U.S., Soviet Arms Experts Report Gains on INF Issues

U.S. and Soviet arms experts made “some progress” Wednesday as they covered the most difficult issues in the nine outstanding points of disagreement on verifying compliance with the medium-range missile treaty, a senior U.S. official said.

Both sides continued to express optimism that all of the largely technical issues will be settled today.

The discussions were held under the umbrella of a broader meeting between Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze on final preparations for the summit meeting of President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in Moscow beginning May 29. U.S. officials said summit plans appear “in very good shape.”

In addition to discussing the last-minute difficulties in deciding how to implement the medium-range treaty, experts from both sides discussed problems that have led to an impasse in the strategic, or long-range, arms talks.

Shultz and Shevardnadze, meanwhile, took up human rights and regional issues.

“The meetings have been very good, very businesslike and constructive,” State Department spokesman Charles Redman said after the first of four sessions planned for the two days of talks. “Progress in some areas has been made,” he added.

Senate leaders are holding up ratification proceedings on the treaty covering the medium-range weapons, known also as intermediate-range nuclear forces, or INF, which have a range of 300 to 3,400 miles. They want the nine issues involving on-site inspection procedures, and one on the legal status of U.S.-made missiles owned by West Germany, to be resolved before proceeding.

Some congressmen have charged the Soviets with seeking to renege on the treaty language in the disputes over on-site inspection. But the Administration has said that the problems were the inevitable result of attempting to translate a political treaty into workable procedures for implementation.

Among the nine issues, the two key problems concern the smallest object that U.S. inspectors can examine--a full missile, or its individual stages--as well as whether U.S. inspectors can roam widely on Soviet bases beyond individual buildings identified as being related to the missiles to be banned by the treaty.

Reflecting the Reagan Adminstration’s more sanguine attitude, Shultz said en route to Geneva from Washington on Wednesday that Shevardnadze “wants to see the INF treaty completed and into operation as much as I do and we all do.”

He also said it would be “good to have ratification (of the treaty) before the summit meeting. It’s been a long time since it’s been possible to get an agreement and get it ratified.” The last major U.S.-Soviet arms treaty approved by the Senate was in 1972. Several agreements were signed in the mid-to-late 1970s but have remained unratified.

Both U.S. and Soviet officials now acknowledge that a new strategic arms reduction (START) agreement, to cut offensive nuclear weapons in half, will not be ready for signing at the summit. But both sides claim they want to continue to move toward such an agreement later this year.

To this end, Redman said the U.S. and Soviet delegations Wednesday discussed two of the major remaining issues--air-launched cruise missiles (ALCM) and mobile land-based missiles--in the START negotiations.

Easiest Problems

Some experts believe these are the easiest of the outstanding problems and that resolving them would represent a very significant step toward a START treaty before the Administration leaves office.

The ALCM issue involves three separate disputes:

--Whether there should be limits on only nuclear-armed ALCMs, as the United States wants, or on conventionally armed ALCMs as well, as the Soviets propose.

--The range threshold above which ALCM limits would apply, with the Soviets seeking 375 miles and the United States calling for 1,000 miles.

--How to count the number of ALCMs on bombers equipped to carry them. The so-called ALCM counting rule being sought will have profound implications on the mixture of future U.S. weapons following any START pact. The Soviets want to charge every bomber with the maximum number of ALCMs it can theoretically carry--28 on a B-52 and 22 on a B-1--while the United States wants to settle on an average of 10 ALCMs per bomber.

U.S. officials argue that bombers are almost never fully loaded, because that would drastically reduce their range. Also, they say ALCMs are slow-flying weapons that can be shot down by Soviet air defenses and thus should not be counted as equivalent to the unstoppable warheads on an MX or Soviet SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missile, which can reach their targets in only 20 to 30 minutes.

Soviets Shifting View

U.S. officials say privately that the Soviets are coming around to the American view in principle--that is, that some average figure rather than the maximum loading of a bomber should be used--but that the two sides remain far apart on the actual number of ALCMs to be attributed to each bomber.

On the mobile missile problem, the United States wants to ban such weapons, but the Soviets, with two types of mobile ICBMs already deployed, are opposed. The Pentagon also would like to deploy a mobile version of the 10-warhead MX missile, but Democratic congressmen prefer a different missile, the single-warhead Midgetman ICBM.

The Administration wants Congress to commit itself to funding at least one type of mobile ICBM before it withdraws its proposed ban on the weapons, officials said.