U.S. to Offer Extension of ABM Treaty : But It Seeks OK for More Than Research on Space Defenses

The Reagan Administration is preparing to propose a five-year extension of the existing Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty as well as 50% reductions in strategic offensive weapons, sources said Thursday, but on the condition that the treaty be more liberally interpreted to allow more than research on space defenses.

The proposal, which could be sent to Moscow within a week, followed consultations with U.S. allies abroad. Reaction from the key European nations generally was positive, officials said.

But the Kremlin is expected to balk at the key condition--”even scream, at least publicly,” one U.S. official said--because it had entered the current strategic arms negotiations seeking to ban all work on the Administration’s space defense program, known formally as the Strategic Defense Initiative and popularly as “Star Wars.”

Although the new proposal would not explicitly offer to delay deployment of a space-based defense, it would signal that the Administration recognizes Soviet concerns about the SDI program and its effect on the 1972 ABM Treaty and is willing to negotiate seriously about them.

“It is a mixed proposal but better than a stingy proposal,” said another official sympathetic to arms control efforts. “There are elements in it that are new,” he added, “and we just hope it won’t throw them (the Soviets) off.”

Summit Delay Feared

The concern is that the Kremlin may see so little in the offer that it will further postpone the next summit meeting, now expected in November or December, and thereby abort the recent progress in arms control efforts and in U.S.-Soviet relations for the rest of President Reagan’s term.

The new U.S. position, to be conveyed in a letter from President Reagan to Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, will be framed in general terms, officials said, with details to be provided when the formal Geneva arms talks resume Sept. 18.

On offensive nuclear weapons, it is expected to state that the Administration:

--Still seeks a 50% cut in long-range missiles and their warheads but, in view of the more modest Soviet offer last month, is willing to reduce incrementally toward the 50% goal. The Soviets offered a 33% cut in missiles and bombers and a 20% cut in warheads and bombs.

--Still seeks to eliminate all intermediate-range missiles in Europe and Asia--the so-called “zero-zero” option--but is willing to work toward that goal in stages, with proportional cuts toward equal ceilings.

The most contentious issue will be space defenses and Soviet efforts to link the Strategic Defense Initiative to cuts in offensive forces.

Deployment Restriction

Under their last offer, the Soviets proposed that cuts in offensive weapons be contingent on prohibiting deployment of a space defense system for 15 to 20 years, in addition to tightening restrictions on SDI research.

In Administration discussions about responding to the Soviets, the Pentagon opposed any concessions on space defense, while the State Department proposed a five- or six-year extension of the ABM treaty. Final discussions on the draft proposal were confined to four people: Reagan, Defense Secretary Casper W. Weinberger, Secretary of State George P. Shultz and national security adviser John M. Poindexter.

And, one senior official said: “What emerged was pure Reagan.”

The key provision, as it went to allies, would extend the ABM Treaty for five years but would allow both sides to “carry on research, development and testing of the SDI program as permitted by the treaty,” one source said. Only the actual deployment of a defense system would be prohibited, according to that language.

State-Defense Compromise

The draft proposal represented a compromise between the State Department, which sought to extend the treaty, and the Defense Department, which wanted the more permissive interpretation of its provisions to permit development and testing. Unless SDI is freed of testing restraints, the Pentagon maintains, the program will not survive after Reagan leaves office in two years.

The Soviets, however, are expected to object vigorously to reinterpreting the treaty in this more permissive way, officials said.

Until last year, both sides interpreted the treaty to mean that only research was permitted--not development, testing or deployment (construction) of a defense system.

But Administration officials decided that such an interpretation applied only to conventional rocketry known at the time the treaty was signed 14 years ago. SDI, on the other hand, aims at using “other physical principles,” such as exotic lasers and other energy beams.

However, faced with an outcry from Congress as well as Moscow, the Administration had announced that, while a broader interpretation is justifiable, it would stick to the narrower view.