U.S. Illusions Shattered in Snows of Kranoyarsk : Arms Control: The Soviet confession of willful violations says much to give us pause about their behavior--and that of many prominent Americans.

It is perhaps appropriate that the week that saw the Soviet Union announce the “Frank Sinatra Doctrine” as the guiding force in its foreign policy began with the admission that Moscow had been lying for six years about a violation of the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty. It is instructive that the Soviets themselves would see fit to draw a parallel between the entertainer with such a colorful, not to say checkered, past and their own behavior.

Even more instructive has been the truly astonishing reaction to the disclosure by Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze that Moscow had known for some time that its construction of a large, phased array radar near the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk was illegal. By and large this admission has simply been accepted as one more indication of the wondrous benefits of glasnost .

What seems to be totally absent is an appreciation that the confession speaks volumes about Soviet behavior--and that of many prominent Americans. We ignore these insights at our peril.

Most importantly, it is now an unassailable fact that the Soviet Union is capable of consciously and willfully violating arms-control agreements. For years, the Ronald Reagan Administration was berated for asserting this; indeed, some suggested that the very act of accusing the Soviets was proof that President Reagan was not truly interested in nuclear arms control.

This observation is particularly significant insofar as there are a number of other examples of suspected Soviet violations of formal arms-control agreements. While the evidence to support these charges has not always been as clear-cut as Krasnoyarsk, it is only prudent now to assume Soviet culpability in these areas as well--at least until an opportunity is afforded for a complete and independent accounting.

The emphasis placed by the last Administration on the verification of U.S.-Soviet arms-control agreements is, obviously, fully warranted. Here again, his critics claimed that President Reagan’s obsession with exacting verification arrangements was nothing more than an effort to sabotage the prospects for agreements.

Unfortunately, toward the end of his Administration, notably in the treaty on intermediate-range nuclear forces, President Reagan became considerably less insistent on effective verification--even as Moscow became more adept at accepting inspection regimes that appeared intrusive but were, in fact, of little value should the Soviets be determined to cheat. The resulting procedures, especially if applied as precedents in other agreements, may well invite future Soviet arms-control violations.

Shevardnadze’s confession on Krasnoyarsk provides an embarrassing indictment of those self-styled American authorities on arms control who for years contended that the Soviets were right in averring that this radar was not a violation of the ABM treaty or who, at the very least, trivialized the significance of this treaty breach. A list of those who made such representations is a virtual Who’s Who of the U.S. arms-control community. To name but a few of these discredited apologists: McGeorge Bundy, George Kennan, Robert McNamara, Gerard Smith, Paul Warnke, Rep. Tom Downey (D-N.Y.) plus the Arms Control Assn., the Federation of American Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Incredible as it may seem, few--if any--of these individuals or organizations have had the grace to admit their errors. To the contrary, we are now being told that the Soviet admission on Krasnoyarsk, and Moscow’s stated determination to tear down this illegal radar, in no way vindicates the firm and outspoken position taken by the United States government about Soviet non-compliance.

This is simply absurd. Even if one takes at face value Shevardnadze’s preposterous statement that it took Moscow four years to “sort out” the facts with respect to the illegal character of the Krasnoyarsk facility, there is simply no reason to believe that such a sorting out would have taken place--let alone produced the results it did--absent concerted U.S. pressure. At the very least, the demonstrated inability of such “experts” to assess correctly past Soviet behavior and to advocate effective American responses should call into question their future analyses and recommendations.

Finally, it should be borne in mind that the Krasnoyarsk radar is but one facet of a comprehensive and ongoing Soviet program designed to reduce Soviet vulnerability to nuclear attack--a program fundamentally at odds with the object and purpose of the ABM treaty. Even if the Krasnoyarsk facility is destroyed, we should be under no illusion that Moscow has abandoned its commitment to strategic defense. Instead, the United States must press forward with its own Strategic Defense Initiative, both as a means of providing for a more effective deterrent to nuclear war and as a hedge against as-yet-unacknowledged and future Soviet arms-control violations.