Soviets Make New Offer on Missiles in Europe

The Soviet Union proposed at the Geneva arms talks Thursday that U.S. and Soviet intermediate-range missiles in Europe be reduced to zero, but U.S. officials here said the offer only puts into formal language an earlier Moscow proposal.

The U.S. officials promised to study the new proposal in detail for any changes in wording that might suggest progress. But they said it still contains the major drawbacks of the proposal made by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev on Jan. 15. These include a failure to address what to do with the same kind of missiles in Soviet Asia and Moscow’s insistence that British and French missiles of the same range be frozen at current levels.

Some U.S. officials speculated that the Soviet move was timed to distract attention from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident that spread radiation over the Earth. One senior official said he doubts that the Soviets are ready to present any meaningful and substantive new arms offer at this time.

Necessary Move

Nevertheless, formal presentation of a proposal is a necessary move in the arms negotiating process, providing a framework within which to bargain seriously toward an accord. And for this reason, another U.S. official saw it as a “significant step” because it now permits the two sides to argue about specific differences in their positions.

The move also appears to be the first time in the 14 months since the talks began that the Soviets have taken a step in Geneva without announcing it publicly at the same time in Moscow.

But chief U.S. negotiator Max M. Kampelman said in Switzerland that the Soviet proposal was “merely a formal (draft) treaty carrying out statements they had previously made to us.”

Moreover, in Washington, White House spokesman Larry Speakes said that “our initial scan and advice from our delegation indicates there are not any new and startling approaches in the Soviet proposal.”

‘Seeking Common Ground’

“It appears at first glance to be a more formal codification of previous Soviet statements,” Speakes said, “but we will certainly analyze the proposal to see whether this constitutes constructive movement toward seeking common ground.

“We hope this would indicate that the Soviets are becoming serious,” he added.

Gorbachev, in a wide-ranging speech in January that called for total nuclear disarmament by the year 2000, proposed the elimination from the European continent of missiles with a range of 1,000 to 3,000 miles. Such weapons include the Soviet SS-20 and the U.S. Pershing 2 ballistic missile and the ground-launched cruise missile, all of which are mobile.

After consultation with European allies, Japan and China, the U.S. government made a counteroffer in February--reduction of intermediate-range missiles in Europe to zero within three years and “proportionate” reduction of the missiles in Asia.

The Soviet offer also called for a freeze on the current British and French programs to modernize their missile systems by installing more warheads on their submarine-launched missiles.

They also demanded that the United States promise not to supply such weapons to those two nations. The Reagan Administration has refused to consider any limitations on the European states.