Nuclear Expert Believes Arms Pact Right : UCSD’s York Says That Star Wars Isn’t Important Factor in Accord

One of America’s foremost strategists of the nuclear age calls the planned signing today of the arms control treaty to eliminate medium-range missiles an important political step signaling the willingness of both the United States and the Soviet Union to move away from mutual nuclear suicide.

Herbert York of UC San Diego said in an interview that further steps toward substantial cuts in strategic weaponry should not be predicated on a halt to research on the strategic defense initiative, also known as Star Wars.

York believes that the odds of Star Wars research coming up with an economically sound defense for American cities are so remote that continued laboratory work would not jeopardize the military balance between the two countries as long as it falls within provisions of the 15-year-old anti-ballistic missile treaty.

“It comes down to the question of technical and economic feasibility,” said York, and whether the cost to the Soviets of overcoming the defense is more than the cost to this country of deploying it.

“If such a system works, everyone would want it and everyone would do it,” York said. “But the fact is that none of the systems today satisfies (the cost-benefit) question and it appears to me that the point at which it could conceivably defend cities is realistically so far in the future that (current research by both sides) is of no (strategic) harm.”

For that reason, York believes that the rhetoric concerning Star Wars has been overstated by both proponents and opponents.

York’s professional career began more than 40 years ago as part of the World War II Manhattan Project, which developed the first nuclear bombs. York served as director of defense research and engineering in the Eisenhower Administration and later served as chief negotiator at U.S.-Soviet talks on a comprehensive test ban treaty under President Carter. He is director of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at UCSD and serves as a consultant to the Defense Department.

York has written a recently published book about his experiences titled “Making Weapons, Talking Peace.”

3rd Attempt at Shield

In York’s view, the lure of a comprehensive defense against nuclear weapons is so desirable that the idea will never die. In fact, the current Star Wars hope of President Reagan is the third major attempt by American strategists for a defense shield since the nuclear age began in 1945.

“The desire for it is fundamental and there are always people optimistic, so therefore periodically the idea breaks out politically,” he said. “In so many ways (both for Soviets and Americans) the same issues are replayed and with so few people remembering the past . . . it can be especially discouraging to see this in the arms control area.”

York noted that the United States during the 1950s actually spent more money than it has on Star Wars, using 1985 dollars, in trying to construct a nationwide defense system against a Soviet nuclear bomber attack. After the Soviets detonated their first hydrogen bomb and after the Korean War, the United States undertook a major effort that incorporated two types of anti-aircraft ground missiles, land- and ship-based early-warning radars, and construction of blast-proof command facilities.

“By 1960, we were backing away from it, in large part because intercontinental missiles had led defense experts to conclude that a bomber defense was not effective against missiles, in particular to defend the country as opposed to (defending actual weapons),” York said.

In the late 1960s, another, more controversial, effort for defense was undertaken with anti-ballistic missile research. Again, York said, the push was fueled by the view that, somehow, computer technology should be equal to the task of allowing defenders to shoot down an “itty-bitty” target 5,000 miles away.

But a lack of political support for the program, coupled with a lack of confidence among military planners that the system would be cost-effective in forcing Soviet countermeasures, led to negotiations culminating with the ABM treaty.

“Our own people did not have enough confidence that such a system would throw enough uncertainty into Russian thinking to make it more difficult for the Soviets to threaten us,” he said.

Now, with the imminent signing of the treaty on medium-range missiles, called the INF treaty, York does not want to see Star Wars get in the way of further progress.

“INF is important because it is in the right direction of moving away from our extreme dependence on nuclear weapons,” York said. “Just imagine what would happen if it were not to be approved: no more arms control for the rest of the century.”

York added, “The verification aspect of the treaty is good because it parallels and reinforces a desire for openness” on the part of the Soviets.

As for increasing the conventional war threat to Western Europe from the Soviet Union by eliminating medium-range missiles from the continent, York downplays the notion that the West’s defenses are dangerously inferior. In addition, he says that the Soviet Union will always feel threatened by a unified Germany, even a unified Communist Germany should Western Europe somehow be overrun militarily.

But progress toward strategic weapons cuts of perhaps up to 50% may prove difficult because of the visceral fear of arms treaties with a communist nation among some American conservatives, York said. The rhetoric surrounding Star Wars by both proponents and opponents reflects that fear, in York’s view, in large part because both sides have tried to moralize on the issue.

‘No Accident’

“It’s no accident that the majority of the physicists reacting against Star Wars verge on hatred of Reagan and (physicist Edward) Teller,” York said. “And many American hawks want to have (some sort of) Star Wars testing precisely to undermine any chance of a (new) treaty and to undermine the existing ABM treaty.”

He added: “If Star Wars ever will work, the development will happen so slowly that the (strategic) situation will have more than enough time to adjust itself. It’s like sitting in the 1930s and trying to figure out what the strategic balance would be among nations in the 1980s.”

York said that the few tests of Star Wars components trumpeted by supporters have involved what he calls cooperative experiments.

“The target in essence says, ‘Here I am’ by being (readily identifiable) to defenders in some way,” he said. “But in a war, you face uncooperative and reactive targets.”

Even should the Soviets and Americans agree next year on cutting long-range offensive weapons by 50%, the cut would still only be one more step and not an end result, York said.

“It would begin to have some effect on nuclear strategy but there still would be a great threat left,” York said. “At perhaps a 95% cut, you then perhaps have a case where all five with nuclear weapons grow more equal. (The three other nations with nuclear weapons are the United Kingdom, France and China.)

“Then all strategy changes because, if one side cheated, an imbalance could really threaten the other side.”