U.S. Experts Will Leave Thursday for Soviet A-Test Site

WASHINGTON — American experts leave Thursday for the first visit by U.S. government officials to the Soviet Union’s main nuclear test site at Semipalatinsk in Soviet Central Asia, the State Department announced Tuesday.

The visit is the latest in a series of U.S.-Soviet moves designed to reach agreement on improved techniques for verifying nuclear tests and is intended to lead ultimately to a ban on such testing.

State Department spokesman Charles Redman said the 20-member U.S. team, headed by Ambassador Robert Barker, chief U.S. negotiator at the U.S.-Soviet nuclear testing talks in Geneva, will return to Washington in mid-January.

From Jan. 23 to 30, a group of Soviet experts will make a reciprocal visit to the U.S. nuclear test site in Nevada.

The visits are will prepare for experiments in which each side will monitor the other’s nuclear tests. The experiments could take place in the next six months.

The two sides are attempting to agree on the best method for verifying nuclear testing limits under the 1974 Threshold Test Ban Treaty and the 1976 Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty.