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From: js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: poll  (nuclear disarmament verifiability)
Message-ID: <609@mhuxt.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 18-Feb-85 14:31:35 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxt.609
Posted: Mon Feb 18 14:31:35 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 19-Feb-85 08:32:17 EST
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
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> 
>  >From: hu@sdcsvax.UUCP (T. C. Hu)
>  >... the Soviet leaders will get desperate,
>  >(surprise) unveil a handful of ICBMs (hiding things like that is much
>  >easier in a totalitarian state without a free press to go sniveling
> 
> No arms control treaty has ever been negotiated that is not verifiable.
> Period.   The free press is not considered one of the national technical
> means used to verify arms control treaties.  Satellites and listening
> devices turn out to be much more effective.

     You're going to 'listen' for hidden nuclear missiles?  Suprise!  They
actually *don't* make ticking noises.  Get serious!  How could a thing like
that be verified without extensive searching (over the whole world) by both
sides, continuously?  Test-ban treaties are easy to verify, of course, but
that's not what we're talking about here.
> 
> The idea that the Soviets could "hide" something like "a handful of ICBM's"
> is absurd.  It is the rough equivalent of thinking you could walk through
> one of those airport metal detectors with a 20/20 shotgun nestled under
> your coat.  

      Maybe you could explain that analogy for me.  Or have you developed
a nuclear missile detector which we can pass Russia through periodically?
Seriously, almost *everyone* would be for disarmament if we thought it could
be mutual and verifiable.  I wouldn't trust my *own* government to actually
disarm, though, much less the USSR's.
> Mike Kelly
-- 
Jeff Sonntag
ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j
      "Once more, into the breech!"  -the human cannonball