Soviets Reduce Silo Missiles in Arms Shuffle

The Soviet Union has reduced the number of missiles in underground silos in order to deploy the world’s first mobile intercontinental missile to be based on railroad cars, a Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman said today.

Gennady Gerasimov told a news conference that the cutback in missiles previously based underground and in other basing modes allows the Soviet Union to remain within the warhead and launcher limits of the 1979 SALT II arms limitation treaty.

Despite remarks by Soviet officials that the railway-based missile, the SS-24, is in the process of being deployed, Pentagon officials say they do not believe it is operational.

Viktor Karpov, the head of the Soviet arms control and disarmament department, told a Moscow news conference Tuesday that the deployment of the SS-24 missiles guarantees that some of the Soviet missile forces would survive a U.S. first strike.

Pact Allows 820 MIRVs

Gerasimov elaborated today on Karpov’s remarks.

“The Soviet side stresses that simultaneously with the deployment of launchers of mobile missiles, the U.S.S.R. has substantially reduced the number of launchers of MIRVed (multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle) intercontinental ballistic missiles of another type of basing,” Gerasimov said.

Gerasimov did not specify how many missiles are involved.