White House Assails Nunn’s Bid to Delay Missile Pact OK

The White House on Wednesday denounced a proposal by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) that the Senate delay ratifying a treaty banning ground-launched mid-range nuclear missiles until it is amended to cover futuristic weapons.

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said that Senate failure to ratify the treaty before next month’s Moscow summit between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev would “dampen the prospects” for arms control progress at the summit.

Fitzwater said that the Administration is “very concerned” about the amendment proposed by Nunn because it would require reopening negotiations.

Sen. Dan Quayle (R-Ind.), who has raised the issue along with Nunn, said that the new controversy deals with whether the pact bans not only existing medium-range weapons but also weapons that might be developed in the future. Weapons covered by the treaty, which Reagan and Gorbachev signed last December, have ranges of 300 to 3,400 miles.

Nunn said that to protect both the United States and the Soviet Union, the treaty should specifically cover mid-range weapons using lasers and other new technologies.

Fitzwater agreed that the issue needs to be clarified, but he argued that U.S. and Soviet officials already have reached the necessary understandings. Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze has written to Secretary of State George P. Shultz to state the Soviet view--coinciding with that of the United States--that the treaty indeed bans the futuristic weapons.

But Nunn complained that the Shevardnadze letter offered new ambiguities and pointed to the need for a specific amendment, which would require Soviet approval, to spell out the treaty’s scope.

Fitzwater said that members of Congress previously had indicated to the White House that the Senate would be able to ratify the treaty before Reagan arrives in Moscow on May 29.

If the treaty is not ratified, Fitzwater said, “it would tend to dampen, I think, the prospects for a serious START progress.” START is the acronym for the strategic arms reduction talks.