Full-Scale Arms Talks to Resume : U.S., Soviets Agree to Negotiate Curbs on Missiles, Space Weapons

The United States and the Soviet Union agreed Tuesday to resume full-scale arms control talks with the ultimate aim of “the complete elimination of nuclear arms everywhere.”

Secretary of State George P. Shultz announced the breakthrough at a late-night press conference, reading a joint U.S.-Soviet communique that called for three interlocking negotiations on strategic nuclear missiles, intermediate-range nuclear missiles and space weaponry.

“The object of the negotiations will be to work out effective agreements aimed at preventing an arms race in space and terminating it on Earth, at limiting and reducing nuclear arms and at strengthening strategic stability,” the communique said.

Over 14 Hours of Talks

During more than 14 hours of bargaining between Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko, each side agreed, in effect, to do something it had vowed never to do. Viewed another way, each side achieved its primary objective from the talks.

The Soviets agreed to resumption of the strategic arms reduction talks (START) and negotiations on intermediate-range nuclear forces, which they broke off in late 1983 to protest deployment of U.S. Pershing 2 and cruise missiles in Europe. At the time they walked out of those talks, the Soviets said they would not return until the Pershing and cruise missiles were removed. Resuming these negotiations was the primary U.S. objective in the two-day Geneva meeting.

For its part, the United States agreed to begin negotiations on space weapons, including President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, the research program on space-based missile defenses that has been nicknamed “Star Wars.” U.S. officials had said they would not even consider negotiating away the research program. The Soviets had made it clear that including it in negotiations was their chief objective here.

Space the Last issue

Kenneth L. Adelman, head of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, indicated that the two sides remained deadlocked over the crucial issue of space weapons until the final hours of the talks.

He said the Soviets had pressed the United States to abandon the entire Strategic Defense Initiative, including the $26-billion research program that was begun last year. It was only late Tuesday, when the Soviets began talking of possible language for the final communique, that it became clear that they were giving ground on this point, Adelman said.

The joint communique said the site and opening date of the negotiations will be agreed upon through diplomatic channels within one month. Adelman said the American side had pressed for an immediate agreement on a date, while the Soviets had demanded that the date be worked out later.

The joint communique said the two sides agreed “that the subject of the negotiations will be a complex of questions concerning space and nuclear arms . . . with all these questions considered and resolved in their interrelationship.”

The words were strikingly similar to the phrasing of Gromyko’s arrival statement Sunday, in which he called for new negotiations “on space weapons and nuclear arms . . . this complex of interrelated questions.”

Vladimir B. Lomeiko, spokesman for the Soviet Foreign Ministry, followed Shultz to the press conference stage at the U.S. headquarters hotel. He denied that the Soviets reversed themselves by returning to strategic and intermediate-range missile talks because, he said, the next round would be completely new talks. The U.S. side, though, stressed that the mandate for the new negotiations is exactly the same as the one for the talks the Soviets abandoned in 1983.

There was no doubt the upcoming formal negotiations will be difficult.

Sharp Disagreement

Especially on the emotional subject of space weapons, the two sides disagreed sharply in the two days of preliminary talks in Geneva. Both made it clear they will carry diametrically opposing views into the formal talks.

Shultz said he told Gromyko that the Strategic Defense Initiative “is a research program intended to determine whether it would be possible to shift to a more stable relationship involving a greater reliance on defensive systems.

“No decisions to go beyond research have been made nor could they be made for several years,” Shultz added. “While the issues posed by SDI are for the future, I told Mr. Gromyko that we will nonetheless be prepared to discuss the question of strategic defense. Our views differ on this question but we have agreed on the forum for tackling the issue head-on.”

After the press conference, a senior Administration official said the United States is willing to talk about research on space-based defensive systems. However, when asked if Washington would agree to limitations on this research, the official said flatly, “No.”

The official said the United States promised to show restraint in testing and deployment of anti-satellite weapons as long as the talks go on. This probably precludes a long-scheduled test of an experimental weapon designed to be fired from an F-15 jet warplane and knock out enemy satellites.

Anti-satellite research is part of the U.S. military space program but the Soviets clearly consider it to be less threatening than the space-based anti-missile defenses. The senior official said the Soviets did not focus on anti-satellite weapons in the Shultz-Gromyko talks.

Lomeiko repeatedly stressed the linkage between talks on space weapons and nuclear weapons.

“We have to believe that, irrespective of ideology, we all share the planet Earth--we are all faced with a nuclear threat,” he said. “Now, we are faced with a new threat from outer space. We must try to eliminate it.”

The joint U.S.-Soviet statement issued after the talks called for “effective agreements aimed at preventing an arms race in space” but made no mention of the present U.S. research program.

Under the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missiles Treaty, research into anti-missile systems is permissible, but testing and deploying is strictly controlled.

Adelman said the Soviet preoccupation with blocking U.S. space weapons relegated the once emotional issue of intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) in Europe to the sidelines during the two days of talks.

“INF was not a big subject the Soviets wanted to talk about,” he said.

Continuous Consultations

Although only four members of the high-level U.S. delegation accompanied Shultz at the negotiating table, Adelman said he and others sitting in an adjacent room were continuously consulted as the talks reached their crucial phase late Tuesday.

“They would talk (with the Soviets), then break for a (delegation) caucus until a point was agreed, then go back in and start talking again,” he said.

“Sometimes the caucuses would last 45 minutes, sometimes only five, but everyone got a say, no one was left out,” he said. “The delegation worked together beautifully.”

Shultz was accompanied at the negotiating table by his own special adviser to the talks, Paul H. Nitze, and by national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane and U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Arthur A. Hartman.

All three are known as moderates in the widely publicized split within the Reagan Administration on the approach to arms talks with Moscow. There was some question as to whether Shultz would be able to effectively balance the moderate views with those of such delegation hard-liners as Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard N. Perle and Edward L. Rowny, former chief negotiator on strategic arms.

Shultz and Gromyko agreed that each side would appoint a single delegation that would be broken into three subgroups covering strategic weapons, intermediate-range nuclear missiles and space weapons. Shultz said no decision has been made yet on the composition of the U.S. delegation.

Shultz said the United States views the three sets of talks as interrelated. However, he said that “it will have to be seen when something emerges from one area of the negotiations” whether agreement can be reached in that area without corresponding agreements in others.

Shultz said he and Gromyko did not even discuss the possibility of a summit meeting between Reagan and Soviet President Konstantin U. Chernenko.

He also said he and Gromyko did not set a time and place for another meeting between them, although he implied that such sessions will be held from time to time.