Kremlin’s Gesture Aimed at Influencing Europeans

At first glance, the Soviet announcement Sunday of a seven-month halt in deployment of SS-20 intermediate-range and shorter range missiles in Europe appeared to be an important unilateral concession.

But Administration officials quickly noted that the announcement was obviously timed to get maximum mileage at the traditional Easter week peace demonstrations in Western Europe. It appeared to confirm Administration forecasts that the Soviets would seek to split the United States from Western Europe by appearing more forthcoming on arms control, thereby inviting European pressure on Washington to make concessions at Geneva.

“We will have to wait and see what political resonance will come in Europe and the United States from this new ‘peace offensive’ before we can judge how effective Moscow propaganda will be in making us look recalcitrant at the arms tables,” said a senior U.S. official who asked not be be quoted by name.

The Administration also noted that the Soviets have already deployed at least 414 of the mobile SS-20’s--two-thirds in Europe and the rest in Asia but easily movable to Europe. If it continued to install missiles at the previous rate of one per week, its SS-20 arsenal would increase by 10% in Europe by November. Moscow already enjoys a 10 to 1 warhead advantage over the United States there.

Also discouraging any enthusiasm was evidence that the Soviets may be phasing out existing models of the SS-20 triple warhead missile, since an improved version is already being tested. Thus, Gorbachev’s “good will” moratorium may only be a technical hiatus between production models.

Finally, the Soviets made similar offers at the Geneva arms talks after they resumed last month, including a mutual freeze on U.S. and Soviet missile deployments in Europe and a ban on U.S. space research. These proposals, alluded to last week in East German and Czechoslovak news reports, have been dismissed by U.S. negotiators.

As a result, the substance of the public arms control comments by new Communist Party leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev “was neither unexpected nor does it make their proposals any more attractive,” said the official.

But Gorbachev’s statements were viewed here as significant in another respect.

Public Commitment

The Kremlin leader in the interview in Pravda committed himself publicly to the principle of a Soviet-American summit, as he had done privately in a letter to President Reagan. This reinforced anticipations that Gorbachev and Reagan will meet in the fall.

Little real progress in arms control talks can be expected before then, officials said.

Gorbachev also called on Sunday for a moratorium on research, as well as development and deployment, of space arms. This appeared to be a blatant play to the public gallery, since Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko acknowledged to Secretary of State George P. Shultz in January that banning research would be impossible, U.S. officials said.

Gorbachev’s interview in Pravda furthered the belief here that the Soviets actively seek to create the perception that they are willing to trade significant cuts in offensive arms if the U.S. abandons its “Star Wars,” or space-based anti-missile research program.

What is unknown, and worrisome to a minority of U.S. officials, is whether Moscow is prepared to walk out of the Geneva talks if the Reagan Administration refuses to trade brakes on space defense work for cuts in offensive warheads.

The Dutch Decision

The propaganda thrust of Gorbachev’s SS-20 moratorium offer was evident even in his choice of November for terminating it. The Netherlands has postponed until November its decision on accepting 48 U.S. cruise missiles, which is its portion of the overall U.S. deployment of 572 Pershing 2 and cruise missiles in West Europe to balance the Soviet SS-20 force. (So far about 110 U.S. missiles have been deployed.)

The Dutch conditioned their decision last year on whether the Soviets would increase their force at that time of 378 SS-20s in Europe and Asia. Moscow has already added to that arsenal, as well as added improved shorter-range nuclear missiles in East Europe, but it apparently hopes that the pressure on the Netherlands government will intensify nonetheless when the November deadline nears.

The SS-20 moratorium also fits into future Soviet force deployments in several respects. A modified version of the SS-20, with greater accuracy and other improvements, has been flight-tested, according to the latest edition of the Pentagon’s “Soviet Military Power” released last week. This improved model may be ready for deployment when the moratorium ends.

In addition, some of the “garages” in which the SS-20’s are housed when not roaming Soviet roads have been converted to house new, intercontinental-range missiles, identified in the Pentagon report report as SS-X-25s, suggesting that there is now a surfeit of SS-20s.