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We could match the Soviets for gross size, if we decided to do so. But we developed solid propellants for our missiles in part to enable us to shrink missile size and weight, making our missiles less susceptible to tracking and interception. Moscow uses, in its SS-9, a storable liquid fuel that leads to huge size and huge explosive yields. It is this fear some first-strike capability, in fact, on which you base your rationale for U.S. deployment of the Safeguard anti-ballistic missile system; it is meant to protect our deterrent second-strike capability. I am among those who favor an ABM defense around our missile sites as a shield against the SS-9. But I also believe that your comparison of the Soviet S59 and the U.S. Minuteman is misleading; they are different weapons systems designed for different purposes, and this should be made clear in the interests of credibility.
Secondly, and along the same lines, you said that the Soviet SS-9s "are going in at the rate of at least 50 a year," and you added that the smaller SS-11s "are going in at the rate of about 100 a year." Those were the same figures you used in February before the House Appropriations Committee. You no doubt chose the words "at the rate of" with precision, but you gave the impression last week that there would be at least 50 more SS-9s and 100 more SS-11s deployed by the Soviets this year. Yet your colleagues in the Government say, on the best satellite intelligence information available to them, that from November 1969 through June 1970 there were no additional SS-9s deployed and only a few SS-11s installed. Just three weeks ago new intelligence became available indicating that work had been resumed at three SS-areas. Since it is Soviet practice to install six SS-9s at each area, it was believed that silos were being dug and sites prepared for 18 additional SS-9s. That is certainly something to worry about. But on the basis of this information, is it entirely accurate to say SS-9s are "going in at the rate of about 50 a year"? You undoubtedly did not mean to convey an impression that 50 more SS-9s would be deployed this year. Preciseness in language here, too, might help alleviate any credibility problem that the Pentagon may have.
Finally, in making a commendable case for a greater U.S. military research and development effort, you express the fear that the Soviet effort in this field could overtake the present U.S. lead by the mid-'70s. You say we might find our selves producing "inferior weapons" and "might not ever catch up." You might well have pointed out that in precisely this period the U.S. will be well along the way to completion of its Poseidon sub marine program, involving missiles with independently targeted warheads for a total of at least 4,960 warheads. And by the mid-'70s we will be well along the way toward completion of our 500-missile, 1,500-warhead Minuteman III pro gram that I mentioned above.