ABM Critics Defend Senate Presentation

Three scientists--including Jerome B. Weisner, president of MIT--have issued a 26-page statement challenging a report which labeled their testimony before Congress during the 1969 antiballistic missile (ABM) debate "inappropriate, misleading, or factually in error."

The three scientists led the attack two years ago against deployment of the ABM system.

In their statement, released Friday night, the three scientists--George W. Rathjens, visiting professor of Political Science at MIT, Steven Weinberg, professor of Physics at MIT, and Weisner--called the report by the Operations Research Society of America (ORSA) "the most outrageous performance by an American professional society both in terms of scope and analysis of which we are aware."

ORSA, founded in 1952, has about 8000 members employed by universities, private companies, and the government. Their work involves observation, analysis, and predictions about the workability of highly complex systems.

The scientists had four major objections to the ORSA report. First, they claimed that the ABM debate was not merely a technical debate between experts but rather a political debate between the Nixon Administration and ABM opponents in the Senate. Thus, they said, the ORSA report, which was concerned mainly with examining the truth of expert testimony before Congress, was misdirected.

Second, the scientists said that it was unfair to criticize their testimony since many calculations of ABM opponents were based on technical information released by the Administration. According to the scientists, much of this information was "incorrect or incomplete."

Third, the scientists questioned the right of ORSA to police the performance of nonmembers and expressed doubts about whether ORSA had the resources to carry out a thorough inquiry.

Finally, the scientists said that one member of ORSA who had helped write the report should have disqualified himself from the study of the debate. Howard M. Berger formerly worked for Rathjens at the Institute for Defense Analysis and subsequently quit. Rathjens said Friday that Berger should have disqualified himself as a matter of professional ethics.

ORSA's report had criticized the anti ABM scientists for dismissing the possibility of a simultaneous Soviet attack on American bombers and land-based missiles. In their statement, the scientists asserted that if the Soviets attacked American missiles, the U.S. would have "adequate warning to launch the bulk of the bomber force."

The scientists also pointed out that Air Force spokesmen regarded such a simultaneous attack as "unfeasible."

ORSA had accused Rathjens of overestimating the ability of Minuteman silos to withstand attack. The scientists replied that the Defense Department, in its first estimates, had agreed with Rathjens's analysis of Minuteman survivability.

Altered Data?

Finally, ORSA had claimed that Weisner had incorrectly charged the Defense Department's top scientist, John Foster, of having altered data in order to gain support for the ABM system. In testifying before the Senate, Weisner had said that Foster at one point estimated the number of Soviet SS-9 missiles at 500 and later changed this estimate to 600. According to ORSA, this charge was unfair because Foster was talking about estimates for different years.

In their statement, the scientists replied that the Defense Department scientists have employed 1975 estimates of Soviet missile capacity in order to gain support for the ABM