Wading into the Stream

No panic, even though a SALT deadline expires

Minutes tick away and the deadline nears. At midnight, Oct. 2, a key section of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty expires. After that the U.S. and the Soviet Union will no longer be bound by the ceilings on offensive, strategic weapons to which they agreed five years ago. Despite Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko's meetings in Washington last week with President Jimmy Carter and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, there is virtually no chance that a new arms accord can be reached before the deadline.

Expiration of the treaty provisions will probably be less than cataclysmic--at least in the short run. Neither in the U.S. nor in the Soviet Union are assembly lines revved up and waiting to begin immediate production of deadly new weapons. In a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Administration last week said it planned to make a "unilateral policy declaration" promising to abide informally by the SALT ceilings, "provided that the Soviet Union exercises similar restraint." Moscow is expected to make the same promise this week. But the longer the arms deadlock, the greater are the chances that each side will develop new weapons systems that future treaties may find impossible to eliminate or control.

Gromyko spent most of his 14 hours with U.S. officials last week discussing SALT. But in his meeting with Carter, two of the three hours were devoted to such global issues as the Middle East, Africa, European security and the climate of East-West relations. The President emphasized that he remained concerned about the Soviet Union's record on human rights and specifically raised the issue of the continued imprisonment of Soviet Dissident Anatoli Shcharansky.

It was Vance and Gromyko's most productive session to date, but their public statements were cautious, even cryptic. After one session, for instance, the Soviet diplomat said to newsmen at the State Department: "We have waded into the stream, but we haven't walked out of it yet because there are lots of rocks. I would like to urge all of you to display some patience." To which Vance added: "Until we get to the other side of the shore, I don't have much to say." At meeting's end, both sides sounded slightly more optimistic and raised the hope of a new agreement "within the near future."

The Soviets have been insisting that SALT II follow the guidelines approved by Moscow's Leonid Brezhnev and President Gerald Ford at their 1974 summit in Vladivostok. These allow each side 2,400 strategic missile launchers, of which 1,320 can be armed with MIRVs--multiple, independently targetable warheads. As clear as these guidelines may have seemed originally, they soon became mired in controversy. The U.S., for instance, has been insisting that the ceilings cover the U.S.S.R.'s new Backfire bomber; the Soviets reject this. In turn, Moscow argues that U.S. aircraft firing cruise missiles--relatively cheap, accurate subsonic drones--be counted against the MIRV quota. Here the U.S. balks, making the Soviets, as an American negotiator puts it, "neuralgic" on the issue of cruises.

The U.S. has also become increasingly concerned about a new generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles that the Soviets are ready to test and about existing rockets that may become "silo busters," with the explosive force and pinpoint accuracy to destroy U.S. missiles in their underground launchers. In light of this potential danger--and because Carter canceled the B-1 bomber program--the U.S. feels that cruise missiles will have to assume a major share of the burden for retaliation in case of a surprise Soviet attack. Thus Washington will bow to Moscow's insistence that cruises be restricted only if the Soviets reciprocate.

Whatever shape SALT II eventually takes, it will be carefully scrutinized by the Pentagon and national security affairs experts in Congress. Some, like Democratic Senator Scoop Jackson of Washington, fear that U.S. negotiators might be tempted to give away too much to the Soviets. Jackson, in fact, argues that the Senate should ratify even the "policy declaration" by which the Administration promises to respect SALT ceilings. (The Arms Control and Disarmament Act makes any arms limitation agreement subject to congressional approval.) To make his point, Jackson, who heads the arms-control subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, plans to schedule hearings on the status of the SALT talks.

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