Edward L. Rowny
However, there was an immediate outcry from the leaders of the
inside-thebeltway arms control community. They said that Bush should make the
completion of START a precondition for the summit meeting. That same day,
within hours after his original statement, Fitzwater said that the President preferred
to go to a summit when START was ready for signature. The next morning,
reporters asked Bush which of his spokesman's statements they should believe.
"Both of Fitzwater's statements are correct." Bush said. It was a typical Bush
fence-straddling response.
Later in the spring of 1991 the President made several statements assuring the
public that the unresolved START issues were "merely technical." These
statements raised questions as to whether or not the President was being adequately
briefed on the critical differences between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. At the
very least, it betrayed a significant contradiction. If the remaining problems were
strictly "technical" in nature, why didn't Bush accept the Soviet positions and sign
the agreement? The obvious answer was that the remaining issues were actually
of critical importance and not as easily resolvable as the President would have us
believe.
By mid-June of 1991, Washington was rife with rumors of an impending
U.S.-Soviet summit. Nevertheless, acting chief START negotiator, Lynton
Brooks, reported that there were approximately 100 issues still awaiting resolution.
Of these, four were major obstacles that struck at the very heart of the treaty.
Perhaps the most important was the long-standing dispute over the Soviets' heavy
missiles. The original intent of the START negotiations was to cut in half the
number of highly destabilizing, heavy land-based Soviet ICBMs. It would be
accompanied by a prohibition on the testing and modernization of the remaining
force. This would pave the way for the eventual technological obsolescence-and
hence retirement-of all heavy missiles. The Soviets have, however, continued to
improve the accuracy of their heavy missiles. Even a 50 percent reduction in their
current force of SS-18 Mod-5s would provide them with the same destructive
capability as their entire original heavy missile force.
A second major stumbling block concerned the "downloading* of missile warheads.
In an effort to appear less threatening, the Soviets offered to place only three
warheads on their SS-N-18, submarine-launched ballistic missiles which were
capable of carrying seven warheads. Although this was an encouraging sign and
in keeping with the U.S. desire to reduce the number of MIRVed missiles, it soon
became evident that the Soviets did not intend to destroy the extra four warheads
per missile. The Soviets wanted to have the SS-N-18 counted as a three-warhead
missile. But they also wanted to maintain their ability to more than double that
force in a crisis by holding on to their excess warheads. Since there is no sure-fire
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