MX D-Day Delay

Anyone for an Armadillo?

When the President's Commission on Strategic Forces met for the first time on Jan. 7, even Brent Scowcroft, its energetic chairman, doubted that it could achieve by its Feb. 18 deadline what the Pentagon, the Ford, Carter and Reagan Administrations and Congress had been unable to do in seven years: find a technically practical and politically acceptable home for the MX missile, the intercontinental bird that only its parent Air Force seems truly to love. Last week, in a chat with President Reagan, members of the commission won an extension of the deadline to the end of March.

The new date was sought mainly because the ten commission members have been unable to reach a consensus in such a short time. But a delay in reporting may also be a tactical advantage. At the moment, the President's defense budget is under heavy fire on Capitol Hill. If the MX became the first military spending showdown, it might fall victim to congressional budget-cutting zeal.

Commission spokesmen insist that the group is still considering "the whole range" of options, and Scowcroft readily concedes that all of them "have warts." Nonetheless, possibly in an attempt to influence the commission, some members of Congress have floated reports that the group is leaning toward a two-phase deployment plan. In the first phase, an unspecified number of the MX missiles would be placed in existing Minuteman silos after the holes are reinforced to withstand a higher level of enemy warhead blasts. The Senate last year rejected a Reagan proposal to do just that with MX on the grounds that if the Minuteman is as vulnerable to attack as the Administration contends, putting MX in the same holes would do nothing to close this "window of vulnerability."

The second phase reportedly would involve deploying thousands of smaller missiles, either in much deeper holes or on special mobile launchers. The mobile option would provide the deception that the MX lacked, either in Minuteman silos or in the rejected Dense Pack proposal to cluster 100 missiles at a single site. While a small mobile missile has long been considered by the Pentagon, no significant funds have been spent in developing it. Its deployment, experts estimate, could not begin for at least seven years.

A study by Boeing Aerospace Co. suggests the feasibility of producing a 38-ft. intercontinental ballistic missile (SICBM) that would have a range comparable to the 7,500 miles covered by the 71-ft. MX. Its single warhead would probably carry a 500-kiloton punch, in contrast to MX's ten warheads, each with a 330-kiloton, independently targeted payload. Some Pentagon experts contend that a design breakthrough will permit the small missile to be moved about on a heavily armored vehicle dubbed the Armadillo. This launcher would be anchored when firing and be stable enough to handle the missile's blast-off force, yet light enough to be transported by helicopters.

The two-stage proposal does indeed have warts of its own. In the years before the small missile was ready, U.S. land-based missile forces would remain theoretically vulnerable. Some Congressmen might be tempted to abandon the MX deployment, saving billions, and just wait for the mobile missile. Even the midget, however, would have to be deployed in such large numbers that it would violate the limits set out in SALT II (which is unratified by the U.S. but which both superpowers claim to be observing) and Reagan's own proposed limits at the Strategic Arms Reductions Talks in Geneva. Thus any such plan would severely complicate the already difficult arms-control negotiations, creating yet another possible political objection in Congress. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.