45 New Soviet ICBMs Now Deployed, Weinberger Says

Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, arguing that the United States cannot afford to reduce Pentagon spending, disclosed Thursday that the Soviet Union has dramatically increased the deployment of its newest intercontinental ballistic missile.

“The Soviets now have 45 operational SS-25s deployed, a number which represents a very continual growth in this threat,” he said. “And these numbers are, if anything, quite conservative, since we expect additional deployments in the very near future.”

Only last month, Weinberger said the Soviets had deployed 27 of the mobile, strategic SS-25 ICBMs--40% fewer than the figure he cited Thursday.

The defense secretary raised the issue of new deployments in a speech that reviewed the relationship of U.S. and Soviet forces and the potential impact that military budget cuts, brought about by new deficit-reduction legislation, are likely to have on national security and arms control talks.

‘Budget Speaks Volumes’

“The struggle over the budget is a serious problem, because that budget speaks volumes to the world about what kind of a people we are, what kind of a nation we will be, how strongly we will stand as protectors of freedom and whether we will be able to negotiate successfully with the Soviet Union,” he declared.

Addressing a luncheon organized by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Weinberger described the deployment of the new weapon as “a clear violation of SALT II and a very potent threat to deterrence.”

Administration officials have said that the secretary has recommended three specific violations of the second strategic arms limitation treaty in response to apparent Soviet breaches of the agreement.

The 1979 agreement, to which both nations have said they would adhere although it has not been ratified by the Senate, limits each to one new long-range missile. In addition to developing the single-warhead SS-25, the Soviets are working on deployment of a 10-warhead missile, the SS-24. They maintain that it is simply an updated version of a previously deployed missile.

After presiding over a trillion-dollar buildup in the nation’s defenses, Weinberger is faced with congressional orders to find in the Pentagon budget half of the $17-billion 1986 spending cut required by the deficit-reduction legislation sponsored by Sens. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) and Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.).

In addition, the so-called Gramm-Rudman plan is figuring in the fiscal 1987 budget that President Reagan will send to Congress in early February.

Agreed Upon Earlier

The Pentagon share of the budget request originally had been expected to be $314.7 billion, an increase of about 3% over current spending--before the Gramm-Rudman cuts.

Such an increase was agreed upon in early budget maneuvering last year. However, a Pentagon official said earlier this week that the President would end up seeking slightly less than that, although more than $310 billion.

The Pentagon official, who asked not be identified, said that in trying to reach the reduction targets, Weinberger is likely to protect strategic weapons programs--the heart of the buildup over the last five years. This, he said, suggested that funds devoted to operations and maintenance, procurement and, to some extent, research and development “will take the brunt” of the cuts.

In his speech to a group of officials, military and arms control analysts and journalists, Weinberger maintained that “our strategic modernization program . . . is a necessary condition for any effective arms reduction agreements. Only by sustaining our defense program can we maintain the incentives to ensure that the Soviets agree and then comply with what they have agreed.”

Criticism From Aides

Weinberger praised the overall defense efforts of the European allies, even though some of his aides have spoken bitterly of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s failure to support current U.S. efforts to isolate Libya economically in the wake of the terrorist attacks apparently sponsored by Libya Dec. 27 at the Rome and Vienna airports.

“The solidarity of our European allies in their own commitment to Western defense is confirmed nearly every day,” he said, “from their participation in the modernization of intermediate-range nuclear forces to recent support for the Strategic Defense Initiative,” Reagan’s space-based missile defense program.