From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npoiv!npois!ucbvax!C70:arms-d Newsgroups: fa.arms-d Title: Arms-Discussion Digest V0 #150 Article-I.D.: ucb.1629 Posted: Thu Jul 29 00:35:39 1982 Received: Fri Jul 30 03:39:59 1982 >From HGA@MIT-MC Thu Jul 29 00:11:21 1982 Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 0 : Issue 150 Today's Topics: Historical Query about US-USSR Ship Exchange Comments on Nuclear Destruction Rebuttal ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Jul 1982 08:50:40-PDT From: CSVAX.rrh at Berkeley Subject: Historical Query about US-USSR Ship Exchange I recently acquired a copy of a small newspaper that had a transcript of a rather rambling talk by Capt. Jude Lahr, Commander, Naval Weapons Center, China Lake, CA. The newspaper, the "Valley Enquirer", Ridgecrest(China Lake), CA, July 21, 1982 said that "the talk to the Exchange Club [a local club] on July 14 (1982) is presented in its entirety...". One of the several points in the talk dealt with a US-USSR ship exchange. I quote from part of the article in the paper (which is a transcript from Lahr's talk): ``...Back when I worked in the Pentagon there was another example that I might give you that was interesting. I worked in Op 60, which is Plans and Policies, and the joke was that "I don't know what the plan is, and we don't have any policy", but that really wasn't true. We really did have plans and we really did have polices and we had very good sound rules that we operated under. The United States and the Soviet Union had decided to exchange ship business. You may remember that the Soviets sent some ships to Boston and we sent some to a Latavian port. I got a call from an underling in the State Department, who said they would like to have a gesture of goodwill, they would like to make an announcement that there are no nuclear weapons aboard those three ships that are going into Latavia. I said "well, we really can't talk about this on the telephone, why don't you come on over." So he did. I said, "First of all, you understand that the national policy is, we neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons anywhere." He said, "well, I know, but this is a special deal. A gesture of good will, we'd like to make that announcement." I said, well, the second thing is, do you want to lie? The guy's face turned white and he said, "You don't mean to tell me?" I said, "Hey, look, our deployment policy is to put them on capable vessels, aircraft and what not, and if you want to know, the answer is yes." He said, the next question was will they be able to find out? The answer was "yes" to that, too, because you can confirm their presence and you can't confirm their absence. You can confirm the presence through the use of some very simple equipment. You shouldn't be concerned about it because we don't want to confuse the Russians, do we? They think we deploy nuclear weapons on our ships, even though you don't. Why confuse them? Well, he didn't take that, he ran out of there and said "I'm going to the top with this one". I said, "In twenty minutes, the phone is going to ring, and I'm going to be on my to see the Chief of Naval Operations." Well, it took a little longer than 20 minutes and the first one was a Rear Admiral, but I got to see the CNO who said, "I'm getting these calls from the State Department. Aren't we in compliance with National?" and the answer's "Yes". He said, "It seems to me that it would be confusing to the Russians if we went in there with ships that didn't have em." I answered, "Yes, sir, that's what it looks like to me too." He said "well, then, this guy's really off base." I answered that , "I think he's going to find out too if he gets high enough in the State Department." He finally worked his way up to Kissinger, whose rules we were following. He had written the rules on deterrents. A friend of mine who worked at the State Department said the blistering they guy got when that day was over was legend around the State Department. What surprised many of us was that the Russian ships came to Boston without them (nuclear weapons) and that surprised us. It's okay for the Russians to confuse us and I'll tell you why. Because we're not going to start a war! That is not in our national interest and it's not our national character. We're not going to start a war except on clear provocation. It's not okay for us to confuse the Russians because as soon as they feel they have an advantage they re going to go for full domination. So, we have to be credible in our deterrents...'' 1) Precisely when was this ship exchange? 2) Which ships were involved? 3) What was the intention of the ship exchange? 4) What "very simple equipment" is used to confirm the presence of nuclear weapons aboard a ship? 5) Comments on Lahr's talk? Robert Henry ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jul 1982 0843-CDT From: BREITLING at GUNTER-ADAM Subject: One readers opinion of Maas' lettters in V0/I149 I am realy amazed that a person could come up with a extrapolation of the effects of nuclear weapons on a society. In my mind there are several serious problems with Robert Elton Maas' theory on the effect of a nuclear weapon. 1. to say a bomb is capable of killing .01% (or any set percent) of a population is not very accurate. It would seem to me that the "state" of the target would be a big determining fact of the effect of the weapon. By state, I mean how prepared the target is to receive a nuclear attack. Since the world had never seen a nuclear weapon before, Hiroshima is not a very good base to make a generalized extrapolation on. I am sure i have read somewhere the Russians feel they could survive a nuclear attack from an enemy because they prepared (bomb shelters etc) for the attack. In the case of Hiroshima, there was no preparation. If you want to survive, then prepare yourself to survive. 2. the scenerio of only attacking counter-value targets is poor at best. The Russians have stated continuously that counter-force targets are much more appropriate for nuclear weapons. that is not to say they would not attack counter-value target either. 3. one could be sceptical of the Russians ability to launch approximately 1700 missle and have them hit all their targets simultaneously. Caldicott's scenerio could be valid. These are my opinion of the Maas letters in volume 0 issue 149. I would like to here other people's opinions of the extrapolation theory. Excuse the typos please. Thanks. R. J. Breitling ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jul 1982 11:15:31-EDT From: csin!cjh at CCA-UNIX Subject: [[nuclear destruction] rebuttal] rebuttal I haven't the background (or the research time) to pick holes in the physics or math, although I have seen people with much stronger backgrounds than Caldicott who agree with her. However, comparing past [disasters] to the probable effects of a single nuclear bomb is a red herring of monstrous proportions. Most of the disasters cited (e.g., the black death) were gradual, giving people time to adjust; that 25% of the population was over years, if not decades. More important is that in all of the examples cited, communications and travel were so difficult that each city-area was virtually self-sufficient. This is true no longer; even if you share my contempt for many of the financial manipulations practiced in New York City you can guess at the chaos that would result if it were wiped out. Today's world is acknowledged even by most chauvinists to be interdependent on an intra-national scale; the EEC is perhaps the first trembling step toward acknowledging and supporting inter-national interdependency. ------------------------------ End of Arms-D Digest ********************