U.S. Accepts Soviet Offer to Inspect 2 Radar Facilities

The United States has accepted a Soviet invitation to inspect two Soviet radars that U.S. officials suspect may be in violation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the State Department said Monday.

The two radars, known by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization code names of Pawn Shop and Flat Twin, are situated north of Kiev. The Soviets have denied that the radars are in violation of the treaty and invited U.S. inspectors to look them over.

A State Department spokesman said the United States accepted the invitation to inspect the radars, and technical arrangements are being worked out.

An Administration official, who demanded anonymity, said the Soviets are likely to insist on reciprocal inspection of U.S. facilities.

The inspection offer was made to Secretary of State George P. Shultz during his visit to Moscow last month, according to a New York Times report.

The inspection issue came up as President Reagan told the Kremlin on Monday to “stop the charade” about work on missile defense systems and again insisted that the United States must build such a system to shield itself.

“We will not bargain it away to get strategic arms reductions,” Reagan told a convention of the American Council on Life Insurance as he previewed the coming summit with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

The President said that “if all goes well,” he and Gorbachev will sign a treaty eliminating the superpowers’ arsenals of ground-launched missiles in the intermediate-range class.

“Some details remain to be worked out,” Reagan said in a reference to negotiations under way in Geneva between American and Soviet representatives seeking to tie together the loose ends of an intermediate nuclear forces (INF) treaty before the summit, scheduled to start here Dec. 7.

But Reagan complained that the Soviets must stop attempting to hold reductions in offensive strategic weapons hostage “to measures that would cripple” the “Star Wars” program, known formally as the Strategic Defense Initiative.

The President charged that the Soviets have “put billions into (their own) SDI program. They have more than 10,000 scientists working on military lasers alone.

“From the Krasnoyarsk radar facility (in Central Asia), whose very construction violated the 1972 ABM Treaty that the Soviets so vocally claim they want to preserve, to their modernized deployments around Moscow of the world’s only ABM system,” he said, “the Soviet Union’s own SDI projects have become big news throughout the world in recent months.

“We know this. They know that we know. We know that they know that we know,” Reagan said, bringing laughter from his audience.

“It’s time for them to stop the charade and admit their own deep involvement in the strategic defense work,” the President said.