Reagan Puts Off Decision on SALT Compliance

President Reagan heard arguments Monday for and against continuing the present U.S. policy of abiding by the unratified second strategic arms limitation agreement, but he deferred a decision until after Secretary of State George P. Shultz consults with European allies at a meeting this week in Portugal.

White House spokesman Larry Speakes said Reagan will make the decision this weekend and inform Congress of it June 10. Shultz will consult on SALT II with his European counterparts at what was described as a “super-restricted” session Thursday during a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization foreign ministers.

Reagan’s decision will involve “primarily what restraints are appropriate for us to continue observing in view of Soviet violations--what’s appropriate, and what’s in the U.S. interest to do,” one White House official said.

The Defense Department is urging Reagan to declare that the United States will no longer abide by the agreement and its expired predecessor, SALT I, because of Soviet cheating on these and other arms accords, sources say.

The State Department, meanwhile, basically favors continuation of the current policy--not undercutting provisions of the agreement as long as the Soviets show equal restraint, while at the same time emphasizing that Soviet cheating frees the United States to do the same in the future.

Democrats are expected to press for continued observance of the agreement, Senate Democratic Leader Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia said. But he added that a decision to extend the SALT II limits should be reviewed annually.

“As long as we do observe the constraints of SALT II, I think we have less to lose than do the Soviets,” Byrd said. “I think that as long as they are observing the SALT II restraints, it probably means we will be required to dismantle fewer systems than they.

“If we were to elect to throw SALT aside, it would give the Soviets a great propaganda weapon in Europe, and I think it would undercut our efforts (at U.S.-Soviet arms control talks) in Geneva,” Byrd said.

The State Department recommended Monday that the President delay any decision until at least Aug. 15, sources said, and couple it with an appeal to Congress to increase funding for new weapons, such as the MX missile, to reduce the Soviet advantage in warheads.

The August date is one month before the scheduled start of sea trials of the latest U.S. Trident missile submarine, the Alaska. If an older Poseidon missile submarine has not begun to be dismantled by that time--a process that takes up to a month to initiate--the United States would be in violation of the SALT II ceiling on multiple-warhead missiles.

Even without the deadline imposed by the Trident’s maiden voyage, the Administration must face the decision on SALT II by the end of the year, when the agreement expires.

SALT II was signed in 1979 but never ratified by the Senate. SALT I expired in 1977, but both the United States and the Soviet Union said they would not violate SALT I while SALT II was being negotiated.

The Reagan Administration, while harshly critical of SALT II, said in 1981 that it would not undercut the agreement as long as the Soviets did not do so.