U.S. Dismisses Gorbachev’s Latest Arms Offer

The U.S. government on Saturday dismissed Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s latest remarks about strategic weapons control as containing an old idea that the Soviets themselves seem to have abandoned.

Speaking after ceremonies renewing the Warsaw Pact military alliance for another 30 years, Gorbachev said Friday that the Soviets “have already suggested that both sides reduce strategic offensive arms by one-quarter by way of an opening move.”

He added that “we would have no objections to making deeper mutual cuts” provided the United States abandons its research on space-based defenses.

Asked about the Soviet leader’s speech, State Department spokeswoman Sondra McCarty said: “We are of course ready to examine seriously any concrete Soviet proposals for substantial balanced and stabilizing reductions in strategic forces. Contrary to the impression created by press accounts of General Secretary Gorbachev’s statement, however, the Soviet Union has made no proposals for reductions in strategic forces in the new Geneva negotiations, nor have the Soviets even gone so far as to resubmit their old proposals made in the 1982-83 START (strategic arms reduction) talks.”

She said that Gorbachev apparently was referring to the Soviet proposal put forward during the talks that Moscow broke off in 1983 to reduce strategic nuclear delivery vehicles by about one-quarter under the level permitted by the unratified SALT II agreement.

She said that plan “would not have brought about a substantial reduction in the most important measures of strategic capability--the total number of ballistic missile warheads and their destructive capacity.”

“U.S. negotiators have broad authority to negotiate approaches that meet the interests and concerns of both sides,” McCarty said, referring to U.S.-Soviet arms control talks in Geneva. “If the Soviet Union takes a similarly constructive approach when the talks reconvene on May 30, then progress should be possible. If the Soviet Union is now ready for deeper cuts as Mr. Gorbachev suggested, we would welcome a concrete manifestation of this readiness in Geneva.”