Abstract
Keeping score
In a review of James Bamford s book, Body of Secrets (January/February 2002 Bulletin), Thomas Blan-ton states that Bamford “is ahead on points in discussing the U.S.S. Liberty mystery of June 1967.”
I would remind the reviewer that he is not dealing with a basketball game.
There is not a scintilla of truth to Bamford's allegation that the Israeli Defense Forces fired on the Liberty to cover up the murder of Egyptian prisoners of war in the Sinai desert at the time of the incident.
There is absolutely no evidence from the Egyptians, the Israelis, or from the U.S. government that Bamford's scenario has any basis in fact.
San Raphael, California
Michael Franzblau is certainly correct that the U.S.S. Liberty mystery is no basketball game. My phrase “ahead on points” refers to the way debates are judged, on points, and this is certainly a debate–one which could use less heat and more light.
But Franzblau is certainly incorrect in his phrases about “not a scintilla of truth” and “absolutely no evidence.” Author James Bamford footnotes his evidence, in the form of two New York Times news stories, two Washington Post news stories, and stories in Newsday and the Toronto Globe and Mail about Israeli massacres, along with on-the-record quotes from senior National Security Agency officials who believe the Israeli attack was deliberate.
In the navy
The individuals shown in a photo accompanying Cindy Kelly's “Remembering S Site” (January/February 2002) are identified as “recruits.” But the gentlemen in the jeep are all officers of the U.S. Navy, not “recruits,” who are new sailors or soldiers in basic training. Your story seems to refer to army enlisted men in SED (the Special Engineering Detachment), but I suspect SED was a joint army and navy organization of officers and enlisted men.
Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio
Rogue cities
Thanks for the Scud update in the last issue (“It's a Scud, Scud, Scud World,” January/February 2002). Living near Chicago, I never realized the dangers that could lurk from “terror cities” like Dallas and St. Louis. I'll be watching the skies for incoming Scud attacks from rogue cities threatening my safety. Sure wish we had a Patriot or THAAD battery nearby to keep them at bay.
Maybe the Scud article will open the eyes of those who may not have realized the maximum range and potential of rogue missiles around the world.
Thanks again for the excellent Scud coverage.
Richton Park, Illinois
Put it in writing
President George W. Bush's announced abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty has elated unilateralists, but it portends an increasingly difficult transition to a progressively interdependent world.
Columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote on December 17 that the withdrawal would remove “absurd restrictions on ABM technology.” Yet the most serious restriction remains: There is a long way to go before the technology is viable.
The apocalypse-weary world will, of course, be grateful for any informal agreements between Bush and Vladimir Putin that reduce nuclear arms and/or truly improve defenses. But handshake accords leave a high degree of insecurity.
Avoiding treaties to preserve flexibility is a two-edged sword. It may streamline the process, but it means that military planners will have to hedge against surprises, including unilateral reversals of reductions.
Ronald Reagan's adopted “trust, but verify” principle should not be abandoned. Even if both sides, for their own internal and national security reasons, independently carry out strategic arms cuts, verification is important. The withdrawals of tactical nuclear weapons from Europe, announced in 1991, may have occurred in full, but no one can be absolutely certain. Similarly, nobody will know whether future unilateral cuts are really carried out. Moreover, who can predict whether the next administration in the United States or Russia will want to abide by a predecessor's handshake agreement?
Although the prime benefit of treaties is institutionalized verification, other advantages emerge when the terms of a pact are explicit: Understandings are reached about specific equivalencies, nonpolitical procedures are set up for resolving issues of compliance, exchanges and validations of baseline data are authorized, calibration of monitoring equipment is approved, domestic legislation and ratification are implemented, and mutual confidence is enhanced.
Verification assures that both parties are carrying out the terms of the contract upon which collective security is so dependent. A written commitment to permit on-site inspection and other measures allows direct observation of the withdrawal and destruction of warheads and their delivery systems. It also provides assurance that decommissioned weapons will not be taken out of the country, whether by theft or with official sanction.
If the agreement is not binding, then either side may hold it hostage. For example, nuclear reductions could be put on hold or reversed if one side became dissatisfied with the other side's ABM policy.
Advocates of informality criticize the “endless” years spent negotiating nuclear testing and arms control treaties–forgetting that the negotiations were prolonged largely because of government foot-dragging. Yet when both sides decided that a treaty was in their interest, all sticking points vanished overnight.
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Update
Two years ago, journalist Diego Llumá reported that several “orphaned” radiation sources had been discovered in the former Soviet republic of Georgia (“What the Russians Left Behind,” May/June 2000 Bulletin). Many were small, mildly radioactive cylinders of cesium 137, which the Soviet Army left buried in the ground at a military base near the capital city of Tblisi. But Georgian officials working with an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team also recovered several highly radioactive strontium 90 devices abandoned by the Soviets in other parts of the country. The IAEA feared many more of these devices were still hidden in Georgia and possibly other former republics.
Their fears were well founded: In early December, three woodsmen in eastern Georgia found two small, heat-emitting containers in a remote, mountainous region about 135 miles outside Tblisi. The containers, it turns out, were cylinders of strontium 90 and were giving off thousands of times the normal background radiation; the men who found them were hospitalized with severe cases of radiation sickness.
On February 3, U.N. and IAEA experts recovered the containers, believed to be abandoned Soviet batteries, but for security reasons would not disclose where the sources are being kept. After the recovery, experts from Russia, the United States, France, and Germany met with Georgian authorities to discuss the operation as well as ways to find and secure radioactive sources in the future (Agence France Presse).
Today, the superpowers' Cold War positions are reversed, with Russia seeking formal agreements and the United States forsaking verification on the plaintive grounds that inspections at U.S. facilities would be too intrusive. But existing treaties have permitted us to witness the destruction of intermediate-range missiles, confirm the absence of testing violations, and monitor progress in the elimination of strategic delivery systems.
Two more treaties should be implemented promptly. The United States is balking on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and rejecting improvements in the Biological Weapons Convention. We need the security that treaties and verification provide.
The overriding issue now at hand is the unnecessarily large number of nuclear weapons that remain. The United States and Russia together have about 30,000 warheads–of which 6,000 to 7,000 are operational strategic weapons, the rest being spares, reserves, or tactical weapons. The risk of accidents, unauthorized use, or terrorist acquisition grows with the number of warheads in existence. Unless the tradition of formalized reduction and verified destruction of the strategic delivery systems and weapons is continued and extended, tactical warheads will remain, perpetuating an ever-present threat to stability.
The hallmark of a valid contract is a clear understanding of the obligations of the parties and the ability to verify that those obligations are being met. While it is true that “We don't need arms control negotiations to reduce our weaponry in a significant way,” as President Bush said last November, we do need to make sure the terms of any commitments are fulfilled. Even business deals between friends are carefully worded and signed to avoid misunderstandings.
The benefits of formalized arms control should not be forgone for political expediency. A signed treaty–perhaps START III–with arms control procedures spelled out, would provide a stable basis for constructive cooperation.
Plainfield, Illinois
Institute of Technical Physics
Snezhinsk, Russia
Argonne, Illinois