Soviets Deploy New Mobile ICBMs : Missiles Can Be Launched From Railway Cars, U.S. Says

The Soviet Union said publicly for the first time today that it is deploying a new intercontinental ballistic missile that U.S. officials say can be launched from railway cars, but it denied that the move violates the SALT II accord.

Viktor P. Karpov, head of the Foreign Ministry’s disarmament desk, said the Soviet Union is “changing obsolete launching equipment with modern mobile launchers” by deploying strategic rockets known to Western analysts as SS-24s.

He insisted at a government news briefing that “the Soviet Union, while carrying out modernization of its strategic armaments, is doing it in conformity with SALT II.”

U.S. officials said last week that SS-24s were moved from the factory producing them to railway cars, allowing them to travel and become part of the Soviet long-range arsenal.

In its annual report issued last March, “Soviet Military Power,” the Pentagon predicted that the missiles would be deployed this year and said each would be capable of delivering 10 nuclear warheads 6,250 miles.

Putting the missiles on railway cars will create difficulties for U.S. spy satellites seeking Soviet targets for American missiles.

Karpov said the missiles’ mobility is “a guarantee that they will survive a first strike, if a first strike is delivered on our territory.”

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) said Friday that Moscow had violated a key portion of the unratified 1979 SALT treaty by deploying the SS-24s.

Karpov said today that the Soviets are continuing to adhere to SALT II limits, which he said establish a ceiling of 820 land-based ballistic missiles with multiple warheads for each superpower.

“The SS-24 is a new type of missile which is possible within the framework of the SALT II treaty,” Karpov said.

On Saturday, the Washington Post quoted unidentified U.S. officials as saying the Soviets had dismantled enough SS-17 missiles to stay within limits of the strategic arms limitation treaty.

But the newspaper quoted the officials as saying Helms’ assertions of Soviet non-compliance were “technically” correct because the SS-17s’ silos were not destroyed, as required.