U.S. Arms Control Stance Not Weakened, Soviets Told

Chief U.S. arms control negotiator Max Kampelman, urging his Soviet counterpart not to “miscalculate” the impact of the Iran arms scandal, warned him not to assume that it has placed the United States in a weakened bargaining position, a senior Administration official said Thursday.

So far, during negotiations in Geneva, there has been no sign that the Soviet Union has tried to take advantage of the tumultuous climate in Washington resulting from the disclosure that money paid by Iran for American weapons was diverted to Swiss bank accounts to help fund Nicaraguan rebels, the official said.

But the source, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified, said: “I am worried about it.

“I’m worried about a miscalculation on their part,” he said of the Soviets. “Should they come to the conclusion that it is a weakened President and that, as a result of that, the weakened President will be making concessions that he would otherwise not make--if they base their strategy on that miscalculation, we will end up without an agreement.”

Raised Point With Soviets

Kampelman has raised this point with Viktor Karpov, the chief Soviet negotiator at the Geneva arms control talks, the official said, briefing reporters at the White House on informal talks conducted recently with Soviet officials.

“It will be in neither of our interests for them to miscalculate,” he said. “We will not make concessions that we believe are contrary to our interests, nor will we make concessions that will damage the SDI program. And they have to understand that.”

The SDI program is President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, the research project intended to determine the feasibility of building a space-based missile defense system. Reagan has adamantly refused to budge on the SDI program, the issue over which he and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev deadlocked at the Iceland summit meeting in October.

The senior official also said that, at the talks last week in Geneva, the Soviet Union continued to balk at committing to paper the results of the Reykjavik meeting.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State George P. Shultz--in Brussels as a two-day North Atlantic Treaty Organization foreign ministers meeting started--sought to assure the allies that the Iran- contras crisis would not torpedo U.S. foreign policy or block progress in arms control negotiations, a senior U.S. official said.

“The principal concern on the issue (by the allies) was that the situation in Washington should not get in the way of an effective American foreign policy,” the official said.

Treaty Violation Cited

And in a related development, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger in a speech here cited as he has in the past a Soviet radar facility under construction at Krasnoyarsk as a violation of the U.S.-Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Weinberger, making his remarks in response to Gorbachev’s most recent assertion that the Soviet Union was continuing to adhere to the limits of the second strategic arms limitation treaty, also called attention to three new radar facilities under construction at classified locations.

The new units are on the periphery of the Soviet Union and are not considered violations of the treaty, a Pentagon official said. However, there is concern that with these radars, the Soviets may be building the basis for a national ABM system.

The official said that Pentagon experts say the three new radar units complete a ring of radar coverage, and that the units--about 400 to 500 feet long and 27 stories tall--are intended to detect and track long-range ballistic missiles.

In addition, Weinberger said that Gorbachev was lying when he asserted in Moscow at a dinner for the visiting Yugoslav Communist Party leader, Milanko Renovica, that his nation would continue to abide by the limits of the 1979 strategic arms treaty.

‘The Ultimate Hypocrisy’

The “ultimate (Soviet) hypocrisy is their recent statement that they will continue to observe SALT II’s limits, with their atheistic hands piously raised, proclaiming another Soviet lie,” the Pentagon chief said in a speech to state legislators.

At the same time, the Pentagon said the United States would activate its 132nd B-52 bomber remodeled to carry nuclear-tipped cruise missiles next month, in violation of the limits set by the 1979 treaty.

The United States broke the treaty limits Nov. 28 when it deployed the 131st modified bomber, and Pentagon spokesman Robert B. Sims said the 132nd would be activated at K. I. Sawyer Air Force Base in Michigan next month.

In his speech, Weinberger said the Soviet Union had deployed 72 SS-25 nuclear missiles in violation of the treaty, adding that the President’s decision to break the treaty’s limits was “subjected to truly bizarre criticism.”

“The treaty was never ratified” by the Senate, he said. “If it had been ratified, it would have expired in December, 1985. And the Soviets have repeatedly and flagrantly failed to uphold the major provisions of the treaty.”