Uproar Expected in Congress Over Dropping Treaty

President Reagan’s apparent decision to abandon the second strategic arms limitation accord is expected to provoke an uproar in Congress this week, with many members offering legislation to force the Administration to continue to abide by the unratified 1979 treaty.

Although most members were in their home districts last Tuesday--vacationing or campaigning for reelection--when Reagan announced his plan, congressional aides predicted that liberal and moderate lawmakers will move swiftly to block a threatened move by the Administration to exceed the SALT II treaty limits later this year.

On Monday, Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, will try to generate support for such legislation by distributing copies of a committee study showing that an end to the treaty would permit a faster increase in the Soviet strategic arsenal than that of the United States by the 1990s.

Aides to several senators of both parties were drafting a binding resolution, one that would require continued U.S. compliance with the SALT II accord.

“This thing is going to take off next week,” a Senate Democratic aide, who declined to be further identified, predicted Saturday.

Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.), a leading proponent of the second strategic arms treaty, said in a telephone interview that he will consult with a number of other senators who share his views, including Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), John H. Chafee (R-R.I.), and John Heinz (R-Pa.), to decide what steps they will take to persuade the President to abide by the treaty.

Before proposing legislation, Bumpers said, the senators will probably request “an audience” with Reagan to argue their case.

“SALT II is the only treaty, ratified or unratified, that keeps the nuclear arms race under control,” he continued. “We are not constrained one bit by SALT II, and we already have the ability to blow the Soviet Union off the map 50 times over. Why anybody wants the ability to blow them off the map 60 times over beats me.”

Restraints on Moscow

Bumpers argued that the treaty will require the Soviet Union to dismantle 10 times as many missiles as the United States over the next year and a half. He added that Soviet treaty violations have not been significant enough to warrant scrapping the prevailing limits. Congressional opposition to the President’s decision is expected to be effective, since more than 220 House members and 54 senators recently signed open letters calling on Reagan to continue to abide by the limits.

No one was ready to predict how stringent a bill might pass Congress, however. The options range from a non-binding resolution to a flat refusal by Congress to appropriate any money for weapons that would violate the 1979 treaty.

Both the House and Senate have previously passed “sense of the Congress” resolutions calling for continued compliance. Any more stringent measure enacted by Congress would face a likely veto by Reagan, requiring both chambers to muster two-thirds majorities in order to override the President.

‘To the Mat’

“If the President decides to go to the mat on this, I think the vote in the Senate will be very close, “ Bumpers said. Rep. Dante B. Fascell (D-Fla.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said an Administration move to undercut SALT II “would unravel the arms control regime of the last 15 years (and) give the Soviets legal license to deploy thousands of new and dangerous weapons against the United States.”

Similarly, Sen. Albert Gore (D-Tenn.), returning from a visit to the site of the U.S.-Soviet arms control talks in Geneva, said Reagan’s decision would torpedo those talks and leave the prospects for strategic arms reduction “hanging by a thread.”

Although many members of Congress agreed with Reagan’s decision to dismantle two aging Poseidon nuclear submarines, thus remaining in short-term compliance with the treaty, they were upset by the President’s threat to break out of the limits later this year by pressing ahead with a program to equip B-52 bombers with cruise missiles.

A staff aide to the House Armed Services Committee, who asked not to be named, said that Reagan apparently chose to make his controversial announcement during a congressional recess in order to “get ahead” of the anticipated storm of criticism from Congress.

‘Trial Balloon’

“I think it’s really a trial balloon designed to allow the Administration to measure the reaction, both at home and abroad,” the staff member said. “I don’t think it’s a final decision.”

If Congress moves to block the President, he predicted, Reagan will decide to dismantle more Poseidon submarines, citing “economic reasons.”

A spokesman for Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) was “very dissatisfied” by the President’s announcement, but Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) was said by his staff to advocate abandoning the treaty. Wilson recently was one of 22 senators who sent a letter calling on Reagan to respond in kind to Soviet violations of existing arms control treaties.

The first strategic arms limitation treaty, imposing limits on defensive missile systems, was concluded in 1972 and ratified by the Senate. The second treaty, concluded in 1979 and still unratified, imposed limits on offensive weapons systems.

Opposition but Compliance

Although the Senate has never approved the SALT II treaty and Reagan has condemned it as being “fatally flawed,” the Administration has until now maintained a policy of not exceeding the limit of 1,200 land- or sea-launched multiple-warhead missiles established in the 1979 pact.

According to the House Armed Services Committee report that Aspin plans to distribute Monday, the Soviets are in a better position than the United States to benefit from the abandonment of the accord.

The report predicts that in the absence of SALT II strictures, the number of deployed Soviet weapons would grow 65% by the end of 1989, while the United States’ arsenal could expand by only 45%.

Aspin’s study also found that the Soviets would be more capable of adding warheads to missiles that have already been deployed. It added that any increase in the Soviets’ missile arsenal would also improve their ability to counter an American anti-missile system.