Soviets Reportedly Rejected U.S. Call for Start of Arms Talks in March

The United States proposed that new arms control talks with the Soviet Union begin in March in Geneva, but the Soviets turned down the proposal, a high-ranking American diplomatic source said Friday.

The two sides then agreed to seek agreement through diplomatic channels within the next month on a time and place to begin the new weapons negotiations decided upon in discussions between Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko in Geneva earlier this week.

In Washington, the State Department declined to comment on the diplomatic source’s remarks, but officials there said privately that they accurately reflect what happened in Geneva.

The source here, who is familiar with the Shultz-Gromyko discussions, said: “I don’t know why they (the Soviets) did not want to go ahead (in March). There are a lot of puzzling things going on.”

Referring to the 11-man ruling body led by President Konstantin U. Chernenko, the source added that Gromyko “seemed to have (taken) a position (at the two-day meeting) that was dictated by the Politburo.”

Meantime, it was disclosed here that Gromyko will appear Sunday on a new, precedent-breaking television program similar to the U.S. news interview shows. It is extremely rare for a member of the Politburo, such as Gromyko, to answer questions in public or hold news conferences.

The American diplomatic source here said that both sides listened attentively at the Geneva meetings to lengthy presentations on the strategic nuclear balance, both now and projected through the 1990s.

The source said that there were clashing views on these issues and that the Shultz-Gromyko decision to make a change from the past in the structure of the future talks may be significant.

Shultz and Gromyko decided that a single delegation for each side, divided into three working groups, will undertake the future negotiations, dealing with strategic (long-range) offensive nuclear weapons, intermediate-range offensive arms and space weapons. Separate teams in the past dealt with strategic and intermediate-range nuclear arms.

“We can now discuss strategy and what we mean by stability in a way that we could not do when talks (on strategic and mid-range missiles) were separated,” the source said.

“Maybe that will have more of a stabilizing effect than an (arms-limiting) agreement itself,” the American diplomat suggested.

“A better understanding of what motivates each side and what each side considers to be stability might be more stabilizing than an agreement that does not really reduce arms but (only) puts a ceiling on present arms programs,” the source said.

The diplomat was cautious about the possible results of the new talks, saying:

“It’s the beginning of a very long road in negotiations. . . . I think it’s going to be very tough on all (of the issues) because I heard the positions.”

Shultz bluntly told Gromyko that the Soviet Union is engaged in the same kind of “Star Wars” research on such matters as laser beams and energy particles that the Soviets criticize the United States for planning to undertake, the source said.

“We have very good evidence that the Soviets are pursuing the same kind of research (on space weapons), although they don’t talk about theirs the way we do,” he said.

Shultz told Gromyko that a ban on research proposed by the Soviets is absolutely unenforceable, the source said.

The U.S. side said it was willing to discuss “trade-offs” on strategic and medium-range weapons, but the Soviet side did not probe further or ask what the United States would trade, the diplomat said.

“We have plenty of flexibility in the START (strategic weapons) and INF (Intermediate-range Nuclear Force) areas that has not been explored,” he said. “But we are not going to give up our research program (on space defense).”