Salt Stall

Normally, a report that the U.S. Air Force had slipped a month or two behind schedule in outfitting some B-52s with cruise missiles would hardly have stirred a ripple in either Washington or Moscow. But in diplomacy as in comedy, timing is everything, and the timing of the report leaked by Administration officials raised strong suspicions that the real reason behind it was superpower politics: a holding action to keep alive the somewhat shaky prospects for a summit meeting this fall between President Reagan and Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

So far, some 123 B-52s have been equipped with cruise missiles capable of hitting the Soviet Union in a nuclear strike. When the Air Force finishes sticking a pod of the missiles on the 131st bomber, the U.S. will exceed the limits imposed by the 1979 SALT II treaty. Some Air Force officials had initially suggested that the limit would be passed about mid-November, before the two superpower leaders might have picked up where they left off at last year's Geneva summit.

The Soviets have made clear their displeasure with President Reagan's announcement last May that as part of the Pentagon's strategic modernization program, the U.S. planned to go ahead with missile deployments that would violate SALT II. Though the pact was never ratified by the Senate, each side < had pledged to abide by the treaty as long as the other did. Breaching the SALT II limits, the Soviets have made clear, could mean no second summit at all.

The delay -- intentional or not -- looked remarkably like a custom-made face-saving device. It will allow the President to avoid violating the SALT II ceilings without requiring him to repudiate his earlier vow to forge ahead with missile deployment. The delay, unconfirmed by the White House, might not be a gambit at all. But news of the delay spilled to the public at a time when the superpowers seemed to have reached an impasse in pre-summit talks. The U.S. wants to discuss "regional issues," like Soviet policy toward Afghanistan, Central America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, at a Reagan- Gorbachev meeting. The Soviets say they do not want a summit without some guarantee of progress on arms control. As the two sides emerged from private talks last week aimed at laying the groundwork for a summit, they appeared to remain far apart. Though the U.S. side rated the talks "constructive and businesslike," Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Anatoly Adamishin was more downbeat. Said he: "I don't think we have achieved a lot of progress." The news from the Administration last week at least kept alive the hope that the two sides would keep trying.