Winks and Nods in Geneva

By John Kohan.

In a bid for European support, Moscow drops hints of a compromise

They meet two or three times a week, either at the ornate 19th century mansion that serves as the Soviet Union's U.N. mission in Geneva or in the glass-and-steel office building that houses the U.S. headquarters near by. Although the discussions between U.S. Arms Negotiator Paul Nitze and his Soviet counterpart, Yuli Kvitsinsky, are being conducted behind a veil of secrecy, West Europeans have been watching assiduously for any hint, wink or nod that might reveal how the talks are progressing. Reason: one of the most emotionally charged issues of the 1983 international calendar, namely whether NATO will deploy 572 new U.S.-built nuclear missiles starting next year to respond to the buildup of Soviet intermediate-range SS-20 missiles aimed at Western Europe. What NATO will do hinges on the outcome of the negotiations; so when word was leaked from Washington last week that the Soviets had floated ideas for a compromise, U.S. officials warily watched to see what response it would draw from edgy West Europeans.

The leak came at an awkward moment for the Reagan Administration, which had been embroiled in a dispute with Congress over funding of the controversial MX missile. Barely a week before, during the annual meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, Secretary of State George Shultz had got a reaffirmation of West European support for NATO's missile-basing scheme on the Continent. As his two-week European tour drew to a close, Shultz did his best to minimize the importance of a possible shift in the Soviet position. He said in Paris after a meeting with President Franc,ois Mitterrand that even if the Soviets made a proposal along the lines now hinted at, it would not be "a very interesting proposition." During an impromptu news conference, President Reagan noted that the ideas floated by the Soviets were not "adequate" and would "leave us at a considerable disadvantage."

The maneuvering in Geneva generated a great deal of interest in West European capitals. In an unusual statement, the government of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher welcomed the rumors of progress, saying a Soviet offer "may be a step in the right direction." The West German Cabinet refrained from public comment on the matter, but officials in Bonn privately expressed disappointment at the U.S. Administration's outright rejection of what was seen as a Soviet trial balloon. Although French President Mitterrand went out of his way to tell Shultz that he firmly backed the U.S. negotiating stance, he has said that he thought the outcome could be somewhere between the opening U.S. and Soviet positions. Conceded a U.S. policymaker: "It is the long-anticipated next move in the Soviet peace offensive, but we still aren't ready for it."

Possible adjustments in the Soviet negotiating position surfaced last month just as the latest session of the talks on intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) was drawing to a close. The Soviet negotiators still rejected President Reagan's proposal for a "zero option," under which NATO members would reverse their decision to deploy new nuclear weapons if the Soviets dismantled all 333 of their SS-20s everywhere in the U.S.S.R., including the far east, plus the 280 aging SS-4 and SS-5 missiles. Instead, during informal chats over coffee and orange juice, the Soviets let it be known that they might consider removing some SS-20s from the European region of the U.S.S.R. if the Atlantic Alliance agreed to cancel its plan to begin installing the new Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles beginning late next year.

Since the Soviet offer was put forward in the vaguest terms, American arms experts could only speculate about what it all meant in terms of warheads and missile launchers. Their most educated guess was that Moscow would start by dismantling all of its SS-4 and SS-5 missile launchers, which were already slated for removal because they are now out of date. Precisely what the Soviets intend to do with their sophisticated new SS-20s was another question. One possibility is that they might offer to remove as many as 100 SS-20s from Europe. Counting three warheads for each SS-20 removed and one for each dismantled SS-4 and SS-5, the Soviets could claim to have reduced their European arsenal by 580 warheads, roughly the same number they are asking NATO not to deploy as part of the deal. The 150 or so remaining SS-20s would, by no coincidence, roughly equal the 162 missile launchers in the independent French and British nuclear forces.

U.S. officials argued that any such Soviet plan would be hopelessly one-sided because it would give Moscow a monopoly on modern missile systems in the European theater. Furthermore, it would provide no guarantee that the mobile SS-20s sent to the far eastern region of the U.S.S.R. would not be brought back to locations from which they could strike Western Europe. Said a Pentagon official: "It's another kind of zero option--zero missiles for the U.S. and hundreds for them. It is just not a serious deal." Washington hard-liners want Reagan to hold out until the Soviets agree to dismantle all of their SS-20s. But the President is being pressured by moderates to accept something short of his zero option to get an agreement in Geneva.

Administration officials were divided about the political impact of the news from Geneva on the alliance. According to the Pentagon, West European support for Reagan's zero option was still "rock solid," and a senior State Department official traveling with Shultz noted that "not a single European pressed for altering the zero option." That may be literally true, but other policymakers feared that if the White House rejected the Moscow offer out of hand, it might add to West European suspicions that the Reagan Administration was not serious about arms control. To hold the alliance together, they argued, the U.S. should at the very least create the illusion of some movement in the stalled talks. Said a U.S. arms-control expert: "The Europeans are not severely rattled yet, but if there is no successful outcome to these negotiations, we will face a profound crisis in the alliance."

The mood in Europe has changed dramatically since 1979, when, in response to concerns first put forward by then West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, NATO ministers voted to deploy the new American weapons in West Germany, Britain, Italy, Belgium and The Netherlands. In what became known as the "two-track decision," the ministers decided that the U.S. would simultaneously launch a round of negotiations with the Soviet Union in which the new missiles would be used as a bargaining chip to persuade the Soviets to dismantle their SS-20s. Nonetheless, many West Europeans fear that the deployment scheme will result in an escalation of the arms race. The Reagan Administration has added to European uneasiness with its hard line toward the Soviet Union, particularly with occasionally injudicious remarks about the possibility of fighting a nuclear war in Europe. Says a West German NATO adviser: "These things are going into our backyard, and there is the feeling that there are too many already."

Any signs of a softening in West European support for the U.S. position could be both divisive and dangerous, but many leaders in the alliance are also concerned about the political cost of ignoring any proposal that could break the deadlock in the arms talks. In Copenhagen, Denmark's parliament has voted to freeze a $6 million contribution to NATO earmarked for the construction of new missile sites, causing considerable embarrassment for Conservative Prime Minister Poul Schlueter. During an acrimonious debate over nuclear policy in Britain's House of Commons, leaders of the Labor opposition charged Prime Minister Thatcher with "stony and callous indifference."

Attention in Moscow and Washington is focusing on West Germany, where new Chancellor Helmut Kohl completed a complex parliamentary maneuver last week enabling him to hold elections on March 6. The issue of the NATO missile deployment plan will loom large in the upcoming campaign. Kohl has come out strongly in favor of the new missiles, provided no progress is made in Geneva by the December 1983 deadline. But Hans-Jochen Vogel, who has replaced former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt as the Social Democratic standardbearer, is pressing for greater American flexibility and his party is toying with a compromise that is not very different from the idea the Soviets suggested in Geneva.

Meanwhile, organizers of the West European peace movement already talk of major protests across the Continent in the months leading up to the first missile deployment. Last week demonstrators were once again out in force in West Germany and Denmark. In Britain, 30,000 women joined hands to form a nine-mile "ring of peace" around a Royal Air Force base at Greenham Common, 50 miles west of London, that has been designated as a site for cruise missiles. There to record the scuffles between demonstrators and police was a Soviet television crew. Said a senior U.S. State Department official: "They are hoping that popular opposition will derail the INF talks, so they can get zero from the American side for free."

The Soviet hints and American guesses came along just as the Reagan Administration was trying to patch up its bruised image in Western Europe. During the past year, the transatlantic dialogue has deteriorated into a shouting match over high U.S. interest rates, East-West trade and European subsidies for farm products. Thus, in his visits to Bonn, Brussels, The Hague, Rome, Paris, Madrid and London, Shultz made a special effort to ease West European fears that the Reagan Administration had little interest in fostering international economic and monetary cooperation.

Relations between Paris and Washington have been particularly chilly ever since Mitterrand refused to make concessions that would have enabled Reagan to save face while ending the U.S. sanctions against European companies participating in the construction of a Soviet gas pipeline to Western Europe. Last week Shultz and French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson gave every appearance of having patched up that squabble. It was announced that several study groups would be set up to explore ways of coordinating trade relations with the Soviet Union, but France still refused to commit itself to a new accord on East-West trade.

Shultz's low-key, solicitous style won him the respect of officials in every capital that he visited. Europeans clearly noticed that, unlike many other Administration officials, Shultz seemed to appreciate the importance of reducing conflicts among alliance members. Said a French diplomat: "There is a great deal of appreciation for Shultz here. He is a very serious man, one who takes time to think things out, and who pays attention when people talk to him." As the Atlantic Alliance enters a year in which its cohesiveness may be tested as never before, those qualities will prove indispensable. --By John Kohan.

Reported by William Rademaekers/London and Gregory H. Wierzynski with Shultz

With reporting by William Rademaekers/London, Gregory H. Wierzynski, Shultz

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