Radar Violation

In his column (“U.S. Illusions Shattered in Snows of Krasnoyarsk,” Op-Ed Page, Oct. 30), Frank Gaffney has stooped to outright falsification of the views of those with whom he differs. He labels the Arms Control Assn. (ACA), its chairman, Ambassador Gerard Smith, and three of its board members, Ambassador Paul Warnke, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and former National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, as “discredited apologists” for the Soviet Union and suggests that they have denied that the Krasnoyarsk radar is a violation of the ABM treaty. This is a total misrepresentation of their position.

In fact, in 1984, ACA Chairman Smith, in an article he co-authored with Bundy, McNamara and Ambassador George Kennan in Foreign Affairs, called the Krasnoyarsk radar “a violation of the express language of the treaty” even before the Reagan Administration published this accusation in its February, 1985, compliance report. This has been the consistent and oft-repeated position of Smith, Bundy, and McNamara, as well as that of Ambassador Warnke, myself and other ACA board members. It was also the explicit conclusion of ACA’s 1987 analysis of Soviet compliance activities and of our mid-1989 book, “Arms Control and National Security.”

Gaffney does not enhance the credibility of his arguments by such irresponsible attacks on those who would protect the ABM treaty and support a new strategic arms agreement.

SPURGEN M. KEENY JR.

President and Executive Director

Arms Control Assn.

Washington, D.C.