Briton Accuses Gorbachev of ‘Arithmetic of Absurd’

NATO chief Lord Carrington today warned Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev that he will not get far in arms negotiations with President Reagan if he continues to apply the “arithmetic of the absurd” to his proposals.

The secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization issued his warning to British politicians and academics in a speech questioning the sincerity of the proposals made by Gorbachev in Paris earlier this month.

He asked what Gorbachev had meant when he called for a 50% reduction in U.S. and Soviet strategic missile forces.

“Fifty percent is a welcome improvement on the previous Soviet position . . . but 50% of what?” Carrington asked.

“Do the Soviet leaders really believe that the Americans should be concerned only about systems which can strike the United States and ignore what is targeted against their allies in Western Europe and, indeed, against their armies?” he asked.

“If the Soviet negotiators were to stick to this arithmetic of the absurd, then that would cast serious doubt on the intentions of the new Soviet leadership,” Carrington said.

He said Soviet intentions over arms reductions and the development of space-based defense are among the questions to which the West will be seeking answers at Gorbachev’s meeting with President Reagan next month.