Soviets Propose Ban on A-Arms : Offer May Be Constructive, Reagan Says

President Reagan on Wednesday welcomed the surprise new offer on arms control by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev on the eve of a new round of arms control negotiations, although he emphasized that only some parts of it “may be constructive” in the search for new agreements.

“I welcome the Soviets’ latest response and hope that it represents a helpful further step in the process,” the President said. “We, together with our allies, will give careful study to General Secretary Gorbachev’s suggestions. Many elements contained in the response are unchanged from previous Soviet positions and continue to cause us serious concern. There are others that at first glance may be constructive.”

‘Constructive Step’

If the position outlined by Gorbachev advances the objective of early progress toward radical cuts in offensive nuclear weapons, he said, “it would prove to be a constructive step.”

“At the least it keeps the momentum going,” one U.S. official said of the Gorbachev proposal, despite some embarrassment because senior Administration officials in recent days had predicted that Moscow would make no fresh arms control offer before late February in the negotiations, which resume today in Geneva.

Most outspoken in this respect was Kenneth L. Adelman, director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. “The ball is in their court,” he had said Tuesday, adding that “they owe us a complete response” to the last U.S. offer, made in early November.

Whether or not the Soviets felt challenged by such remarks, the way the Gorbachev plan was announced--read on Moscow television just hours after its reported delivery to the State Department--suggested that it was intended as much for propaganda as for serious negotiation.

Whatever the motive for its presentation, however, it contained at least three new elements that seemed to be more positive than in the past. Particularly attractive to Europeans will be the most promising aspect of Gorbachev’s offer: elimination of all intermediate-range Soviet and U.S. missiles from Europe if the British and French freeze their nuclear arsenals at present levels.

Moscow now has at least 243 SS-20 missiles, each with three warheads, in the European part of the Soviet Union, while Washington has deployed about 400 Pershing 2 and cruise missiles, each with one warhead.

This offer could remove the major issue that has blocked the intermediate-range negotiations since the Soviets demanded that the 144 British and French submarine-based nuclear missiles targeted on the Soviet Union should be counted in the U.S. total. These weapons contain 352 warheads now but are programmed to grow to more than 1,000 warheads in the 1990s.

Viewed as Long-Range

The Soviets now apparently intend to view the British and French missiles as long-range, or strategic, rather than intermediate-range, because they are capable of striking the Soviet Union and to take them up eventually in the context of the U.S.-Soviet strategic arms talks in Geneva. This could open the door to a separate agreement on the U.S.-Soviet intermediate-range missiles.

Three separate sets of arms control talks are being held simultaneously in Geneva, on strategic weapons, on intermediate-range weapons and on space-based and defensive weapons.

Some officials, however, believe that the Soviets may go to the brink of completing an agreement on intermediate-range weapons and then withhold final approval in an effort to pressure the Administration to halt its Strategic Defense Initiative, the space-based missile defense research program commonly known as “Star Wars.”

A second promising feature of the Gorbachev statement, in the U.S. views, is that while it repeats demands for curtailing SDI, it also calls for a ban only on “development, testing and deployment” of space defense weapons and omits the previous official Soviet demand that SDI research also must be prohibited.

Officials cautioned, however, that Gorbachev previously has suggested that space defense research could be permitted, although that position was not later put on the table at Geneva by Soviet negotiators. In addition, a Soviet official here said Wednesday that research aimed at space defense weapons must also be forbidden.

Greater Flexibility

Still, the new Soviet statement hints at greater flexibility than in the past on this point. If raised at Geneva, it could be the start of serious discussion on how to permit the United States to examine space defense concepts while putting constraints on the extent of such work.

A final element in the new Gorbachev plan is extension of the underground nuclear test moratorium for three months. On Aug. 6, the Kremlin undertook a unilateral test ban, to expire Jan. 1, and invited the United States to join. Under the new proposal, the Soviets will unilaterally extend the moratorium through March.

If the United States joins the moratorium, the Soviet official said, Moscow will allow on-site inspection on demand of its test sites when a suspected violation has occurred.

The Administration had refused the moratorium offer on grounds that the Soviets had just completed an intensive test series in July and could afford a pause, while the United States, with new warheads for the MX and Trident 2 missiles now under development, needs to complete its current test series before considering a ban.

However, the Administration is anxious to get Soviet and U.S. scientists together to discuss methods for verifying limited test bans, and the Gorbachev move to extend the moratorium keeps open the possibility of initiating such talks.

On Wednesday, Reagan recalled his various offers to abolish strategic and intermediate-range nuclear weapons. “The Soviet Union has responded with a proposal which builds on some of the elements which we had previously set forth,” he said.