U.S. to Again Delay Breaking SALT II Limits

In a move that would avoid adding a new stumbling block to progress on arms control, the Reagan Administration has decided to postpone deployment of new weapons that would break the SALT II treaty’s numerical limits on strategic nuclear weapons until at least next year, according to Administration officials, even though it formally renounced the treaty last May.

And in another potentially positive development, the Soviet Union has agreed to hold an unusual extra session of the Geneva arms negotiations in early December between formal rounds of those talks. Several officials said that, compared to previous public statements, Soviet negotiators privately took a somewhat “more positive” stand on arms issues at Geneva last week.

Radar Station at Issue

Moscow has also moved closer to acknowledging that its huge radar station at Krasnoyarsk, in Siberia, is a violation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, as the United States has insisted, according to a senior official.

As a result, while some U.S. officials remained skeptical, others expressed hope for a break next month in the arms control stalemate stemming from the Reykjavik summit last month and continuing with inconclusive meetings of Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze in Vienna last week.

Deployment Set Next Year

With regard to SALT II--the second strategic arms limitation treaty--the ceiling-busting 131st B-52 bomber, armed with cruise missiles, will not be deployed until next year, the Administration officials said. Originally scheduled to become operational Nov. 11, and then Dec. 22, this bomber would break the limit of 1,320 multi-warhead missiles and bombers set by the 1979 agreement.

The Administration may offset the deployment of the 131st bomber by dismantling another old submarine, which carries 16 missiles, rather than violate the SALT II limits even next year, according to the officials. The United States would thus remain in technical compliance with the agreement, which has been observed by both Washington and Moscow even though it was never ratified by the U.S. Senate.

Or, this country might go out of compliance briefly, then back into compliance in coming months as it exceeded the limits by deploying a handful of bombers before dismantling a submarine, officials said.

One senior official said the White House has already decided to retire at least one more submarine, but other officials could not confirm that. A Navy study of the merits of scrapping rather than refurbishing one or two submarines is due later this month, officials said.

Cost Effectiveness

If U.S. arsenals remain under the SALT II limits, the Administration will argue that the decision was made for cost effectiveness rather than political reasons, officials said. President Reagan’s announcement last May, that the United States will stop complying with the SALT II agreement, will continue to be U.S. policy.

While the Soviet actions raised hopes for progress on arms control, other officials said they suspect the Soviets agreed to the extra meeting in Geneva “only to take our temperature,” as one said. In this view, Moscow would use the special December session only to see whether the Administration is yet prepared to make concessions on its space defense program, which is known as the Strategic Defense Initiative but popularly called “Star Wars.”

The Soviets insist that the missile defense program must be restricted in exchange for new agreements reducing offensive nuclear weapons.

The Krasnoyarsk radar is the clearest Soviet violation of various U.S.-Soviet arms agreements, in the Administration’s view. The ABM treaty requires that such radars be located on the border of a country and be pointed outward, while the Krasnoyarsk radar is geographically comparable to a U.S. radar in St. Louis. In such a location, it could be part of a national anti-missile defense now prohibited by the treaty.

After initially denying any violation, the Soviets offered to halt work on Krasnoyarsk if the United States stopped modernizing two of its early-warning radars, at Fylingdales, England, and Thule, Greenland. Most recently, Moscow proposed trading only Thule for Krasnoyarsk. Now, a senior official said, the United States has “squeezed out” of the Soviets an additional “admission” that the radar is not in compliance with the treaty. He refused to provide details, however.

‘Fatally Flawed’ Pact

The President, who had branded the SALT II agreement “fatally flawed” from its earliest days, justified his decision to abandon the treaty by accusing the Soviets of violating various arms limitation agreements, continuing their military buildup, and failing to negotiate seriously toward a new arms reduction pact.

He said then that the United States would retire and dismantle two older, 16-missile Poseidon submarines to compensate for a new and bigger 24-missile Trident submarine, thereby remaining under the SALT II ceiling until the 131st B-52 bomber is equipped “for cruise missile carriage near the end of this year.”

But, he added, he intended to continue deployment of these bombers beyond the 131st aircraft “without dismantling additional U.S. systems as compensation.” At the same time, he expressed hope that the Soviets would take “constructive steps necessary to alter the current situation.” If they did, he would take it “into account,” Reagan said.

Non-binding resolutions calling on Reagan to stay within the limits have been passed by Congress, and foreign leaders, particularly in Britain and West Germany, urged the President to show further restraint.

The visit of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher here this weekend was responsible for moving the operational date for the new policy from November to December, officials said, and the coming West German parliamentary elections in January may have pushed deployment into the new year, they said.

Influence of Summit

In addition, the Administration may have been influenced by the Reykjavik summit meeting, at which the Soviets made significant arms concessions, as well as the reported new Soviet attitude on Krasnoyarsk and the chilling effect that breaking the treaty would have on arms negotiations.

The Soviets, for their part, warned that breaking the SALT II ceiling would “open the floodgates” to a new offensive arms race. But they also said they would respond to U.S. deeds, not words, indicating they would wait until the agreement was actually breached before reacting.

To some degree, the date when the 131st bomber becomes operational is arbitrary, according to arms experts. That bomber has already been outfitted with pylons to carry the cruise missiles, and moved from the conversion hangar to a secondary shop for painting.

By the terms of SALT II, the bomber should be counted as operational now, and Pentagon officials anxious to show U.S. resolve to break the treaty contend that SALT II has already been breached. But the White House has said that only when the bomber is deployed to its operational base at Fort Worth, Tex., will it count against treaty ceilings.

Beyond that deployment, at least 39 more B-52 bombers are scheduled to be converted to cruise missile carriers, at a rate of about two per month. Jack Mendelsohn of the Arms Control Assn. has calculated that if two Poseidon submarines, the Hamilton and the Kamehameha, are dismantled, their 32 missiles would be replaced over 16 months by converted bombers.

This would keep the Administration in technical compliance with SALT II until the final half year of its tenure when, with the presidential election approaching, it may decide to leave office without actually breaking out of the agreement, Mendelsohn said.

Times staff writer Don Cook contributed to this story from Paris.