U.S. to Offer New Arms Plan Next Week

New U.S. proposals to join the Soviet Union in eliminating all intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains, will be formally presented next week at the nuclear arms talks here, American officials said Thursday.

Final details of the new American position will be decided by President Reagan after he meets with his two senior arms control advisers, Paul H. Nitze and Edward L. Rowny, who have returned to Washington after briefing the European allies and Japan on the planned U.S. move.

The U.S. response to an offer, made public by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, to eliminate medium-range missiles in Europe will probably be presented by Max M. Kampelman, the chief U.S. negotiator in Geneva, at a plenary meeting of the two sides Thursday, the officials said.

According to these sources, who declined to be identified, the response of the European allies to the U.S. plan has been “very solid” in support of what amounts to a return to the “zero option” proposal on missiles in Europe that the Reagan Administration offered four years ago.

At that time, the United States told the Soviet Union that it was prepared to suspend plans to introduce new missiles into Europe if the Kremlin would scrap the SS-20 missiles it had already begun to deploy against Western Europe. The Soviets rejected that proposal.

In Japan, however, Rowny found strong concern about deployment of SS-20 missiles in Asia. Sources here say that the Chinese government has also told Washington that it wants to see a curtailment of missile deployment in Asia if there is any agreement to scrap the missiles in Europe.

At a minimum, therefore, the United States is expected to insist in its new proposals on a 50% reduction in Soviet missiles targeted on Japan and China. The Americans are also expected to reject any Soviet demand for a reduction in the existing independent nuclear forces of Britain and France.

If these issues can be settled in the coming months of talks, then a final agreement would require the United States to withdraw from Europe the medium-range missiles that it has deployed on behalf of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

These include 108 Pershing 2 missiles in West Germany and 128 cruise missiles based in West Germany, Britain, Italy and Belgium. It would not then be necessary for the Netherlands to proceed with the planned deployment of 48 cruise missiles on Dutch territory by 1988.

441 Soviet SS-20s

For its part, the Soviet Union would scrap all of its SS-20 missiles, each with three independently targeted warheads, that are aimed at Western Europe. According to U.S. intelligence figures, the Soviets have so far deployed 441 of these weapons, about 150 of them targeted on Asia.

The Soviet offer to eliminate its European-based missiles emerged in a package offered by Gorbachev on Jan. 15. He has said there would be no linkage between an accord on intermediate-range missiles and the U.S. “Star Wars” program.

The Soviets moved another step forward with a television interview given to a West German network Wednesday by Soviet Gen. Nikolai Chervov, who declared that if agreement can be reached with the United States “we do not propose to move these missiles elsewhere--they will be destroyed under painstaking and reliable national and international control, including inspections on site and on the spot.”