Debate Opens on Mid-Range Missile Treaty

For the first time since 1972, the Senate opened debate Tuesday on a new U.S. nuclear arms control agreement with the Soviet Union, with supporters calling the pact banning land-based medium-range weapons the most scrutinized treaty in American history.

The debate, expected to be one-sided, began with President Reagan only a week away from his departure for Moscow and his fourth summit with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Indications are that the Senate will put in long hours in the coming days to bring the agreement to a vote so that Reagan will be prepared to exchange ratification documents at the summit.

“The President should not go to the meeting empty-handed,” Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) declared in remarks to the Senate on Tuesday afternoon. “We should approve this treaty, and we should approve it without delay.”

After two months of hearings by three committees and clarifying talks between Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, Cranston labeled the agreement “the most closely scrutinized treaty ever submitted for Senate consideration.”

The pact, signed by Reagan and Gorbachev in Washington in December, bans ground-launched missiles with ranges of 300 to 3,400 miles.

Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said the missile reductions involved are militarily insignificant, given the size of the superpowers’ nuclear arsenals, but he described the agreement as a political and psychological landmark.

In reaching the agreement, the Soviet Union agreed to terms requiring asymmetrical reductions: The Soviets will dismantle 826 intermediate-range and 926 shorter-range missiles, while the United States will eliminate 689 intermediate-range ones. The Soviets will remove 1,667 nuclear warheads from the deployed forces, compared to 429 by the United States.

Beyond Arms Control

In remarks to reporters at the White House before the beginning of the debate, the President said the treaty “has placed U.S.-Soviet arms discussions on a path that goes beyond arms control and toward real nuclear arms reduction.”

He said he is confident that senators will find the agreement “a diplomatic milestone” and consent to its ratification.

The last nuclear arms agreement to make it to the Senate floor was the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which limits strategic defenses.

The Jimmy Carter Administration concluded a second treaty in 1979, placing limits on strategic offensive arsenals, but the agreement, already under heavy criticism, was withdrawn from consideration before Senate debate because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Opponents of the pending INF agreement plan to offer several amendments, which the Administration considers potentially fatal to the treaty. And despite Administration urging that it be adopted intact, some of its committed supporters intend to add clarifying language to its accompanying ratification documents.

No Tip-off from Helms

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), the treaty’s foremost opponent, declined to tip his hand Tuesday on whether he will significantly delay a vote on final passage.

In the early minutes of the opening debate, however, he delivered a broad-scale denunciation of the agreement on grounds that it is susceptible to easy Soviet cheating.

Despite the information the Soviets have provided on their inventory of SS-20 missiles, which would be banned under the pact, Helms said that it is possible for the Soviets to have a covert force of 300 to 600 mobile launchers that could not be discovered by the United States under the treaty’s verification provisions.

“A decision to ratify this treaty,” Helms said, “will be a decision to abandon Europe to the hegemony of our Soviet enemy.”

Charging that allied leaders support the agreement only because “they are fearful of the protest movement in Europe,” he vowed to introduce an amendment that would require the United States to begin withdrawing its forces from Europe upon adoption of the treaty.

With Senate leaders saying they are now satisfied with questions on verification and other disagreements that delayed the floor debate for a week, observers said that the most likely hang-up in the debate is an “interpretation” dispute.

Democratic senators, angry over the Administration’s reinterpretation of the ABM Treaty after it began development of its so-called “Star Wars” missile defense system, want language attached to the new agreement making clear that its interpretation cannot be changed by a future Administration.

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), one of the Republican stalwarts on the side of ratification, insisted Tuesday that such language is not necessary. Insistence upon it, he said, “will certainly delay this treaty.”