Allies Express Doubts on U.S. Stance on SALT

European and Canadian members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, jittery about the threat of an unchecked arms race, expressed strong doubts Thursday about President Reagan’s decision to end U.S. compliance with the unratified SALT II accord by the end of this year.

Most NATO foreign ministers accepted the U.S. explanation that Reagan’s action was the result of Soviet arms control violations, but warned that if the United States abrogates the pact, it would produce a dangerous anti-American backlash throughout the alliance.

‘Profoundly Disturbing’

Canadian External Affairs Minister Joe Clark, addressing the public opening session of the annual spring meeting of the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting, said Reagan’s decision was “a profoundly disturbing development, and one we hoped could have been avoided.”

“Let us hope the Soviet (compliance) record improves and that President Reagan’s May 27 announcement is not the final word on this issue,” he said.

A senior U.S. official said Washington could not quarrel with Clark’s hope that the situation would change, because “ideally, if the Soviets would get into conformity, that would be different. They have until the end of the year.”

Secretary of State George P. Shultz held the floor for most of the afternoon session, explaining Reagan’s position in detail, a participant in the meeting said.

The participant, who asked not to be identified by name or nationality, said Shultz explained that the United States believes the second strategic arms limitation treaty must be replaced by a system of mutual restraint “that is truly effective.”

Nevertheless, a British official said after the session that his government had not changed its initial objections to possible U.S. abrogation of SALT II. And he scoffed at U.S. suggestions that Europeans would support the United States’ stand if they understood it better.

“We certainly have the clearest possible understanding of the American motivations,” the official said. “The reasons are plain as they can be. But I don’t think in light of what we heard today we would change” the position urging continued U.S. compliance.

The senior U.S. official, who asked not to be identified by name, conceded that Clark and his European colleagues are concerned about the impact on public opinion in their nations.

“In an alliance of democracies, a collapse of public confidence could bring down the whole structure,” NATO officials said.

The U.S. official said that several of the European foreign ministers cited public opinion polls showing that it was often unpopular for allied governments to follow the U.S. policy lead.

“If the governments can come together, that doesn’t mean the publics do,” the official said, adding that the allied foreign ministers “are aware of that irony--it has come up time after time.”

In response to those comments, Shultz said, according to the participant, that “the worst thing NATO could do would be to gear policies to public relations.”

Lord Carrington, the NATO secretary general, has warned that the alliance’s strength and unity could be in danger if “some people in the United States and some in Western Europe continue to indulge in what I might call a megaphone cartoonery--Eurowimps in one set of papers and American cowboys in the other.”

In his speech to the opening session, Carrington said the allied nations “must always be ready to explain in some detail why it may not be possible to go a little faster here or to settle for a little less there” in order to bring about arms control agreements with the Soviet Union.

Similarly, several allied foreign ministers urged the United States to act with restraint in its effort to combat terrorism. The U.S. official attributed that attitude also to concerns about European public opinion.

“Our own responses to terrorism, and the way these responses affect relationships within the alliance, are as important as terrorism itself,” Clark said. “The last thing we want is to see international terrorism succeed where the Soviet Union has failed, in dividing us.”

Icelandic Foreign Minister Matthias A. Mathiesen, current president of the North Atlantic Council under a rotation system, said the Western democracies must not adopt the moral code of the terrorist states that they seek to combat.

“Western nations are faced with a multitude of cowardly acts to which they cannot respond in kind because they will be--and should be--judged by stricter moral standards than their adversaries,” he said.