Shultz Taking New Arms Ideas to Moscow

Amid reports of a spurt in progress at the Geneva arms talks, Secretary of State George P. Shultz will be taking some new arms control proposals to Moscow today in hopes of speeding work toward a new strategic arms reduction agreement, he said Wednesday.

Senior U.S. officials traveling with Shultz, who were distinctly more upbeat about prospects for arms progress in Moscow than earlier this week, said later that U.S.-Soviet negotiations at Geneva have made “significant movement” within the past few days in eliminating some of the differences on verification that had separated the two sides.

“Underbrush has been cleared away,” one official said, “which should allow outstanding issues of principle to be addressed now.”

On one of these substantive issues--limits on air-launched cruise missiles, known as ALCMs--Shultz is taking some “fairly far-reaching and constructive . . . new ideas” to Moscow today, the official added. He refused to be more specific.

Even if the ALCM differences are settled, several other important issues would still remain unresolved. Most important of these is how a strategic arms treaty to cut offensive weapons in half will be tied to an anti-missile defense agreement, if at all.

So prospects for a new treaty emerging from the strategic arms reduction talks (START) by the time of the Moscow summit in late May continues to be dim, as Shultz himself seemed to admit.

“Our approach is to keep poking at these problems,” he told a news conference here during a stop en route to Moscow. “Obviously, as we get closer and closer (to the summit date) without coming to closure, it gets more and more difficult” to reach an agreement that President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev could sign.

The relative optimism of Shultz’s aides on arms issues Wednesday contrasted with the downbeat briefing that one of the same officials gave Monday in Washington. At that time, the official said that essentially the same number of contentious matters--about 1,200--that separated the United States from the Soviet Union in March continued to separate them at the start of this week.

Number Not Specified

But other officials insisted Wednesday that “a great deal” of movement had occurred in the past two days. They did not specify how many differences had been eliminated, however, and one source said that the progress had occurred mainly on “definitional matters” involving verification measures.

The substantive issues that must still be resolved in the START negotiations concern limits, if any, on three types of missiles--mobile, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), sea-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs) and the air-launched cruise missiles. In addition, verification provisions must be set up to monitor such limits.

The START agreement would put an overall ceiling on both sides of 1,600 long-range delivery vehicles (missiles and bombers) carrying a maximum of 6,000 warheads.

The U.S.-Soviet air-launched cruise missile dispute deals with how many warheads each bomber would be assessed against the 6,000 ceiling.

The Soviets want to charge each B-52H bomber with carrying 28 warheads, which they claim is its theoretical maximum payload.

In practice, however, bombers carry significantly fewer weapons in order to gain greater range. The United States initially wanted to charge each bomber with carrying six warheads. Recently it proposed assessing each at 10 warheads, and the Soviets hinted a willingness to trim their assessments somewhat.

The new U.S. offer carried by Shultz does not compromise on this number, a senior official said, but seeks to give the Soviets assurances, which they have requested, that not all the B-52s will carry ALCMs.

One possible proposal, sources said, would be to put distinguishing marks or attachments on those bombers that carry ALCMs and to further mark those bombers that carry nuclear-tipped rather than conventionally armed ALCMs. Another idea that may be put forward is to station ALCM carriers at only a few bases, which would facilitate counting them by satellite.

Sea-launched cruises constitute the greatest problem in the START negotiations. The U.S. position is that since nuclear SLCMs cannot be distinguished from conventionally armed SLCMS there should be no limits on SLCMs, but the Soviets insist on ceilings on the number and range of nuclear SLCMs.

Mobile missiles may be more amenable to compromise, a senior official said. Both sides appear to have moved toward a “garrisoning” concept, in which such missiles would be based on a military reservation. There are significant differences between the two approaches, however. In addition, the formal U.S. position is still that all mobile missiles should be banned.