11th-Hour Obstacle Raises Question of Soviet Motives

The Kremlin’s decision to derail plans for a November U.S. summit, which jeopardizes the effort to sign an intermediate-range arms control agreement this year, raises disturbing questions about Soviet motives--and even about the possibility of dangerous opposition to Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev inside the Politburo.

Signing a treaty to eliminate intermediate-range missiles at a summit here next month was the brightest prospect on the horizon for an Administration mired in crises, and the White House responded Friday with understandable dismay and exasperation.

The President “wonders what’s wrong with Gorbachev--is he getting cold feet on peace?” White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater snapped Friday. “We don’t know what he’s afraid of.”

But the questions raised by the Soviet Union’s surprise move go well beyond their impact on White House hopes for a badly needed diplomatic triumph. The Soviets stunned many U.S. experts on Soviet affairs by essentially re-linking, for the third time in three years, the prospective summit and the finalizing of an intermediate-range missile treaty with curbs on the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative or “Star Wars” program.

In their initial assessments, Soviet specialists suggested two possible motives for the Kremlin’s move:

--Soviet tacticians saw an opportunity to put last-minute pressure on Reagan, weakened by the stock market crisis, to make concessions on SDI in exchange for an image-building summit with Gorbachev.

--Politburo hard-liners have forced Gorbachev to renege once again on his decision to separate the intermediate-range missiles and the summit from SDI.

‘Slippery and Machiavellian’

“It’s such terrible tactics, making Gorbachev look slippery and Machiavellian, that you have to think about politics, about people in the background who are threatening him,” said Jeremy Azrael of the RAND Corp. “It’s so transparent that it seems as if they set out to humiliate Gorbachev.”

There are two other possibilities but both are considered unlikely causes of the latest Soviet turnaround. One is that Moscow did not want to appear too friendly to the United States because of the large U.S. naval presence in the Persian Gulf--Gorbachev was quoted as saying that U.S. warships “may bury” prospects for improved U.S.-Soviet relations.

Another is that Reagan had angered the Soviets in his Thursday night press conference by his spirited defense of SDI and his refusal to bargain it away for deep reductions in offensive arms. But Reagan’s position has been no secret from the Kremlin.

Based on official statements of both sides last month, it appeared that a new agreement eliminating all intermediate-range missiles--with ranges of 300 to 3,000 miles--would be given its finishing touches in Moscow and signed at a summit here in November.

Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze said after meeting with Shultz here in September that in Moscow the two would “receive from our delegations (of medium-range missile negotiators) the finalized texts of the documents to be signed, and also . . . set out the modalities of the meeting between the top leaders of our two countries.”

But after visiting the Kremlin on Friday, Shultz said that Gorbachev declined to set a date for the Washington summit because he is “not yet satisfied in the area of space and defense.” At the same time, Shultz said both sides agreed that the intermediate-range missile agreement is “virtually” completed and Shevardnadze appeared to confirm that evaluation.

In addition, the official Soviet news agency Tass announced that Gorbachev had proposed an alternative to a intermediate-range missile treaty. Instead of a full-blown treaty, he called for a halt in production, testing and deployment of medium-range missiles to begin Nov. 1, as a step to preserve the gains made in negotiations so far.

This is an old, rejected Soviet proposal. It suggests that--while a Soviet flip-flop could not be ruled out--the new Soviet position charts a new direction for the negotiations and is not a tactical position to be given up within a few days or even weeks, according to several analysts.

Linkage Before Gorbachev

Moscow had tied progress on all offensive arms issues to curbs on SDI before Gorbachev took office. At his first summit meeting with Reagan in Geneva in November, 1985, Gorbachev “de-linked” SDI from the intermediate-range missile question, although not from talks on long-range offensive weapons. But he tied them together again after the second summit, at Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1986. And he severed the link again earlier this year.

Spurgeon Keeny Jr., director of the Arms Control Assn., a private arms control group based in Washington, said the new Soviet move proves that the Kremlin has never really eased its demand for curtailment of the SDI program and continued observance of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, as part of its price for a 50% cut in strategic offensive nuclear weapons. Several senior Administration officials had said privately that they believed the Soviets had “climbed off” their efforts to curb SDI.

But Keeny, like some others, agreed that the Soviets “seem to be reneging on their previous de-linking of SDI” from intermediate-range missiles, as well as again tying a summit to curbs on SDI and strict observance of the ABM treaty.

“It may be that the Soviets are just upping the ante,” he said, perhaps to win some U.S. concession on verification provisions for the medium-range missile agreement. “But the moratorium offer does sound like a tough new position” that will not change quickly, he added.

Another analyst, who declined to be identified, suggested that the Soviets see Reagan as weakened by the stock market crisis and believe that he needs a summit more than Gorbachev to rebuild his domestic political stature. The Kremlin thus may think it can win concessions on SDI in exchange for the summit and a missile agreement.

However, RAND’s Azrael, who was a CIA and State Department analyst of Soviet affairs for a decade, said he suspects that Gorbachev’s refusal to set a summit date and to complete a missile treaty is because of difficulties inside the Kremlin.

In general, the Soviet military is unhappy with the proposed missile treaty that would eliminate four times more Soviet warheads than U.S. warheads, he said, as well as with its reduced status in the Gorbachev Politburo.

“By reneging again (on linkage), Gorbachev greatly reduces his standing in Western Europe, and will look unreliable as a negotiating partner,” Azrael said. “So it doesn’t make sense for it to be a tactical move.”

Rather, the Kremlin leadership may have forced Gorbachev to backtrack in “a deliberate effort to humiliate Gorbachev and aides like (former U.S. Ambassador Anatoly F.) Dobrynin,” he said.

Times Staff Writer James Gerstenzang contributed to this story.