U.S. Within SALT Limits--White House

The United States is still within the limits of the unratified SALT II treaty despite movement of the 131st U.S. cruise-missile-carrying bomber from its hangar in Texas, the White House said today.

James P. Rubin, assistant director of the private Arms Control Assn., and some senior Administration officials who requested anonymity have been quoted as saying a key SALT II limit was exceeded when the bomber was wheeled outdoors.

However, White House spokesman Larry Speakes said, “The aircraft will not be counted in the so-called SALT II limits until it is deployed; we expect deployment by the end of the year, and it has not joined its operational unit.”

He said no decision had been made on whether anything else would be removed from the U.S. nuclear arsenal at the time the B-52 becomes operational.

President Reagan announced in May that the United States would no longer be bound by the unratified treaty. Both the United States and the Soviet Union had agreed previously to abide by the treaty limits as long as the other one did, but the Reagan Administration maintains that the Soviets violated it.

Unless something else is taken out of the arsenal, the 131st bomber would push the United States over a SALT II limit that constrains the total number of cruise-missile-carrying bombers and land and sea-based multiple warhead missiles.