Soviets Insist That U.S. Missile Pact Include German Pershings : Surprise Demand Seen Unlikely to Scuttle Agreement

The Soviet Union demanded today that West German nuclear missiles tipped with U.S. warheads be included in an impending arms control agreement with the United States.

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater called the demand “not serious in terms of scuttling the whole agreement.” In fact, he said, prospects “are very promising for a treaty and a summit.”

The Soviet demand was registered in negotiations in Geneva earlier this week and confirmed by Soviet and U.S. officials here.

“All types of shorter-range missiles, including German Pershing-1A missiles, should be included in the agreement,” Sergei Chuvakhin, a Soviet Embassy counselor, said at a news conference. “We think it is a reasonable position.”

The Soviet official said he thought the dispute could be resolved. “It is not a serious problem,” he said.

But he said the issue “concerns our security and the security of our allies. Under the agreement, we should have strict guarantees that the principle of equal security be applied.”

Under a compromise worked out in U.S.-Soviet talks here last month, the 72 Pershing-1A missiles would not be included in a treaty to ban intermediate range rockets but would be dismantled by the Bonn government and the warheads withdrawn from Western Europe.

In the meantime, all Soviet and U.S. intermediate-range missiles would be scrapped.

Proposal a Surprise

But this week, while working on a schedule for eliminating the nuclear weapons, Soviet negotiators surprised the American side by proposing that Moscow be allowed to retain some of its shorter-range rockets until the West German missiles were dismantled.

“It was a definite walk back,” a U.S. official, who demanded anonymity, said today. He said one theory was that the idea originated with Viktor P. Karpov, a senior Soviet arms control expert, and did not have the backing of his Kremlin superiors.

The official said it was not clear whether the Soviet move in Geneva posed a serious obstacle to wrapping up the treaty. Secretary of State George P. Shultz is going to Moscow next week to try to resolve the remaining differences on verification and other issues.

Shultz also expects to make arrangements for a superpower summit meeting here later in the fall. A treaty banning the U.S. and Soviet missiles presumably would be the centerpiece.

“This looks like another short-lived Soviet effort to complicate the negotiations,” another U.S. official said.

When the Soviets initially insisted on including the Pershing-1A warheads, which are to be fired only with U.S. permission, the Administration argued that the cooperative agreement with Bonn over the Pershing missiles was not subject to a treaty with Moscow.

Shultz apparently resolved the dispute during talks here last month with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze. The two sides announced that they had reached an “agreement in principle” on a treaty.

The Soviet move in Geneva cannot be attributed to “ambiguity,” the U.S. official said. “The understanding was clear.”

He said U.S. negotiators promptly rejected the Soviet proposal.

“Our guys and their guys are still sort of staring at each other to see who blinks,” the official said. “I do not think we are going to blink.”