Dealing in Geneva

The Reagan Administration’s caution toward a reported easing of the Soviet stand against missile defense research is understandable. If the Soviets are serious, they should make an official proposal rather than drop tantalizing hints in informal conversations with members of the U.S. delegation to the arms-reduction talks in Geneva.

The Administration, however, should swallow its contrary inclinations and respond positively if the Soviet feeler turns out to be serious. No quick breakthrough in the negotiations is likely, but the Soviet initiative could help move the Geneva talks into a more serious and productive phase.

Up to now the arms negotiations have gone nowhere. The Soviets have insisted that any reduction of offensive missiles, the primary goal of the American side, depends on the total U.S. abandonment of President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative--including the sort of research that has been conducted by both sides ever since the signing of the 1972 treaty limiting ballistic-missile defenses.

The Reagan Administration has rightly responded that ABM research, which has been pursued more vigorously in the Soviet Union than here, cannot be prohibited because a ban would be unverifiable. Not so rightly, the American side has refused to discuss any meaningful limitation on the SDI program at all.

Soviet delegates in Geneva began taking a new, more flexible line in informal conversations about two weeks ago. They suggested that Moscow would be willing to accept an arms treaty allowing research on strategic defense but prohibiting certain kinds of tests. The Soviets were reportedly vague on details.

A similar approach was recommended by a number of U.S. experts, including some with ties to the Reagan Administration, at an April meeting at the Carter Center in Atlanta.

The Administration says that Reagan’s five-year, $26-billion Strategic Defense Initiative is aimed at finding out whether to proceed with deployment of a defense against nuclear missiles. Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger wrote in The Times this week that the “Star Wars” “research goal can and will be met without violating the ABM treaty.”

At times, however, high-ranking officials talk as though eventual deployment is preordained. And Weinberger’s reassurances on continuing compliance with the ABM treaty must be read in the context of the Administration’s interpretation of the 1972 pact, which would allow developmental testing of ABM “sub-components” under a broad definition of that term.

Moscow is unlikely to buy this interpretation. But the Soviets show signs of trying to define away any developmental tests of their own simply by denying that the tests are related to research on ABM systems. Any agreement would have to deal with that problem, too.

The differing U.S. and Soviet aims and interpretations guarantee that any negotiations growing from the Soviet initiative would be difficult. But if the Soviets have decided that their self-interest would be served by meaningful restraints on development of Star Wars systems by either side, and are willing to make significant reductions in offensive missiles as part of the package, it may be possible to strike a deal.

Provided, of course, that Soviet flexibility--if it materializes--is matched by flexibility on the American side.