U.S. Group to Test for A-Arms on Soviet Ship

An independent group of American scientists who have been pressing for new arms control initiatives will board a Soviet cruiser Tuesday in the Black Sea city of Yalta and scan the Soviet warship for the presence of nuclear weapons.

The unprecedented experiment, partly sponsored by the Soviet Academy of Sciences and the Soviet government’s principal institute of atomic energy, is expected to boost arguments that Washington and Moscow could negotiate verifiable limits on sea-launched cruise missiles, or SLCMs.

The U.S. Navy plans to deploy 750 nuclear-tipped SLCMs aboard its submarines and surface ships, as well as more than 3,000 of the cruise weapons armed with non-nuclear warheads. From the open oceans, the missiles can deliver nuclear fire or conventional explosives to targets more than 360 miles away with great accuracy. Experts said it is extremely difficult to distinguish between the two types of cruise missiles, a factor that would complicate efforts to limit or ban the nuclear versions.

Agreed to Limits

Washington agreed in December, 1987, to limit long-range nuclear-tipped SLCMs through an agreement separate from the proposed strategic arms reduction, or START agreement. But Washington, arguing that compliance with a treaty would be impossible to verify, has resisted negotiating more formal limits on the new weapons. While the Soviets have presented a proposal, the United States, citing the verification problems, has offered no proposal.

But scientists from a Washington-based watchdog group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, armed with $50,000 worth of sensitive neutron-detection equipment, aim to prove Washington wrong. The group has detectors designed to pick up the presence of gamma rays, which are emitted by several types of nuclear weapons.

The Soviet scientists are bringing neutron detectors, which are able to detect other types of nuclear materials. In addition, the Soviet scientists are expected to demonstrate for the first time a helicopter-borne detector, which they say can detect a nuclear weapon and gauge how powerful it is without humans having to board the ship that carries it.

The U.S. government has issued export licenses for most of the gauges that the group proposes to take to the Black Sea. However, officials have told the group that they oppose the experiment, which could raise pressure from Moscow to allow inspectors aboard U.S. Navy ships.

But the council, working with the Soviet Academy of Sciences, has previously nudged the U.S. government toward other arms accords that officials once contended could not be verified. Last year, the group initiated a series of geological experiments in the United States and Soviet Union that helped measure underground nuclear tests. The exchanges explored technologies that the scientists argued could verify adherence to a total nuclear test ban.

After years of dismissing such a ban as unverifiable, the Ronald Reagan Administration relented and reopened negotiations with the Soviets that may lead to ratification of treaties limiting the size of future tests.

While council scientists hope they can influence the U.S. government to consider a sea-launched cruise missile ban, the leader of the American team said there is deep resistance to talks that would bargain away the new and highly accurate weapons.

“I don’t think the government is suddenly going to reverse itself,” council staff scientist Thomas B. Cochran said.

“But administrations change, bureaucracies change.”

At the same time, the council experiment may suffer one fatal flaw, critics say. Skeptics and participants alike caution that without independent verification of the Soviets’ assurances, American scientists cannot be sure that the nuclear-tipped missile offered up for inspection is of the type or the explosive yield that the Soviet Union claims.

Without that certainty, the United States could not be confident that measurements made reflect real Soviet cruise missiles as they would be outfitted for shipboard service.

“The question is, what’s in this thing that they tell us is a normal operational missile? Unless they take it apart--which is doubtful--there’s no real way to know,” said Barry Blechman, a Washington-based analyst who will travel with the group as an observer.