U.S. Plan Moves Closer to Soviets on Offensive Arms

The Reagan Administration’s new strategic arms control proposal moves the United States and the Soviet Union closer to eventual agreement on ceilings for offensive missiles and bombers. But no such movement is visible on the key Soviet demand that deep cuts in offensive weapons come only after the United States curtails work on its “Star Wars” space defense program.

Sidestepping the “Star Wars” issue, the Administration plan begins by essentially accepting the recent Soviet offer of a 50% cut in offensive arms, but it proposes two significant changes:

First, under Reagan’s plan only long-range weapons on each side would be covered. Moscow had proposed a 50% cutback in medium-range weapons capable of reaching the other superpower’s territory, an approach that would have cut into U.S. medium-range missiles and aircraft in Europe and on aircraft carriers, but not into comparable Soviet weapons.

Second, Washington’s new offer went further than the Soviets’ by proposing a lower sub-ceiling on land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are considered the most dangerous of the nuclear weapons because their great accuracy and speed make them potentially the most useful to launch a surprise attack.

Instead of permitting a maximum of 60% of each side’s strategic forces to consist of such ICBMs, as the Soviets offered, the United States called for permitting no more than 50% of each force to be ICBMs, according to informed sources.

Similarly, the Administration accepted Moscow’s offer to freeze U.S. and Soviet medium-range missiles in Europe but again with qualifications, such as counting not only missiles based on the continent but also those capable of hitting the continent. This would have the effect of forcing the Soviets to move at least some of their medium-range missiles deeper into Siberia.

Thus, as Secretary of State George P. Shultz prepared to fly to Moscow for crucial pre-summit talks on Monday and Tuesday, the Administration sought to regain the offensive in the arms control maneuvering after a full month in which the Soviets’ call for radical cuts--very much like a proposal Reagan himself made three years ago--was picked at by Administration officials but not picked up.

Yet the linkage between offensive and defensive weapons remains no better defined than before, and Reagan struck a somewhat hollow note on this point Thursday as he sought to put the best face on the new U.S. offer.

“It’s my hope that our new proposal will enable both of our nations to start moving away from ever-larger arsenals of offensive forces,” he said. “At the same time, we seek in Geneva to undertake, with the Soviets, a serious examination of the important relationship between offensive and defensive forces and how people everywhere can benefit from exploring the potential of non-nuclear defenses, which threaten no one.”

Kremlin Derision

The Soviets have flatly rejected that U.S. approach. Deriding it as tantamount to being lectured on the virtues of a space defense strategy they say will lead to a new arms race in space, the Soviets seek instead to hobble the Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly known as “Star Wars.”

“No give in ‘Star Wars’?” Reagan was asked by reporters after making his statement.

“I hope we can arrive at a discussion of defensive weapons,” the President replied.

The new U.S. offer, said to have been leaked initially by a senior White House official during a dinner Wednesday night with three reporters, is based on a figure of about 12,000 total U.S. long-range missile warheads and bombs.

The proposal would reduce this total to 6,000, of which 1,500 would be bombs and air-launched cruise missiles carried by bombers, and 4,500 would be warheads on ballistic missiles. ICBMs could carry a maximum of 3,000 warheads, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles would carry 1,500, according to this scheme.

Three years ago, the United States proposed to cut ballistic missile warheads to a total of 5,000, with a maximum of 2,500 warheads on ICBMs. Bomber-carried weapons initially were excluded, but later were said to be negotiable.

The Soviet offer in September, which the Administration labeled a “counterproposal” because it came after the first U.S. offer, called for a 50% cut in “delivery systems” (missiles and bombers) that could reach the territory of the other side. This would leave the United States with 1,680 “relevant systems,” as the Soviets termed them, with a limit of 6,000 nuclear warheads and bombs on those systems.

Unilateral Reduction

The Soviets counted medium-range as well as long-range U.S. systems to reach a total of 3,340, and then halve it to 1,680, however. This meant that the medium-range systems also had to be reduced--a unilateral reduction, since medium-range Soviet systems were exempted because they could not reach U.S. territory--if any deal were to be struck.

Moscow’s offer also called for limiting any single “basing mode”--whether land-based missiles, sea-based missiles, or bombers--to carrying no more than 60% of the total “nuclear charges” allowable under the scheme.

This meant a maximum of 3,600 warheads on ICBMs under the Soviet plan, compared to the 3,000 warhead limit now proposed by the United States.