Now it's START That's Stopping

By George Russell

The Soviets ease away from another set of arms negotiations

There was a strong hint of deja vu in the wintry air of Geneva last week as U.S. negotiators at the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) filed into the headquarters of their Soviet opposite numbers, across the Avenue de la Paix from the Palais des Nations. Inside the Villa Rose, Chief Soviet Negotiator Victor Karpov greeted the Americans with a brief statement. "Changes in the global strategy situation" said Karpov, had made it necessary for his country to "review all the problems under discussion" at the negotiations. The Soviet Union, he concluded, was "unable to set a date" for a resumption of the 18-month-old discussions over a scaling down of the superpowers' intercontinental nuclear arsenals.

Two weeks after leaving the Geneva talks on Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF), the Soviets had decided in effect to stage a new walkout. The reason remained the same: to bring pressure on the U.S. and its NATO allies to reverse the deployment of new cruise and Pershing II missiles in Western Europe. This time, however, Moscow's methods differed. Rather than breaking START off completely, the Soviets had placed the talks in a more easily reversible state of indefinite suspension. Nor was the stoppage accompanied by polemical gestures from Yuri Andropov as happened after the INF breakdown, when statements were issued in the Soviet leader's name threatening military countermeasures to Western deployment.

The Reagan Administration's response to the START impasse was similar to the one given at the end of the INF talks: an expression of regret and an avowal that the U.S. was willing to continue negotiating. President Reagan stressed the positive by noting that the Soviet maneuver had come at the scheduled end of a normal two-month round of talks. Said Reagan: "This was a regular adjournment . . . I think this is more encouraging than a walkout and simply saying they won't be back." In Geneva, U.S. START Negotiator

Edward L. Rowny noted that the U.S. had proposed another round of talks, the sixth since June 1982, for early February, and hoped that the Soviet Union would "soon agree" to a resumption.

The Soviets had telegraphed their maneuver days in advance. At an unusual Moscow press conference, Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, Chief of Staff of the Soviet armed forces, used colored charts and a pointer to illustrate how, in the Soviet view, U.S. proposals at START were moving "in the same direction"--toward breakdown--as the foundered INF negotiations. Ogarkov reiterated the principal Soviet START proposal: a ceiling for both sides of 1,800 "strategic launchers," consisting of intercontinental ballistic missile silos, submarine-launched missile tubes and intercontinental bombers.

That proposal is based on the assumption of no increase in the number of U.S. "forward-based strategic weapons systems," a reference that Moscow interprets as including the 108 Pershing Us that are beginning to be deployed in Western Europe. The Soviet START proposal also includes a ban on long-range ground-launched cruise missiles, 464 of which will make up the other prong of the NATO deployment. The U.S. objection to the Soviet offer is that it precludes the deployment of any new NATO missiles in Europe. Also, the Reagan Administration is seeking in START drastic reductions in land-based strategic missiles, a category of weapons in which the Soviets have an advantage and in which there would be only modest reductions under their proposal.

With support from First Deputy Foreign Minister Georgi Korniyenko and Leonid Zamyatin, chief of the Central Committee's international information department, Ogarkov outlined Soviet objections to the NATO missiles. Once again he stated a Soviet willingness to barter away about 100 of the Soviet Union's 243 triple-warhead SS-20 missiles targeted on Western Europe, provided the West cancels the cruise and Pershing II systems entirely. NATO's rejection of that idea is based on a refusal to accept imbalance in favor of Soviet weaponry, and also on the principle that Moscow should not decide whether the alliance can install new weapons. According to Ogarkov, the NATO deployment means that the U.S. "would still like to launch a decapitating first nuclear strike" against the Soviet Union. Many of the 500 journalists at the press conference found Ogarkov's INF/START dissertation a blur, but then again, so did he. At one point the marshal stopped to ask Zamyatin, "What was I saying? I've confused myself."

Ogarkov's demands were clear enough to NATO's defense and foreign ministers, however, and they rejected them outright. Following their regular winter meetings held in Brussels after Ogarkov's performance, the defense ministers affirmed their intent to proceed with the cruise and Pershing II deployment while continuing to be available for INF negotiations. At a follow-up press conference, NATO Secretary-General Joseph Luns dismissed the idea of an eventual merger of the INF and START talks. But the NATO powers did call on the Soviets to enter into a "comprehensive political dialogue" leading to a future relationship based on "moderation."

Amid all the high-level maneuvering, the Soviets opened another, more personal front in the missile battle last week: an American-style write-in campaign. In one of its issues, the Communist Party youth organization daily, Komsomolskaya Pravda, printed a clip-out coupon in English for readers, preaddressed to President Reagan at the White House. The coupon demanded that Reagan "not turn your people into hostages of the Washington politicians, and bring the planet to the very brink of destruction." Other editions of the newspaper contained similar messages for British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Italian President Sandro Pertini.

While the latest twists and turns in Soviet missile bargaining strategy were being pondered, some Muscovites were more interested in a drama that was being played out along Kalinin Prospect, the broad boulevard that leads to the Kremlin. There, Western diplomats last week were atwitter over the reappearance of a morning-and-evening official convoy that has not been seen for nearly four months: two black ZIL limousines, the sort reserved for the Soviet elite, protected front and rear by Volga security sedans. Atop one of the ZILs were red and blue lights, apparently an indication that Andropov was inside. He has not been seen in public since Aug. 18, a protracted absence that has been unconvincingly explained as the result of a "severe cold" and has led to widespread speculation about who is really running things in the Kremlin.

Diplomats who have been watching the convoy believe that Andropov now spends mornings at his Kremlin desk, then relaxes for part of each afternoon. At about 5:30 p.m., the motorcade dashes back down Kalinin Prospect, possibly taking Andropov to his dacha on the outskirts of Moscow. Zamyatin sought to reinforce such speculation when he mentioned, during the Moscow press conference, that Andropov "concerns himself in full with party and state affairs."

Thus the stage seems set for Andropov's re-emergence in the near future. One possibility is that the Soviet leader could appear at meetings prior to the scheduled Dec. 28 convening of the Supreme Soviet, or parliament, which he chairs. But even if Andropov returns from limbo any time soon, the future course of arms control remains uncertain. --By George Russell. Reported by John Moody/Moscow and Bruce van Voorst/Brussels

With reporting by John Moody/Moscow, Bruce van Voorst/Brussels This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.