U.S., Soviets to Meet, Weigh Joint Anti-Terror Action : Breakthrough Attributed to Growing Moscow Concern, Baker’s Stress on Cooperation

In the first breakthrough involving superpower cooperation on international terrorism, the United States and the Soviet Union are making plans to meet in Moscow this spring to explore areas of mutual interest and possible joint action.

After Moscow in January proposed expanding U.S.-Soviet dialogue to include international terrorism, Secretary of State James A. Baker III signaled the Bush Administration’s “readiness” for formal discussions during talks with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze in Vienna on March 7, according to State Department officials.

Terrorist Targets

The breakthrough has been attributed mainly to Moscow’s growing concern about terrorism. Since the mid-1980s, Soviet facilities and nationals have become targets of terrorist action. In January, the Soviets hosted an unofficial U.S.-Soviet conference on terrorism during which they called for establishing a new channel to deal with terrorism issues.

State Department sources noted, however, that Baker’s emphasis on cooperation over issues such as the environment, narcotics and terrorism also added impetus to the impending talks.

Details of the talks are now being worked out, but the delegations are tentatively expected to be headed by Yuri M. Rybakov of the Soviet Foreign Ministry and Alvin P. Adams from the State Department’s counterterrorism office.

“As a starting point, we will try to get the Soviets to share information they have, especially about their own client (states), which may be difficult for the Soviets to do,” said one official close to the planning.

“We would like to see the relationship evolve into some sort of arrangement where we share information about impending terrorist attacks and where we join forces to prevent things from happening.”

Intelligence sources indicated that “several (Soviet) channels have already come alive” with information.

Other officials, however, are cautioning against high expectations.

“This is all preliminary,” said a counterterrorism source. “So far, there is only an opening on process, not substance.”

Indeed, there appears to be a split within the U.S. intelligence community about the extent and substance of a dialogue.

In an interview Thursday, CIA Director William H. Webster conceded that U.S.-Soviet cooperation on international terrorism “is increasingly being suggested and hinted at, and at some point, we’re apt to be asked to make a recommendation. It’s coming from a lot of places, including the Soviets.”

But a counterterrorism source said later that Webster “was way out ahead of his own people on this. Others are neither in agreement or as enthusiastic about it. You get into a very sensitive area on sharing intelligence, especially on terrorism because of the danger of exposing sources and because of potential Soviet misuse of that information.”

‘Endless Debates’

Webster noted the inherent limit. “We already have lines of shared intelligence (with other countries) that could not be opened up, for obvious reasons, to the Soviets. In coping with terrorism, you have the fundamental problem of, ‘is one man’s terrorist another man’s freedom fighter,’ and so you go through endless debates over definition,” he said.

But he said that “acts of violence against innocent people,” such as the Dec. 21 bombing of Pan American Flight 103, “is criminal by anyone’s standards, and investigations ought to be supported by every civilized country. In those areas, there may be a basis for some kinds of discussions” with Moscow.

Soviet analysts in the Bush Administration will watch the dialogue as “an indication of their long-term intent,” particularly on whether the Soviets are prepared to rein in or share information about their allies, such as Syria and Libya, to strengthen relations with Washington.

They also do not anticipate that the first round of talks will result in immediate plans for joint action or joint assessments of terrorist activities. Like arms talks, “this is a process that will probably take years to make big breakthroughs,” said a State Department official.

Even so, “It’s an extremely useful thing to do,” said Noel Koch, a former head of the Pentagon’s counterterrorism office. “The thing we’ve always been afraid of is that one of these groups will get their hands on a serious weapon, nuclear or chemical-biological. Having a relationship with the Soviets will do two things: First, give us some possibility of controlling the use of it and, second, hopefully give us access to intelligence about who has it and if they can really make use of it.”

“Also, if we’re talking to the Soviets and some terrorist group uses a serious weapon, there’ll be a mechanism to deal with it.”