Soviets May Bypass Geneva Arms Talks : Gorbachev’s Speech Reinforces Hints on Kremlin’s Strategy

The absence of new arms proposals in Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s speech Monday reinforced earlier hints that the Soviet Union will seek to bypass the Geneva negotiations in coming weeks, perhaps inviting Secretary of State George P. Shultz to Moscow next month, in an effort to break the post-Reykjavik impasse on arms control, according to U.S. officials.

No invitation to Shultz has been received yet, although one senior official predicted it would be issued. Even if it is tendered, however, the official said, Shultz will want some advance sign of seriousness by the Soviets, because the Kremlin still appears to be primarily intent on making propaganda out of the failed U.S.-Soviet summit of last October rather than moving toward substantive agreement.

The Soviet leader himself has disparaged the Geneva talks on occasion, once referring to their results as “Geneva garbage.” And his recent choice of Yuli M. Vorontsov to head the Soviet delegation there had been seen by some as a sign that the Kremlin wished to move past Geneva to a “ministerial level” where broad political rather than technical negotiations could occur.

Sees Self as ‘Catalyst’

Vorontsov, who as first deputy Soviet foreign minister has responsibilities for Afghanistan and other world hot spots, has told U.S. officials that he does not intend to participate directly in the Geneva talks but sees his role as a “catalyst to make things happen.”

The Gorbachev address Monday, before an international peace forum in Moscow, will be studied “very carefully” here, an Administration official said. “But at first glance, it has no new proposals.”

If a new offer were to be made, Gorbachev probably would have signaled it in his address to the peace forum, officials said, and thereby won added propaganda mileage.

Instead, he continued the same Soviet line that emerged from his meeting with President Reagan at the U.S.-Soviet summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, last October: that U.S. anti-missile defense efforts under the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also called “Star Wars,” are preventing a major new arms agreement and threatening the world with a new and destabilizing arms race in space.

Gorbachev’s effort to split the Administration from the Congress, and the United States from its European allies, was evident in the way he sought to pour more fuel on the recent squabble here over whether to reinterpret the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to permit more aggressive research and testing of SDI components in space as well as on Earth.

Argument in Washington

“While the argument on this continues in Washington and between the NATO allies,” Gorbachev said, “the Administration has already officially in Geneva proposed such an interpretation.”

North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies have expressed concern about Administration deliberations earlier this month over possibly abandoning the traditional narrow ABM treaty interpretation, which permits only research on new anti-missile systems, in favor of the broad interpretation that would permit testing. And key congressmen warned that unless Congress is consulted, an abrupt reinterpretation of a treaty already ratified into law by Congress could produce a profound “constitutional confrontation.”

In fact, the United States told the Soviets in the previous negotiation session last fall that “we (the United States) are going for the broad interpretation” in the absence of a new agreement, according to a senior Administration official. This position was also clear in Reagan’s negotiating proposals at the Reykjavik summit, the official said.

Thus, Gorbachev’s words Monday seemed intended to keep that pot boiling, the official indicated, in hopes of getting the allies and Congress to impose “political” curbs on the SDI program of the kind the Soviets cannot win at the negotiating table.

Signaling Kremlin Concern

But another view was that Gorbachev was signaling Kremlin concern that the Administration might simply adopt the broad interpretation now, irrespective of negotiations. That move, Gorbachev said, would be tantamount to scrapping the ABM treaty, which is the cornerstone of current strategic arms control planning.

According to U.S. officials here and abroad, during the current two-month round of Geneva negotiations, ending March 4, the talks that stalled--and even regressed somewhat--after the Reykjavik summit have recently begun to stir. In the process, there have been these complementary Soviet and U.S. moves:

--The Soviets reversed their position of previous months by beginning to discuss, and to commit to paper, those issues of agreement and disagreement that emerged from Reykjavik. Both sides agreed to reduce offensive weapons to 1,600 delivery systems carrying 6,000 warheads, for example, but disagreed on how these weapons would be allotted among land-based and sea-based weapons and bombers. Similarly, Reagan and Gorbachev agreed to extend the ABM treaty for 10 years but disagreed on research work permitted during that period and on what status the treaty would have afterward.

This kind of detailed balance sheet was viewed as a concession to the United States, for it will show that, contrary to Soviet propaganda, there are many outstanding issues, beyond the question of SDI, to be negotiated before an arms agreement can be signed.

--U.S. chief negotiator Max M. Kampelman agreed to detailed talks on what kind of research is now permitted under the ABM treaty and on definitions of words like components in the treaty and negotiating record.

Pentagon Criticism

Although such discussions had occurred generally in the past, this move was considered a concession to the Soviets--and Kampelman was criticized by the Pentagon for taking it--because definitions are bound to tighten, rather than loosen, the limits under which SDI research already occurs, according to defense officials.

Nonetheless, U.S. officials insist that the Soviets have regressed on about a dozen important issues.

One of these involves the seemingly pedantic issue of “What is Asia?” for the purpose of negotiations on missiles of intermediate range (1,000 to 3,000 miles). At Reykjavik, both sides agreed to a 100-warhead limit. Neither side could have any missiles of this type in Europe. All Soviet weapons would be in “Asia,” and all U.S. weapons in the continental United States.

Before Reykjavik, the two sides agreed that the Soviet missiles would be kept east of the 80-degree line of west latitude inside Asia, which would put them beyond the range of most of Europe. But since Reykjavik, the Soviets cite geography books that say Asia begins at the Ural Mountains, which are (and which would put Soviet missiles) some 1,000 miles closer to Europe.