items on the agenda of the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament, some of the technical evaluations relating to SALT, and efforts to promote the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. BARGAINING SUPERSEDING NEGOTIATIONS I have a second concern about emphasis on formal negotiations as a means of achieving arms control. There is a problem in that in a negotiating situation, we and other states, may acquire or keep weapons which are not really needed in order to strengthen bargaining positions. Additionally, in order to secure maximum internal support for agreements that might be negotiated, commitments are likely to be made to engage in a variety of programs, some of which may be quite questionable. These bargaining related costs may be thoroughly justified if agreements finally concluded signal great steps forward in arms control, but the record is such as to raise doubts. We have reached the point where arms control negotiations have become a part of the weapons acquisition process. In this connection, I am not optimistic about either SALT II or the MBFR negotiations. The situation could change for the better with very strong executive leadership on both sides, but failing that, I think we may stand to lose more than we will gain from an arms control perspective from a continuation of these negotiations. These prospects are especially troublesome because as long as these negotiations engage our attention, we are diverted from considering as carefully as we ought, the ramifications of the day-to-day decisions that we make that affect our Military Establishment. WEAPONS DEVELOPMENT AND PROCUREMENT PROCESS Given its charter and history, it is especially likely that ACDA will, to the extent it has influence, push negotiations as the preferred approach to arms control. The third point I would make has to do with the nature of the weapons development and procurement process. The decisions we, and other countries, make will depend substantially on the observed or anticipated actions of possible adversaries, but they are also influenced by other factors: Economic advantage to particular regions, industries or labor groups; career advancement or organizational aggrandizement within Government and industry; and desire to exploit technological opportunities because they are challenging. It has become increasingly apparent in recent years that attempts to understand the weapons acquisition process so that it can be made more responsive to our true security interests require consideration of the interplay of these factors. However, since it is a bit unseemly to openly acknowledge this, analyses of weapons proposals and arms control possibilities by ACDA and other Government agencies do not commonly take explicit account of this interplay. STRENGTHENING OF CONGRESSIONAL ANALYTICAL CAPABILITIES From the foregoing, you might infer that I would like to see the scope of ACDA's activities expanded so that its really quite impressive analytical capabilities could be brought to bear on a much wider. range of national security issues than it has normally considered, and so that its approach could be a broader one. I would, indeed, like to see that, but I do not believe that is the only, nor even necessarily the most important step needed in a reform of our system for arriving at decisions in the national security area. Somehow we must do better than we have in the analysis of the implications of weapons and foreign policy decisions, and a broadening of ACDA's charter would help in this. So, too, would a further strengthening of State's capabilities; a reactivation of the President's Science Advisory Committee, provided it chose to look into weapons programs as it did in the late fifties; or a deeper involvement of the Office of Management and Budget in national security matters. But in the long run, I am skeptical about relying on the executive branch to police itself. Even if such agencies were deeply involved in looking into national security questions, and even if they were subject to interrogation before the appropriate congressional committees, I do not think that would be adequate. GREATER UTILIZATION OF OUTSIDE RESOURCES What is needed is an increased competence for questioning Executive programs from outside, and mechanisms for capitalizing on it. This would be much facilitated if there were less abuse of the security blanket and if there were substantial reliance on adversary proceedings. So, I end with a plea for a strengthening of congressional analytical capabilities and a greater use by the Congress of outside resources in questioning decisions in the national security area. Otherwise I fear we will continue to make decisions based on too many unquestioned, but questionable, premises and hidden assumptions. Thank you. Mr. ZABLOCKI. Thank you, Professor Rathjens. In our testimony yesterday our witnesses had divided opinionsthere were three witnesses-as to whether the act should be amended striking section 49 (d), which prohibits the dissemination within the United States of the use of any appropriated funds for "the dissemination within the United States of propaganda concerning the work of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency." |