Senate Panel and House Urge Full SALT Compliance

The Democratic-dominated House and the GOP-controlled Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday approved non-binding resolutions calling on President Reagan to continue to abide by the 1979 strategic arms limitation treaty with the Soviet Union.

In the House, the vote was 256 to 145, with 37 Republicans siding with the Democratic majority. In a closed session of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. William S. Cohen (R-Me.) voted with the Democrats to narrowly approve the resolution, 10-9.

The votes, reflecting a growing disenchantment among members of both parties with Reagan’s arms control policy, were portrayed by many lawmakers as Congress’ first step down a path that could lead to binding legislation that would force the President to reverse his May 27 decision to abandon SALT II, which was never ratified.

“This ought to send the President a powerful signal,” said Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.), author of the Senate resolution. He predicted that it would have a “better-than-even chance” of being approved by the full Senate.

Despite GOP support for the resolutions, Republicans dismissed them as election-year posturing by Democrats. Rep. William S. Broomfield (R-Mich.) said congressional action would only “send a message that arms control in the United States is a partisan matter.”

Trim in ‘Star Wars’

At the same time, the House Armed Services Committee voted 8 to 5 to trim $1.4 billion from Reagan’s $4.8-billion fiscal 1987 budget request for development of his space-based Strategic Defense Initiative. The program, dubbed “Star Wars,” has been a principal sticking point in arms control talks in Geneva.

Today, the Senate Armed Services Committee is expected to follow suit and vote to cut Reagan’s SDI request. A subcommittee has already trimmed the program to $4 billion, and the full committee is expected to cut even deeper.

Hart said the SDI cuts indicated congressional concern over Reagan’s arms control policy as well as what he described as “a growing disillusionment in Congress with technological fixes” in the wake of the Challenger space shuttle disaster.

‘Awesome Gravity’

House Majority Leader Jim Wright (D-Tex.) said supporters of the SALT resolution hoped it would persuade the President to reconsider his position before they set out to enact binding legislation that would force him to adhere to the treaty. “The President must be made to understand the awesome gravity of this situation,” he said.

The House-passed resolution calls on Reagan to continue to abide by the specific limits imposed by the treaty on a variety of nuclear weapons as long as the Soviets continue to do so. At the same time, it acknowledges Reagan’s contention that the Soviets have violated other aspects of the treaty.

Before passing the resolution, the House voted 222 to 187 against an amendment offered by Broomfield that would have voided U.S. adherence to the treaty if the Soviets had violated any part of it.

But the House did agree, by a vote of 406 to 0, to a Republican-inspired maneuver designed to add language expressing support for the efforts of U.S. arms negotiators in Geneva to obtain substantial mutual reductions in nuclear arms. Administration officials have said they are abandoning SALT II limits in an effort to focus more attention on the need for arms reduction.

New Arms Race Feared

Democrats argued that abandonment of the SALT II limits would trigger a new arms race that the Soviets are prepared to win. “It would be shooting ourselves not in the foot but in the head,” said Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

Republicans, on the other hand, asserted that continued U.S. adherence to the treaty is foolish in light of Soviet violations, including deployment of the mobile SS-25 missile.

“I hope this kind of thinking doesn’t catch on or we’ll have preachers telling people that it’s OK to ignore Commandments 4, 6 and 10 as long as you obey the rest,” said Minority Leader Robert Michel (R-Ill.).

Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) said SALT II is “a paper pussy cat” because it was never ratified by the Senate and would have expired by now even if it had been ratified. The treaty, after being initialed, was withdrawn from Senate consideration by President Jimmy Carter when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.

Calling the Bluff

In the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) said he would try today to call the bluff of those who supported the SALT resolution by proposing that they also vote on ratification of the treaty. Even many of those who support continued compliance with SALT II share Reagan’s opinion that it is a flawed treaty because it does not reduce nuclear arsenals.

In a letter delivered Thursday to Congress, Reagan said the United States will take into account the “nature and magnitude of the threat posed by Soviet strategic forces” in determining whether to retire older missiles as it adds new ones.

The President’s statement, in a report that he is required to make to congressional leaders on U.S. and Soviet strategic forces, restated the position the Administration has laid down since Reagan said he would no longer be bound by the unratified SALT treaty.

At that time, Reagan also decided to retire two Poseidon submarines at the same time that a new missile-bearing Trident submarine is joining the fleet.

Technical Observance

As a result of this decision, Reagan said, “the United States will remain technically in observance of the SALT II treaty for some months.”

“We continue to hope that the Soviet Union will use this additional time to take the constructive steps needed to alter the current situation,” he said. “Should they do so, we will take this into account” in deciding whether to deploy the 131st refurbished B-52 bomber, which would put the United States in violation of the treaty.

Testifying before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on defense, Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that Reagan’s willingness to ignore the limits of the treaty was supported by the service chiefs.

The senior military officers in the past have reportedly favored adhering to the limitations of the agreement, out of concern that the Soviet Union, unrestrained by the treaty, could make greater strategic gains than could the United States.

Responding to Crowe, Senate Minority Leader Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) suggested that the United States should not “cloud the atmosphere” by abandoning SALT II during the arms limitation talks in Geneva.

But Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, who was sitting at Crowe’s side, replied: “All during the time that the atmosphere was unclouded, what was the Soviet response? It was to continue to deploy the SS-25.”