THE UNITED STATES Senate yesterday took the final steps toward approving the MX Misaile by voting to fund the program. Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed the same bill. President Reagon and the United States Congress have compromised American security and increased the probability of nuclear war by proposing and approving an expensive, ever complex, vulnerable weapon while overlooking an extant, cheap, simple and potent one.

The backbone of U.S. strategic defense is our land based missile system. Ideally, a complement to our nuclear capabilities in sea and air, such a system should be defensive in nature, accurate and powerful enough to assure destruction of Soviet targets, impossible to defend against once launched, invulnerable to a soviet first strike and low cost. Our present system of land based Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) has long been recognized as grossly inadequate. Ironically, this system of land based Minutemen will be superseded by an even more deficient nuclear weapon system, the Missile Experimental, MX.

With the typical kneejerk reaction characteristic of American defence policy, the past and present Administrations have supported the 10 warhead 70 It, leviathan MX because the Soviets have weapons even larger. Instead of thinking beyond the Soviets clumsy and weak nuclear doctrine, our leaders copied it and at huge expense. Bigger is not better and more destructive weapons no longer alter the "balance of terror"; they only make the "rubble bounce."

Originally, the idea was to find an invulnerable busing mode for the MX. An impossibility, now the Administration aims to put them in the very spots which were deemed too unsafe in the first place. Sitting ducks, these new missiles will rest in antiquated immobile silos making a potential first strike advantageous, thereby reducing the possibility of retaliation. This inherently dangerous and destabilizing system promotes a "hair trigger" mentality. Each side lives ready and poised at the button hoping to gain the upper hand by striking first. During House debate last week, Rep. Joseph P. Addabb pointed out regarding the MX. "If a missile is vulnerable you're not going to leave it to be struck down. You're going to use it as a first strike weapon." Even the chief of the Soviet general stall has expressed concern over the vulnerability of his land based missiles. Both countries will be relying on too few overly sophisticated, stationary weapons.

LATELY, the single warhead Midgetman has come to the fore of strategic thought as a panacea in the land based missile dilemma. Small and mobile, it could not be struck and disarmed in one blow, however, its cost would be great and it could not be deployed until until the year 2000. Using the Midgetman philosophy, but applying it now, why not scrap all land based ICBMs and develop a system of only small potent cruise missiles?

After a checkered past, the cruise missile's time has come. A descendant of Germany's V-I buzz bomb, the cruise proved ineffective when first tested by the U.S. in the 1950s. One study reported. "The average miss distance was over 1000 miles. At least one came down in the wrong hemisphere, disappearing somewhere in the interior of Brazil." In fact, the professional military never wanted it, but as technology improved through the 60s, civilian leaders saw its value. Still today it would seem that nuclear doctrine has lagged behind the ramifications of the cruise missile just as our armies in WWI and II at find lagged in recognizing the importances of fighter plane and armored tank technologies.

The cruise missile is a comparatively uncomplicated 18-foot long computer piloted low-flying airplane. It adjusts to the terrain, "hiding" behind hills and the curvature of the earth by using "Steulth" technologies which the Soviets do not have. With a range of almost 2000 miles, it may be launched from airplanes, trucks, ships and subs. Easily conceded and mobile, the cruise would be almost invulnerable to Soviet attack, thus maintaining deference no matter what the scenario. A flexible weapon, it is equally effective on hard (silo) or soft (city) targets and useful in either strategic or tactical war. Accurate up to a few feet, the cruise zig zags to avoid defenses and subsequently can penetrate USSR airspace as successfully as ICBM.

Perhaps the most important attribute of the cruise missile which few consider may be its virtual invulnerability to Anti Ballistic Missiles (ABMs) and laser defense weapons. Because cruise missiles stay low and inside the atmosphere. ABMs are worthless, for they can only target ICBMs. Moreover, laser beams dissipate too easily while tracking cruise missiles inside the atmosphere.

Should a nuclear crisis over occur, the object would be to restore deterrence as quickly as possible before escalation. In the event of an attack on the U.S., rapid response ICBMs (Minuteman, MX. Midgetman) force the Soviets into a "use or lose" situation. Instead of forcing the Politburo into a 30-minute decision, the best method of retaliation might come from the very slow cruise missile which takes 4-12 hours to strike. In the meantime, communication and hopefully negotiation for restoring order could get underway. "We have sustained your attack and we have retaliated in the hope that you will sustain it. Before our weapons strike, we want to negotiate and not continue fighting."

Those cruise missiles which are neither air nor sub launched would have to be stationed in places not exceeding 2000 miles from their target. This puts the U.S. in a peculiar position of leaving the burden of responsibility for deployment to the allies. (In fact, continental America would have no "land based" nuclear forces whatsoever.) Yet almost all the allies already have U.S. or their own nuclear forces. If NATO adopted a cruise missile defense policy, not only would the destabilizing situation be eradicated in the U.S., but in Europe as well.

The Achilles Heel most often cited regarding a land based cruise missile program comes in the verification of numbers deployed; it's impossible. But then either country could have and hide as many as it wished anyway--so the point is moot. While the land based missiles cannot be verified, delivery vehicles in other parts of the triad (planes, subs and ships) can be. Decreasing the risk of war justifies a safe weapon buildup. Harvard Living With Nuclear Weapons authors wrote. "We conclude that the contributions of air launched cruise missiles to deterrence and crisis stability outweigh the potential costs to negotiated arms control."

The U.S. should close the window of vulnerability now and in the foreseeable future by recognizing its own innovative technologies and revamping its land based strategic force accordingly. ICBMs should stop being considered sacred, for they deter-deterrence and are therefore dangerous. The cruise missile offers an inexpensive, versatile, powerful and stable strategy that we can live with.