Public Squabbles, Private Deal

By MICHAEL DUFFY

The hastily typed two-page document is hardly a model for future superpower treaties. It is brief, lacks detail and even contains two typographical errors. The terms are nonetheless remarkable: for American scientists, it provides for the placement of seismic monitors near a Soviet nuclear weapons test site in Kazakhstan, and allows Soviet counterparts to set up similar gear later this summer near the U.S. test site in Nevada. In effect, the pact establishes the first mutual on-site verification of nuclear weapons tests. . Yet the U.S. and the Soviet Union have been trading barbs about nuclear testing, and the agreement, signed in May, was negotiated not by diplomats but by a private U.S. environmental group, the New York City-based Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow. "The U.S. Government was informed but not involved," said Thomas Cochran, a Ph.D. in nuclear physics and the council's senior scientist.

U.S. officials reacted with guarded curiosity. Said Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger: "I don't think it's a breakthrough, no. But I would be interested to see what they find."

Last week, as Cochran and a five-man team departed for the Soviet Union, their unique but unsanctioned mission seemed to symbolize the hot-and-cold nature of U.S.-Soviet relations. Other signals between the two nations were equally contradictory. Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev, on a visit to Poland, charged that "the cause of disarmament has not been advanced by a single millimeter because of the American Administration's open obstruction." The Soviets underscored their concern by asking for a special meeting of the Standing Consultative Committee, a bilateral body that oversees compliance with arms accords, to discuss the Reagan Administration's recent declaration that the SALT II agreement is all but dead.

But Gorbachev announced in a later speech that a letter he sent to Ronald Reagan last month was intended to remove obstacles to a second summit meeting between the two leaders. In Moscow, Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Petrovsky told reporters that the Soviets had also proposed a "preparatory mechanism" for arranging a long-delayed presummit meeting between U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and his Soviet counterpart, Eduard Shevardnadze, presumably when the two attend the reconvening of the United Nations General Assembly in September. A summit, Petrovsky cautioned, must produce results and "not be just a handshake."

The U.S. responded with asperity to this display of public relations diplomacy. "No foreign ministers' meeting has been scheduled, nor have the Soviets proposed dates for one," snapped State Department Spokesman Charles Redman. The Soviets' mixed message, said U.S. officials, is an attempt to link progress in arms talks to a Shultz-Shevardnadz e meeting. "They're telling us what kind of summit they want," said a U.S. arms-control aide.

The Soviets may also be voicing their annoyance at mixed signals from the U.S. The Administration has been pressing for a second summit, and President Reagan last week told the newspaper USA Today he is "optimistic . . . that we're going to have a summit where we can reach agreement." But his subordinates are divided over a U.S. response to the Soviet arms-control proposal tabled in Geneva last month. The Soviets have offered to trim their large land-based intercontinental ballistic missile forces in exchange for a U.S. promise to limit its Strategic Defense Initiative to research only.

The State Department is arguing for a swift and substantive counterproposal to get the summit preparations moving, while the Pentagon and the CIA oppose any concessions that would threaten Star Wars. A meeting last week of midlevel arms-control advisers ended "in total disagreement," said one participant. "We are bogged down here, really stalemated." Unflagging support for SDI also dims the prospect for any agreement on nuclear testing. The Soviets have called for a total moratorium and have not detonated a nuclear device since August 1985. But some of the weapons envisioned by SDI require underground nuclear tests. The Pentagon argues that testing is needed to ensure the reliability of its arms stockpile. While continuing with tests, the U.S. has proposed that on-site monitors be permitted to verify the current ban on detonations with yields greater than 150 kilotons. When the U.S. suggested in March that both sides adopt a new, sophisticated verification system called CORRTEX, the Soviets rejected it. Two months later, however, the Soviets struck their agreement with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The unprecedented arrangement will allow U.S. seismologists to place three monitoring stations within 100 miles of Semipalatinsk, 1,800 miles from Moscow in eastern Kazakhstan, and Soviet scientists to erect their sensors near Yucca Flats, Nev., where U.S. universities have monitored underground tests for years. (Atmospheric tests were halted in 1963 after the U.S. and the Soviet Union signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty.) The U.S. team, led by University of Colorado Seismologist Charles Archambeau, will place digital seismometers in three 300-ft.-deep holes drilled by the Soviets. A two-man team will remain near Semipalatinsk to monitor the findings. The $1.3 million cost of the project will be borne by foundations and private donors.

Although the Soviet moratorium on testing is due to expire next month, few observers expect the Soviets to resume nuclear tests immediately, which leaves the U.S. scientists with little to monitor. Moreover, the U.S. already has in place a worldwide network of stations that accurately monitor Soviet tests. Even so, the American observers should collect invaluable data on the seismological characteristics of the Soviet Union and on the Soviets' ability to read tremors from U.S. nuclear tests. The project's primary goal, said Archambeau, is to "demonstrate that on-site inspection is feasible and should be no obstacle to a test moratorium." Added M.I.T.'s Kosta Tsipis, an expert on verification: "Scientists are showing that on-scene inspection works. Now it's up to the politicians." Given the convoluted nature of arms control, the hard work lies ahead.

With reporting by Johanna McGeary and Bruce van Voorst/Washington