Shultz to Focus on U.S.-Soviet Arms Statement

An “important focus” of a U.S. delegation’s visit to Moscow this week will be an effort to craft an arms control statement that could be issued by President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev during the Geneva summit next month, Reagan’s national security adviser said Sunday.

But Robert C. McFarlane, who will leave Saturday for Moscow with Secretary of State George P. Shultz for the crucial pre-summit meetings Nov. 4-5, also warned the Soviet Union that no new U.S.-Soviet arms agreement will be acceptable to Congress or the American people without some broader change in Soviet behavior.

Reagan believes that “his moment in history, his responsibility is to leave office” with significant reductions in nuclear weapons accepted by both sides, McFarlane said. But “for that to endure, it has to be surrounded by a climate of responsible behavior,” he added.

Carter Effort Recalled

Former President Jimmy Carter’s “devotion to arms control did not succeed,” McFarlane said on the CBS interview program “Face the Nation”--not because of what Reagan perceived as flaws in the SALT II treaty “but because of other elements like Afghanistan (and human rights).”

The Soviet Union invaded its southern neighbor after the second strategic arms limitation agreement was signed in mid-1979. While there was considerable opposition to the treaty’s provisions, the consensus was that the Senate would have ratified it had there been no invasion. But the Soviet aggression created such an outcry that Carter was forced to withdraw the agreement from consideration.

The Administration has been working toward a “declaration at Geneva” that would provide U.S. and Soviet negotiators at the current arms control talks with new instructions that would step up the pace toward agreement.

A May, 1971, joint U.S.-Soviet statement, which broke the then-existing arms logjam and led to the first strategic arms agreement the following year, has been cited by U.S. officials as a possible model. It provided that the two sides would “concentrate this year” on reaching agreement on limiting offensive nuclear weapons “together with” agreement on defensive weapons.

The present arms negotiation standoff surrounds the Administration’s space defense program and Gorbachev’s recent proposal for a 50% reduction in U.S. and Soviet strategic nuclear missiles.

Reagan has repeatedly insisted that he will not curtail the space defense program--called the Strategic Defense Initiative and popularly known as “Star Wars”--which he has recently characterized as “research and testing” of promising beam-weapon technology. But the Soviets have insisted that their offer is tied to U.S. restraints on space defense research.

One possible formulation to break the deadlock, sources have said, would be a joint statement from the summit in which the United States accepted in principle a slower pace for “Star Wars” and the Soviets agreed to conduct serious negotiations to halve offensive arsenals, both for a period of five to seven years.

Behavior Stressed

McFarlane said Sunday, however, that without behavioral changes by the Soviet Union, any new arms agreement would risk the same fate as SALT II.

“President Reagan believes we have at hand a really historic opportunity for charting a new, long-term course with the Soviet Union which will be peaceful and stable for a long time,” McFarlane said.

“Whether that happens or not will be determined by the American people,” he said, “and basically, by whether they believe our basic values are being respected and adhered to.”

He listed three such values: “no country should use power to expand beyond its borders;” all countries “should seek a lower level of nuclear arms,” and “every country should adhere to basic norms of human rights for their own people.”

Asked about reports that the U.S. delegation to Moscow will seek to hammer out a statement of principles to be issued as a Reagan-Gorbachev communique, McFarlane first replied that “dozens of issues” will be on the table in the Soviet capital, mostly bilateral matters such as a new air safety agreement for the Pacific northwest region.

“Surely arms control will be on the agenda,” he added.

When pressed specifically on work toward a joint summit communique, he said: “I think this surely will be an important focus of arms control.”