Experts Praise Defense Budget For Stress On Communications

Local defense experts interviewed yesterday criticized communications as the weakest part of the nation's strategic defense forces and praised the Reagan administration's plan to make an $18-billion communications package the top priority of the new defense budget.

A recently released report by the Congressional Budget Office stated that improved communications would make protracted nuclear war more feasible and would lessen the likelihood of an accidental nuclear conflict.

The experts interviewed yesterday agreed with the report's findings, stressing what they called the nation's current inability to survive protracted nuclear war.

Steven Miller, assistant director of the Kennedy School of Government's Center for Science and International Affairs and editor of International Security, said one pressing problem in nuclear defense communications is keeping military communications, command, and control (referred to as "c-cubed" by experts) safe from attack.

Miller suggested using laser instead of radio communication, placing communications satellites above the range of Soviet anti-satellite missiles, and boosting replacement satellites in space by mounting them, instead of warheads, on MX-missiles.

Insisting that the U.S.S.R. has the power to destroy Washington and the Pentagon, William Kaufman, professor of political science at MIT said that the most serious "c-cubed" problem facing the country is keeping the president safe and the decision-making process operational.

And Abram Bergson, Baker Professor of Economics, said "weakness in this area [communications] can encourage a first strike."

W. Scott Thompson, a professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, said that the $18 billion allocated for communications in the Reagan administration's defense budget proposal was insufficient but "a step in the right direction."

He criticized the government's lack of attention to communications, saying, "Black and white vulnerability has been ignored by civilian authorities for the past three or four years."

Stressing the need for improvements in communication, Thompson added, "If we're going to have nuclear weapons, let's have them so we can use them."