START Treaty

For the record, the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) treaty will not reduce “by roughly half” the “nuclear force levels” of the United States and Soviet Union (editorial, June 10). In your editorial, you fail to distinguish overall nuclear arsenals from strategic nuclear arsenals, and “accountable” strategic warheads from actual strategic warheads.

Because of rather unique “counting rules,” actual reductions in long-range (i.e., strategic) nuclear warheads will be on the order of 15%-25%. One reason the cuts will be less than originally advertised is that under START many weapons are “discounted.” For example, some U.S. bombers carrying 20 warheads will count as carrying only one warhead.

Since long-range weapons represent only about half of the U.S. and Soviet Union’s overall nuclear stockpile and since non-strategic weapons are exempted from START, cuts in overall “nuclear force levels” will be only about 10%.

Having implemented the START reductions, the United States will retain more strategic nuclear warheads than it had when negotiations began in June, 1982, a time when President Reagan was calling for “substantial and militarily significant reductions on both sides.”

The chart accompanying your editorial compared only U.S. and Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile forces, giving the impression that the Soviet strategic arsenal is far larger than the U.S. strategic arsenal. Strategic nuclear forces also include long-range bombers, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and sea-launched cruise missiles, all categories in which the United States holds an edge over the Soviets. All told, the United States has more strategic nuclear weapons than the Soviet Union, although this difference is not considered militarily significant.

START is an important treaty. It will set important verification precedents and enhance stability by making U.S.-Soviet military capabilities more predictable. It will not, however, result in 50% reductions in nuclear arsenals.

JOSEPH K. LYOU

Executive Director

START-Watch Project, Los Angeles