WASHINGTON -- In an obvious answer to Ronald Reagan, Defense Secretary Harold Brown said Monday failure to ratify the SALT II treaty would be a 'major tragedy' which could cost the United States $100 billion to match a massive Moscow arms build-up.
President Carter also assailed Reagan's Sunday statement he would by-pass the unratified SALT II and open negotiations with the Soviets on a SALT III treaty for a 'balanced and equitable' reduction in nuclear arms.
Carter said in Washington Reagan's plan 'would be a devastating and perhaps fatal blow to the long-term process of nuclear arms control ... It is extraordinarily naive to expect that the Soviet Union would meekly accept what we would immediately and totally reject.'
Secretary of State Edmund Muskie pursued the more generalized administration criticism that Reagan seeks to use U.S. power recklessly.
'I cannot warn strongly enough against one-dimensional approaches to this (the Persian Gulf crisis) or any other area of international tension,' said Muskie in a speech prepared for delivery to a group of Chicago organizations.
Speaking to the Overseas Writers Club, Brown said the chances of the Senate ratifying SALT II 'are good' but warned ratification should occur before spring 1981 or the pact would unravel.
Brown refused to name Reagan directly on grounds he did not want to 'personalize' or 'politicize' his remarks.
'I don't want to politicize it beyond what the context of the times makes inevitable,' he said.
Aides said Brown feels the United States is at a turning point and he intends to use all his influence to prevent a breakdown in the SALT dialogue.
'Neither tough talk and easy promises for the future, nor the nostalgic dreams of the past, can substitute for hard-fought, tangible and significant progress now,' Brown said.
'Merely asserting a commitment to the ideal of arms control does not control nuclear arms _ nor does merely promising progress in the future. What does control nuclear arms is negotiating and ratifying balanced, effective, and verifiable arms control agreements that consolidate progress at each stage in the process.
'The SALT II treaty is such an agreement. And repudiating SALT II is not the road to a so-called 'SALT III' or to any arms control agreement.'
He added: 'It would be a major tragedy to fail to ratify SALT II.'
Referring to intelligence community studies, Brown predicted that without SALT the Soviets would acquire 3,500 strategic weapons systems by 1990 and 14,000-17,000 nuclear warheads. He decline to give further details.
SALT would limit both superpowers to 2,250 strategic missile launchers and bombers with a total of about 8,600 warheads.
'To ensure strategic equivalence without the SALT II limitations would almost certainly require a major further expansion of our strategic forces,' Brown warned.
'It would well cost us, between now and 1985, roughly $10-$30 billion in constant, that is 1981 dollars, above what we plan to spend under SALT.
'To match the bigger Soviet force without SALT it could cost us, over the next decade, an additional $30 to $100 billion 1981 dollars.'
