Soviets Offer West Limited Flyovers of Maneuvers

The Soviet Union, making what the White House called an essential move to reduce the risk of accidental European war, offered Friday to allow Western observers to inspect military maneuvers from Soviet airplanes flying over limited portions of Soviet territory.

Western negotiators at the 35-nation security conference in Stockholm, where the offer was made, said it could be accepted only if observers flew in aircraft of a neutral nation such as Switzerland, a condition at which the Soviets appeared to balk.

Despite that snag, however, Reagan Administration experts welcomed the Soviet concession as evidence that the two sides could reach an agreement on means to avoid accidental war before the Stockholm talks conclude Sept. 19.

A senior State Department official in Washington said the proposal means that “we’re now getting down to the major details” crucial to an agreement in the security talks. A White House official called the concession the Soviets’ first admission that “on-site inspection is an essential element” of any agreement.

“We encourage the Soviets to intensify their efforts and bring this to a concrete fruition,” he said. “Maybe it is leading to that.”

The security conference has been meeting since January, 1984, in search of ways to reduce the risk that either side might confuse the other’s military exercises with an actual enemy attack and launch a fatal counterstrike. That risk has been especially worrisome to some Western nations such as Norway, which are exposed to repeated feints and mock attacks from Soviet naval forces cruising in the Arctic Ocean.

The Soviets have openly lobbied in recent weeks for a quick agreement in the talks, hinting that a pact could smooth the path to a summit meeting later this year between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

First Indication

The Kremlin’s Friday proposal, one of two advanced this week, marks the first time that Soviet leaders have been willing to accept any aerial oversight of their military exercises. It follows another important pledge, made public on Wednesday, to specify those North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Warsaw Pact military exercises for which each side should give the other advance notice.

The top Soviet official at the talks, Marshal Sergei F. Akhromeyev, chief of the armed forces general staff, said Friday that the latest offer would allow foreign observers to view military exercises on parts of the Soviet Union’s sensitive Kola Peninsula and the surrounding Barents Sea north of the Arctic Circle. The peninsula and sea, home to much of the Soviets’ growing submarine fleet, lie just east of the northern borders of Norway and Finland.

Westerners would not be permitted to fly over military bases and other restricted areas, he said, but the off-limits areas would be of a reasonable size and no maneuvers within them would fall among those requiring an advance warning.

Pretext for Spying

The Soviets had argued previously that the chances for aerial observation of military maneuvers requested by foreigners were only pretexts for spying on their naval bases in the area. In conceding Friday that foreign observers could fly over the exercises, Akhromeyev appeared to insist that only the use of Soviet planes and pilots could ensure that no spying took place.

He held to that stance after the West German delegate to the talks, Klaus Citron, suggested that neutral-nation aircraft be used for overflights--a retreat from the West’s previous demand that the planes of Western nations be used.

“It is not the pilots who inspect, but the inspectors,” Akhromeyev said. “I do not see anything wrong with our proposal.”

He said foreign aircraft “could be stuffed with intelligence-gathering equipment which would verify not only the (military) activities but also installations that have nothing to do with verification.”

‘Significant Step’

In Washington, the official U.S. response to Akhromeyev’s comments was muted. State Department spokesman Charles Redman called the Soviet offer a “significant step toward effective verification” of military exercises and called for “intense negotiations” to resolve remaining differences on the overflight issue.

But a senior State Department official, speaking on the condition that he not be identified, said that, while the United States would prefer that the inspection be carried out by U.S. aircraft, “the fact that they would do it at all is more important than whose airplane it is.

“Aerial inspection in Soviet aircraft of Soviet territory is a real novelty,” said that official.

Bid for Flexibility

He credited the recent movement in the Stockholm talks to a desire by Gorbachev to avoid appearing inflexible on issues related to guarantees of compliance with international agreements. He said Gorbachev also has stressed an interest in moving toward broader disarmament talks, “and he can’t do that without” an agreement on lesser issues on the table in Stockholm.

The Soviet news agency Tass on Friday emphasized the importance of an agreement in the Stockholm talks, saying “a major step towards a change for the better in European affairs and on the international scene could be taken in this way.”

A Washington expert on NATO-Warsaw Pact relations, Michael Freney, said Friday that the Soviet offer was indeed an unusual diplomatic concession by the traditionally suspicious Soviets.

‘Somebody Else’s Deck’

But confining Western observers to Soviet aircraft without the electronics gear that a Western plane would carry “would be like saying you’re going to get yourself into a card game using somebody else’s deck,” he said.

“The hooker in their proposal clearly is that if it’s their airplane, they’re going to be able to control communications. So any ‘real-time’ observance of exercises, they can cut off instantly,” making it impossible for Western observers to warn of an attack disguised as a routine maneuver.

Michael Wines reported from Washington and James Gerstenzang from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Don Shannon, in Washington, also contributed to this story.