https://declassified.library.utoronto.ca/files/original/40dbb5f32a87d2add3f11a9cfd223673.pdf ce4d4c253556d5ffb4440803055fa3f4 PDF Text Text ?OJH Document disclo: ed undelete Access tinformat on Act Document divulgue en veou de la ioi su/l'acces a Ti formation DEPARTMENT OF EXTERNAL AFFALRS f•' Subject " £ M k Date May...!!., 1?6_9 Publication :.l^.e...Iew.J,ork_]Jimes._ f~*\. • Arms and Defense Still No Dent in the ABM Opposition •'• WASHINGTON—It has been ator Edward M. Kennedy, a four weeks since President Nix- group of scientific and academic cm laid down the ultimate po- experts issued a report criticizlitical argument by claiming that ing the Safeguard system as his Safeguard ' missile'' defense militarily unnecessary and techsystem was • "absolutely essen- nically unworkable. For weeks, tial" for the national security. in his communications command The remarkable political reac- post in the Executive Office tion is that the President did Building, Presidential Assistant not seem to make.even a dent Herb Klein had been waiting for in the Senate opposition. . , publication of the "Kennedy Normally such a Presidential book." The order went out for peroration, particularly one-in- instant retaliation and the asvolving national security, would. signment was given to Dr. John be enough to bring Congression- S. Foster, Director of Defense al dissenters back in line. But Research'and Engineering. if anythingEthe bipartisan oppoIn a statement more strident sition has picked up strength in than substantive, Dr. Foster recent weeks; it most' certainly branded the report inconsistent has not lost strength. and full, of errors..It was a At this point, according to the second strike without assured most knowledgeable nosecount- destruction of Senator Kennedy. ers in the Senate, there are 49 Initially cautious about White or 50 Senators—including some House retaliation, the Senator 15 from the Republican side- decided to proceed with publifirmly committed against the cation of the report in a book antiballistic missile (ABM) sys- with a foreword carrying his tem. There are about 44 Sena- name. tors favoring it, leaving six un-. Thinking that perhaps a libcommitted. eral emissary might help, the The. White House -seems to White House quietly sent Gov-, have misjudged the depth of the ernor Rockefeller to Capitol Hill opposition and to have under- to work" ori such Republican disas Senators John Sher•'".;'• estimated the' new skeptical at-' senters titude in the Senate toward Pen- man Cooper' of Kentucky, ':.titgbA spending. It' has been Charles H. Percy of Illinois, « a miscalculation that hasthrowri Jacob K. Javits of New York ,sthe White House on the de- and Clifford P. Case of New : : fehsive, leaving the initiative to Jersey. The Senators came away •; the opposition. Just how much unconverted and feeling the " the Administration is on the de- Governor did not understand fensive was illustrated by a few the issues. envelopments last week, With little fanfare, Senator der the sponsorship of. Sen- Cooper . introduced into the X. reasoning, perhaps a little too Machiavellian, goes like this: If the White House goes down to the wire, it will win by one or two votes, a divisive victory at best. On domestic issues, such as food-for-the-hungry, the White House has sought to avoid confrontations with Congress, and the same political logic should apply to the ABM issue. Thus at some point the White House will seek a compromise. A possible compromise that is gaining support in the Senate is to link a delay in deployment of, Safeguard with the start of strategic arms limitations talks with the Soviet Union. Thus the President would propose that the two sides enter into a moratorium on deployment of strategic missile systems and the flight testing of missile warheads while they Attack on Credibility seek an agreement to curb their This was far more than Just arms race. an accounting game being Hf this moratorium proposal, played by the two sides. What the opposition was attacking however, is to represent a good was the credibility of the Ad- faith gesture to the Soviet Unministration, something it has ion, it can not be cast in terms been building up to ever since of a domestic compromise, apSecretary Laird presented pro- peasing the Safeguard opposijections of Soviet strength that tion in the Senate. Therefore, some Senators felt did not con- right up to the moment it is form to the national intelligence ready to make the proposal, the estimates that they heard in Administration must take a rigid private from the Central Intel- stance in favor of Safeguard deployment and hope to receive ligence Agency. vote of confidence To some Senators in the op- ain face-saving the House before the issue position there were hints of an is joined in the Senate. . eventual compromise in the —JOHN W. FINNEJT White House approach. Their Congressional Record a letter from Glenn Seaborg, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, saying that the Defense Department had not included in its $6.6-billion cost estimates some $1.2-billion that the A.E.C. will spend developing and producing atomic warheads for the Safeguard missiles. Defense Secretary Melvin :Laird protested that about half of those A.E.C. costs would be for research and development and therefore should not be included in the Safeguard deployment costs, Senator Cooper responded by introducing figures showing that if research and development costs were included, the cost of Safeguard would come to about $ll-billion—or nearly double the price tag commonly used by the Administration. JV. 000201 � Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CDBM00252 Title A name given to the resource Transcript from NYT Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 5/11/1969 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived RG25-A-3-c, file 27-11-7, "DEFENCE - CONVENTIONAL AND NUCLEAR ARMAMENTS - ANTI - BALLISTIC MISSILES (ABM) = DEFENSE - ARMEMENTS DE TYPE CLASSIQUE ET NUCLEAIRE - ENGINS ANTIMISSILES (ABM)," vol. 10357, part 6, Library and Archives Canada, (LAC). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource External Affairs Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Canadian Crown Subject The topic of the resource Anti-ballistic missiles Description An account of the resource Still No Dent in ABM Opposition Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Canada Declassified Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource en