Soviets Shatter Moratorium With First A-Test Since ’85 : Renew Offer to Open Total-Ban Talks With U.S.

The Soviet Union today conducted its first nuclear test since 1985, shattering an 18-month unilateral moratorium, but quickly renewed an offer to open talks with the United States on a complete test ban.

The Kremlin warned in December that it would resume testing after the first U.S. blast of 1987. Washington, which repeatedly refused to honor the Soviet moratorium, has already set off two nuclear devices in the Nevada desert.

The blast, a “test device” with a yield of under 20 kilotons, or about 20,000 tons of TNT, was carried out shortly after 8 a.m. at the main military test site at Semipalatinsk in the republic of Kazakhstan, said Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Gely Botnenin at a Moscow news conference.

The blast, which was monitored in Sweden, registered 5.5 on the Richter scale--the equivalent force of a mildly damaging earthquake.

Broke With Tradition

The official Soviet media broke with tradition by announcing that the test had taken place. Previously, such tests were never publicly announced.

Botnenin said the test was carried out reluctantly and he blamed U.S. refusal to honor the moratorium for forcing the Kremlin to resume testing.

“The irresponsible policy of Washington has made it necessary to stop the unilateral moratorium. A historic chance for a total test ban has been missed,” Botnenin said. “The situation makes it necessary that we had to do something we did not want to do.”

But Botnenin said the Soviet Union was ready to resume its moratorium “any day, any month,” as soon as the United States agrees to end its own nuclear testing program.

U.S. in Control

“The buttons that control our test ranges are over there with the U.S. President and the U.S. Congress,” Botnenin said.

He called for talks designed to bring about a stage-by-stage reduction in the number and size of nuclear tests, leading eventually to their elimination.

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev first made the offer of a gradual reduction of tests when he announced the moratorium Aug. 6, 1985.

“All the Soviet proposals for ending nuclear tests remain in force,” Botnenin said.

“To solve without delay the problem of a comprehensive nuclear test ban, we suggest beginning full-scale talks, which the U.S.S.R. is ready to conduct in any composition and at any forum, of course with the participation of the U.S.A.”

After a two-year joint moratorium on testing between the United States and the Soviet Union that ended in September, 1961, the Kremlin conducted an unprecedented 32 blasts in three months. Botnenin denied that the new blast signified a new round of regular tests by the military, but said “selected explosions for fundamental research” are likely to follow.

In Washington, the State Department said the Soviets’ decision to resume nuclear testing was their own affair.

Washington has said that a ban on nuclear tests now is not in its interest or that of its allies.