Americans May Monitor Soviet A-Tests

The Soviet Union announced Wednesday that it is prepared to allow American non-governmental scientists to staff stations in the Soviet Union to monitor underground nuclear tests, according to a published report.

The New York Times reported in today’s editions that the arrangement, which was signed Wednesday in Moscow, is contingent upon Washington’s approval for the Soviets to monitor tests in the United States.

Western diplomats who talked to the newspaper said this is the first time the Soviet Union has expressed readiness to carry out a specific plan for on-site inspection.

Might Serve as Model

The diplomats also told the newspaper that the plan, although not a government-to-government agreement, might serve as a model for resolving differences over the verification of arms control treaties, particularly those limiting nuclear explosions.

However, the newspaper also reported that officials in Washington said they are withholding judgment on the plan and that they expressed wariness over an arrangement that would have Soviet government scientists monitor tests in the United States while limiting American participation to private citizens.

Earlier this year, President Reagan invited the Soviets to send representatives to Nevada to monitor a nuclear test there and examine the U.S. system of measuring test yields. Moscow turned down the invitation, and the United States rejected the Soviet proposal that Washington join the Kremlin’s unilateral ban on testing.

The new plan was contained in an agreement signed by Yevgeny P. Velikhov, a vice president of the Academy of Sciences, and Adrian W. DeWind, chairman of the Natural Resource Defense Council, a private environmental group based in New York.

The plan, according to the paper, calls for the installation, beginning next month, of three seismic stations in the Soviet Union to monitor explosions in the nuclear proving grounds, 90 miles west of Semipalatinsk, in Kazakhstan. The stations would be staffed by the American civilian scientists.

Under the plan, Soviet scientists, all of whom work for the government, would establish similar stations in the United States to monitor explosions at the Nevada proving ground.

California Mentioned

Thomas B. Cochran, a staff scientist with the American group, and Frank von Hippel, a professor of public and international affairs at Princeton University who participated in the negotiations, told the paper that the Soviet monitoring stations could probably be set up on private university property in California.

DeWind said he and other members of his group had discussed the plan informally with the Reagan Administration before going to Moscow. He said that State Department officials raised no immediate objection to the plan, although they made no commitment to go along with it.