After the Vladivostok Summit, the Five set about refining the
Soviet position for the second set of Strategic Arms Limitation
Talks (SALT II), which began in Geneva in November 1972.
From the beginning of their efforts, they found themselves
confronted with a number of complex issues that not only
required expert work on their part but also necessitated major
political decisions at the highest level of the Soviet leadership.
One of the toughest problems related to differentiating between
and accounting for MIRVed and non-MIRVed land-based
intercontinental ballistic missiles.

At the time, some of the individual Soviet heavy ¹ and
so-called "light" ICBMs (the SS-19/RS-18 in particular) were
not equipped with MIRVs and carried only one warhead each.
The members of the Five did not agree with the American
position that these "non-MIRVed" missiles should be included
in the agreed levels for "MIRVed" strategic delivery vehicles,
which the Vladivostok Agreement set at 1320 for each side.
This issue became a stumbling block to success at the
negotiations and remained so for some time.

To support its position, the Soviet Side argued--rather
unconvincingly, as it soon became clear--that both sides'
national technical means (NTM) of verification were fully
capable of determining the type of warhead installed on a

-43-