Cheat Sheet

A report on arms infractions

The wait that accompanied the report was exceptionally long, even by Washington standards. The bulky document on alleged Soviet violations of international agreements was prepared by the General Advisory Committee (GAC), a panel affiliated with the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and sent to President Reagan in December 1983. But it was not until last week that the White House, under pressure from conservative Republican Senators, released a summary of its findings. The verdict: the U.S.S.R. has committed "material breaches" of half of the 26 arms agreements it has been party to.

The most serious allegation concerned the Soviet construction of a large radar facility in Siberia. Under the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, the two nations agreed that radar capable of spotting incoming enemy warheads could be situated only on the periphery of each country and "oriented outward." The Siberian radar is located 500 miles inland and pointed over the Siberian land mass. The Soviet claim that the installation is a satellite-tracking station does not satisfy U.S. arms experts. For their part, however, the Soviets could question the legality of U.S. radar facilities in Georgia and Texas.

The study also cites three violations of the SALT II treaty, which has never been ratified but which both Washington and Moscow claim to observe. Chief among these is the Soviets' testing of two new intercontinental ballistic missiles in violation of the treaty's ban on testing more than one. The Kremlin contends that one of the missiles is merely a modernization of an older weapon; the U.S., the Soviets point out, is planning two new missiles, the MX and the Midgetman.

The Arms Control Association, a Washington-based research and lobbying group, denounced the findings as "largely stale claims." Stale indeed may have been the allegation that the Soviets are sending aircraft carriers through the Turkish straits in defiance of the 1936 Montreux Convention, which the U.S. did not sign.

The hawkish report presented a dilemma for the Administration, which has adopted a more conciliatory rhetorical approach toward the Soviets during the election campaign. Reagan sat on the report for ten months, claiming he had not had time to "study" it. Last week he sent it on to Congress without a formal endorsement.

A more telling reading of the Administration's concerns on arms control is expected later this year, when the White House is scheduled to issue its own report on Soviet violations. That document will expand on a preliminary study, released last January, which cites seven likely arms-control violations by the Soviets. It is expected to be more moderate in tone than the GAC document.