Soviets Denounce Arms Violation Report

The official news agency Tass accused the United States on Saturday of “darkening the atmosphere” for new talks on arms control by falsely accusing the Soviet Union of breaking existing agreements.

Tass assailed a new report by the Reagan Administration, sent to Congress on Friday, that charged the Soviets with one new confirmed violation of an arms control agreement and reiterated charges of seven other violations.

‘Manufactured Falsehood’

Tass labeled the report a “crudely manufactured falsehood.” It accused the Pentagon of trying to scuttle the 1972 Soviet-American treaty limiting anti-ballistic missile defense systems so that it can go ahead with a “crash militarization” of outer space.

“It is crystal clear also that, by issuing the falsehood, Washington obviously pursues the aim of darkening the atmosphere on the eve of the Soviet-American talks in Geneva next month and thereby complicating the attainment there of mutually acceptable accords on the basis of equality and equal security,” the Soviet government news agency said.

U.S. and Soviet negotiatiors are scheduled to meet March 12 in Geneva to discuss controls on strategic and intermediate-range missiles and on space-based weapons and defense systems.

Besides the one new and seven reiterated violations charged in the report, which Congress requires be made annually, the Administration accused the Kremlin of one new probable violation and said that evidence of one “potential violation” was not clear enough to allow a firm conclusion to be drawn.

In his message transmitting the report to Congress, President Reagan said that “Soviet non-compliance (with past accords) . . . undermines the confidence essential to an effective arms control process in the future.”

Tass did not offer evidence in rebuttal of any specific charge.

It declared, however: “The United States does not have any facts to back up the accusations, and it cannot be otherwise since such facts simply do not exist. . . . There is not a single, hard, confirmed fact in the whole report.”