Local Experts Disagree On Nuclear Strategy Shift

Local experts on nuclear strategy yesterday disagreed over the significance and wisdom of Presidential Directive 59. President Carter's official pronouncement giving priority to attacking military targets in the Soviet Union rather than cities and industrial complexes.

Samuel P. Huntington, Thomson professor of Government and director of the Center for International Affairs (CFIA) said yesterday the recent directive marks the "culmination" of ten years of research and evolution, adding that the shift in official strategy allows for a "measured, moderate response."

Huntington, who has served as security coordinator for the National Security Council during the Carter administration, said the revised policy would increase capability to hit large military targets.

"We have not had a proper capability for a limited response. The directive will permit us to substantially increase intelligence satellites and command and controls." Huntington said, adding that the decision was the outcome of a detailed three-year study and did not represent a political reelection ploy.

But George B. Kistiakowsky, Lawrence Professor of Chemistry Emeritus and an expert on nuclear weapons, yesterday called the shift in policy "stupid and juvenile," saying, "the whole business of emphasizing counterforce weapons is an extremely dangerous move that accelerates the possibility of nuclear war."

Because the policy will cause "frightful instability in case of a general political crisis," Kistiakowsky said, it will create an atmosphere where leaders might "jump the gun."

Kistiakowsky said Secretary of Defense Harold Brown is a "very weak individual, unable to resist pressure from his surroundings," and accused Carter of "licking the ass of the right wing" in an effort to "play election politics."

Rhetoric

Derek Leebaert, a research fellow at the CFIA and manging editor of "In- ternational Security," said the new directive signified a change in rhetoric rather than substance.

"All along, there's been a disjunction between actual planning and what responsible officials have been saying," Leebaert said, adding, "The announcement was timed to coincide with the Republicans' emphasis on superiority."

Huntington also acknowledged that planning had moved toward capability of destroying military targets, even during the '60s when the language of "Mutual Assured Destruction" predominated. But he said the significance of the revised policy lay in its recognition that it is possible to have a response that is "not all or nothing."

Huntington revealed that the question of military targeting had received extensive discussion since the early days of the Carter administration, despite the president's reported skepticism about the possibility of waging "limited nuclear war."

Kistiakowsky advocated allowing the Soviets to build counterforce weapons "so long as they cannot destroy the U.S. retaliatory capability.