Guessing Game

Few Americans--few admirals, for that matter --know how many Minuteman 3 missiles carry MK-12A nuclear warheads. Most of us leave that kind of detail to the experts and rely on body language to tell us whether arms-control negotiating positions make sense.

Thus it is intriguing this week to find so many strategic experts puzzled by President Reagan’s remarks about “Star Wars” to four Soviet correspondents at the White House.

The White House transcript of the interview had the President saying that the space-based shield that he insists will make nuclear missiles obsolete would not be put into place until offensive weapons had been dismantled.

“I have said . . . that if such a weapon is possible--and our research reveals that--then our move will be to say to all the world, ‘Here, it is available,’ ” the President said. “We won’t put this weapon--or this system--in place . . . until we do away with our nuclear missiles, our offensive missiles.”

White House aides often explain or correct impressions that the President leaves in some of his off-the-cuff remarks. This time they stepped forward to explain that he had simply repeated an earlier offer to share Star Wars technology with the Soviets.

But he went far beyond the old offer to share technology--an offer that in any event the Soviets have brushed aside as unrealistic, inasmuch as the United States will not even sell the Soviets children’s toys with certain microchips in them.

The transcript clearly shows not only that he said the system would not go into place until offensive weapons had been bargained out of existence but also that he said it twice more in different language.

Most arms-control specialists found that new. Some concluded that it did not make sense, seeming to give the Soviet Union veto power over Star Wars that it could exercise simply by refusing to negotiate levels of nuclear missiles downward.

Analysts usually conclude when the President says something that seems to be entirely new that he has misunderstood his advisers. It is entirely possible that it is the advisers who have misunderstood the President, and that he was sending a signal to Moscow that Star Wars can be negotiated along with other aspects of arms control.

Using body language, he may have been creating the context in which he might accept restraints on defensive systems--first, a backing down from huge nuclear arsenals, to be followed by defensive systems, if they ever materialized.

We may never know. But that is the sort of possibility that makes guessing about the summit so interesting and provides so many chances to be wrong--or even to be right.