U.S., Soviets Settle All Major Issues for A-Arms Treaty

Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze settled all remaining major issues of a treaty to ban intermediate-range nuclear missiles in marathon talks Thursday that ran seven hours longer than scheduled, an Administration official said.

President Reagan signaled his approval of the arms control agreement Thursday evening during a hastily scheduled White House meeting. He is expected to make an announcement about it at the White House at 6 a.m. PDT today, and Shevardnadze scheduled a 6:30 a.m. news conference at the Soviet Embassy.

“We’ve got agreement on the major issues,” the Administration official said. However, he said, some technical details remain to be worked out by U.S. and Soviet negotiators at the arms control talks in Geneva.

“We know how to get where we want to be,” he said. “The negotiators have to take it from here.”

Clearing Way for Summit

The agreement would clear the way for a summit meeting between Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev before the end of this year. The official said no dates have been set for a summit but that an early meeting seems likely because of the progress.

The new arms control treaty would ban nuclear missiles with ranges of 300 to 3,000 miles. Most of these weapons are deployed in Europe but some are in Asia, in the eastern Soviet Union.

Many of the most significant issues were settled some time ago, when Gorbachev endorsed the U.S. “double zero” proposal to eliminate both classes of intermediate nuclear forces, shorter-range with ranges of 300 to 600 miles and longer-range with ranges of 600 to 3,000 miles. The United States has no missiles in the shorter-range category, and the Soviets have a substantial numerical advantage in the longer-range class.

Although the White House did not disclose details of agreement on any remaining intermediate-range missile issues, Shultz and Shevardnadze in the talks this week had to deal with such issues as the disposition of the nuclear warheads from the weapons to be dismantled, the fate of American warheads for 72 Pershing 1-A missiles owned by West Germany and the timetable for the withdrawal of the missiles to take account of Moscow’s substantial numerical lead.

U.S. officials said earlier that an agreement on intermediate nuclear forces might provide a boost to separate negotiations aimed at achieving a 50% reduction in the arsenals of long-range strategic nuclear weapons.

The two ministers met from 9:30 a.m. until 7 p.m. They had been scheduled to end their talks at noon. State Department spokesman Charles Redman said a formal report on the talks will be issued today.

Test Ban Negotiations

Earlier in the day, Shultz and Shevardnadze agreed that superpower negotiations on a nuclear test ban treaty would resume before Dec. 1. The announcement apparently was rushed ahead as a demonstration of progress even as Shultz and Shevardnadze extended their talks on arms control.

Redman and Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov, in a rare joint appearance, shared the announcement of the new test ban talks, which they described as “full-scale, stage-by-stage negotiations” aimed at improved verification of test explosions with the ultimate goal of “complete cessation of nuclear testing as part of an effective disarmament process.”

Gerasimov quipped to reporters that the announcement was intended to “give you something to chew on” while the other talks continued.

Shultz and Shevardnadze scheduled, but then canceled, separate press conferences Thursday afternoon.

“The two ministers have simply decided that there is a lot of work to do,” Redman said at the time. “These are constructive discussions and worth pursuing.”

Gerasimov added: “History is in the making. We must wait a little bit.”

While reporters waited for Shevardnadze at the State Department’s diplomatic entrance, he and Shultz secretly slipped out of the building and traveled five blocks to the White House for their meeting with Reagan.

After the 35-minute session with the President, they returned to the State Department so that Shevardnadze could leave by the regular exit a few minutes later. The White House issued a terse announcement of the meeting shortly after Shevardnadze had left the State Department for the Soviet Embassy, where he is staying.

The earlier agreement between Shultz and Shevardnadze on new nuclear testing talks seemed to represent a split-the-difference compromise between the U.S. and Soviet positions. The two sides accepted the U.S. proposal for sequential talks, starting with improved verification methods before advancing to consideration of a test ban. But both sides endorsed Moscow’s position that a test ban could precede the elimination of all nuclear weapons. The United States had maintained that, as long as nuclear weapons were allowed at all, some testing was required.

Redman and Gerasimov announced that the United States and the Soviet Union would conduct “joint verification experiments” at each other’s nuclear test sites so as to increase the reliability of systems for determining the yield of underground explosions and differentiating nuclear tests from natural phenomena, such as earthquakes.

The announcement said that an agreement on effective verification would clear the way for U.S. ratification of the Threshold Test Ban Treaty of 1974 and the peaceful nuclear explosions treaty of 1976. Those pacts set an upper limit of 150 kilotons, the equivalent of 150,000 tons of TNT, for underground nuclear explosions. Tests in the air, sea and space have been outlawed since the 1960s.

No Certainty Seen

Although Washington and Moscow contend that their tests have all been below 150 kilotons since the pacts were signed, the treaties were never sent to the Senate for ratification. The administrations of Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter and Reagan have all maintained that, with existing technology, the United States could not be certain whether a Soviet test was under or over the limit.

Kenneth L. Adelman, director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, said the United States is ready to conduct verification experiments at once, using a system called Corrtex, which requires a cable to be inserted into the shaft of the nuclear test hole or into a separate hole a few yards away.

He said the United States would go ahead with ratification of the treaties as soon as it completes the Corrtex experiments. He said Moscow could speed the ratification process by permitting the United States to go ahead with its experiment before the Soviets are ready to conduct theirs.

Adelman admitted that the United States made concessions in agreeing to make a total test ban an ultimate goal. The joint announcement said the two sides would try to negotiate “intermediate limitations” on nuclear testing leading eventually to a complete ban. The same announcement said the United States and the Soviet Union would work for a total elimination of nuclear weapons, though it made clear that a test ban could come first.

In addition to nuclear testing and the emerging intermediate nuclear force treaty, Shultz and Shevardnadze discussed the other subjects being dealt with in the Geneva arms talks--strategic nuclear weapons and defense and space systems--as well as human rights, regional issues, bilateral issues, chemical weapons control and conventional arms control, Redman said.

When Redman mentioned conventional weapons, Gerasimov interjected “also tactical nuclear weapons.” The spokesmen later explained that Washington wants to talk about limits on conventional weapons, an area in which the Soviet Union is thought to hold a substantial lead, while Moscow wants to include tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons, with a range of less than 300 miles, which have not been covered by the current nuclear arms control talks.