Soviets to Build Up if U.S. Scraps SALT : Pact’s End Will ‘Open Floodgate’ for All-Out Arms Race, Kremlin Warns

The Soviet government said in a formal statement Saturday that it will build up its own forces to preserve strategic “parity” if the United States scraps SALT II, the never-ratified strategic arms limitation treaty of 1979.

The statement, carried by the official news agency Tass, charged that President Reagan had virtually announced that he will ignore ceilings on strategic arms by the end of this year. The White House quickly rejected the accusation.

Last Tuesday, Reagan said that unless the Soviets improve their record of compliance with the second strategic arms limitation agreement, he will not feel bound by the treaty when deployment of new airborne cruise missiles later this year puts the United States above the limits prescribed in the document. Reagan has accused the Soviets of already violating the treaty, and Secretary of State George P. Shultz has termed the accord obsolete.

‘Uncontrolled Rate’

Reagan’s decision will “open the floodgate for an uncontrolled race of arms,” Tass said, and destroy the framework for future arms control agreements.

“As soon as the U.S.A. goes beyond the established levels of arms or otherwise violates the other main provisions of the agreements observed by the two sides until now, the Soviet Union will consider itself free from the relevant commitments . . . and will take the necessary practical steps to prevent the military-strategic parity from being upset,” the statement said.

“These measures will rule out the possibility of the United States’ acquiring advantages in the main types of new strategic arms that it is developing now and which it intends to press into service,” the statement added.

The statement expanded and intensified a warning issued last Wednesday by Tass. The official news service, without quoting specific government authority, had said that if the United States discards the treaty, the Soviet Union “will draw the necessary conclusions and take measures to protect its allies and its own security.”

Saturday’s statement said that Reagan’s stand does nothing to improve the political atmosphere or better chances for resolving arms control issues in ways that would justify a second Soviet-American summit.

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev has delayed setting a date for a meeting with Reagan in the United States on the ground that such a meeting must deal with at least one or two major security issues and requires a friendlier political climate.

Reagan has decided to dismantle two old submarines carrying Poseidon missiles when a new Trident submarine is launched. Tass, however, brushed the matter aside, saying that Reagan’s intention is aimed at saving money rather than staying within SALT II limits. The White House has acknowledged that the submarines are being dismantled for budgetary reasons.

Clinging to Summit Hopes

In Washington on Saturday, a White House spokesman rejected the charge that Reagan has touched off an arms race and maintained that there has been no change in expectations that a summit meeting with the Soviet Union will be held this year.

The aide, Edward P. Djerejian, disputed the Tass contention that the United States has undermined the SALT II accord, declaring that “the President is still advocating restraints.”

“We feel very strongly that the U.S. case is clear in this area,” Djerejian said., “In our view, the pattern of Soviet non-compliance (with the 1979 treaty) is absolutely clear, and therefore these assertions by the Soviets are baseless.” The Tass statement also rejected Reagan’s assertions that the plan to ignore the arms treaty is justified on grounds that Moscow is already violating it. Such charges, it declared, were “unfounded from beginning to end.”

Kremlin Campaign

Ever since Reagan’s announcement last week, the Soviet Union has conducted a strong campaign against the abandonment of the 1972 and 1979 strategic arms limitation treaties, known as SALT I and SALT II. It said they are a keystone of mutual security and a useful check on a new arms race.

The first treaty, imposing limits on defensive missile systems, was negotiated into final form by the Administration of President Richard M. Nixon and ratified by the Senate. The second treaty, concluded in 1979 and still unratified, imposed limits on offensive weapons systems.

The second treaty had to be withdrawn by then-President Jimmy Carter amid widespread hostility to it in the U.S. Senate after the Soviets’ December, 1979, invasion of Afghanistan. Reagan, who had long and vigorously opposed the accord, decided in the interests of superpower restraint to observe its negotiated ceilings as long as the Soviets did.

On Saturday, however, the Soviet statement charged: “The President’s decision signifies that the present U.S. leadership has resorted to an exceptionally dangerous measure in the cause of destroying the treaty system that curbs the nuclear arms race and thereby creates conditions for the conclusion of new agreements.”

The U.S. decision to equip heavy bombers with cruise missiles at the end of 1986, the Soviet statement said, means that Washington will exceed the limit of 1,320 strategic delivery vehicles. Reagan said he did not plan to dismantle existing missile launchers to stay within SALT II ceilings.

‘All-Embracing Buildup’

“The U.S. Administration has virtually taken a course toward fully implementing an all-embracing strategic nuclear buildup program . . . which to a certain extent is restrained by the SALT agreements,” the Soviet agency said.

This approach, it went on, would undermine the foundation of the process for limiting and reducing the number of strategic and offensive arms held by each superpower.

White House spokesman Djerejian contended that Reagan “has gone the extra mile” over the last four years in trying “to deal patiently and firmly with the pattern of Soviet non-compliance.”

Pointing out that he was responding to a Tass statement rather than a formal government note, Djerejian said, “The President continues to hope that the Soviet Union will take the constructive steps needed to change the current situation,” and he called on the Kremlin to show “true mutual restraint” and “a positive response at the negotiating table.”

To a suggestion that last week’s exchanges have impaired chances that a summit meeting will be held in 1986, the White House aide replied that the United States “proceeds on the assumption that the summit will take place this year” and has received “absolutely no indication that the situation is otherwise.”