Retaliation for Soviet SALT II Breaches Urged : But Reagan Is Expected to Follow Treaty Despite Weinberger’s Proposals

Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, as expected, has recommended to President Reagan that the United States take three actions that would violate the unratified second strategic arms limitation treaty in retaliation for apparent arms control breaches by the Soviet Union, Administration officials confirmed Wednesday.

But the officials predicted that, despite Weinberger’s recommendations, Reagan will continue to adhere to the language of SALT II--at least until after the next U.S.-Soviet summit, expected later this year. An interagency group currently is considering the proposals.

Weinberger’s recommendations are contained in a Pentagon study conducted after an analysis last November of apparent Soviet arms control violations.

Weinberger Proposals

Officials confirmed that the proposals include:

--Placing two ballistic missile-carrying submarines in drydock, rather than dismantling them, to permit a new, larger missile submarine to go into service. A similar recommendation last summer was rejected by Reagan.

--Replacing some single-warhead Minuteman 2 missiles with triple-warhead Minuteman 3 missiles.

--Encoding telemetry information from the test flights of new missiles. If such encoding were instituted, the data sent back during the tests--which provides indications of the missiles’ performance, including thrust, number of warheads, quality of fuel and other factors--would be disguised so it could not be understood if intercepted by the Soviets.

The failure to dismantle the two Poseidon subs, each with 16 missiles, when the next Trident sub goes to sea carrying 24 missiles would break the ceiling of 1,200 multiple-warhead missiles allowed under SALT II. The change to Minuteman 3 missiles would further exceed the pact’s limit.

The telemetry encryption, meanwhile, would be a response to what officials said was the Soviets’ encoding of up to 95% of the data radioed back from their missile tests. The SALT II agreement forbids encoding that interferes with monitoring of the pact.

Chemical Weapon Research

In addition, Weinberger urged increased research on chemical and biological warfare in response to alleged Soviet stockpiling of biological agents and use of nerve gas in Afghanistan.

Last summer, Reagan said the United States would decide in the future on a “case-by-case basis” whether to continue adhering to SALT II, signed in 1979 but never ratified by the Senate. Reagan called the agreement “fatally flawed” in his 1980 election campaign, but once in office, he agreed to abide by its provisions as long as Moscow did.

An early draft of Weinberger’s recommendations called for 30 actions that would constitute “proportionate responses” by the United States to Soviet treaty violations, officials said. This was reduced to the four proposals actually passed on by the defense secretary, all of which were described by one source as “relatively cheap” moves that reflect budget constraints posed by passage of the Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction measure.

One draft proposal urged increased funding for decoy warheads to counter Soviet anti-missile defenses, while another would have upgraded some of the Minuteman 3 warheads to double their explosive yield. At present, only 300 of the 550 Minuteman 3 missiles carry the more powerful, 330-kiloton warheads, while the remaining 250 carry older warheads that each have 170 kilotons of explosive power.

Join Chiefs Objected

The Joint Chiefs of Staff reportedly objected strongly to Weinberger’s initial draft which, the military leaders believe, suggested that they had been delinquent in responding to the Soviet threat. To what extent the draft was scaled down, however, was not known.

In forwarding the first part of his analysis Nov. 13, Weinberger said that the Joint Chiefs “generally feel” that the Administration’s military buildup and modernization program would be adequate to meet the Soviet challenge, if fully funded by Congress. He noted, however, that Congress had authorized “many cuts” in that program.

In particular, according to sources, the Joint Chiefs have opposed encryption as a poor use of funds, arguing that the Soviets get most of the information they need on U.S. missile tests from the American technical press.

But officials said there appears to be growing sympathy at the White House for encoding test data on the grounds that the Soviets have needed to confirm through telemetry any information on U.S. missiles that might appear in the media.

‘Insignificant’ Response

One critic argued broadly that any U.S. retaliatory action against the purported Soviet violations would be “ambiguous and militarily insignificant.”

“Why take costly and inappropriate actions in response which will provoke or present the Soviets with the opportunity to make counteractions that would be militarily significant?” Jack Mendelsohn, deputy director of the Arms Control Assn., asked.

A breach of the numerical ceilings on multiple-warhead missiles by the United States might give the Soviets an excuse to do likewise, Mendelsohn warned, noting that Moscow has the capacity to increase its multiple-warhead arsenal far faster than does the United States.