Now That You’ve Signed It, Sell It : Superpowers should jump-START others

Truly momentous events that once passed in a trickle now thunder by like an avalanche. Part of the avalanche is an historic START arms control treaty, launched in 1982--so long ago that it seems like something Presidents Bush and Mikhail S. Gorbachev must squeeze into their Moscow summit talks on other issues.

But in important ways, the real history of the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks, with their air of ancient times, only begins with the signing on Wednesday.

That intercontinental nuclear arsenals will be cut--by about a third--for the first time since the Cold War began is cause enough for rejoicing. But the agreement can--and should--also affect the Middle East and other volatile regions bristling with weapons of mass destruction.

Why? Not just because of START’s history or its precedent for destroying weapons, instead of lives and property. But mainly because its open-door policies for verifying that both countries are complying with the treaty can be models for ending regional arms races.

Proposed during the “evil empire” phase of former President Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy, the move to reduce weapons seemed less a start than a non-starter. So while the animosities feeding tensions in the Middle East, between India and Pakistan and in other parts of the Third World are rooted in grudges that have been carried for centuries, it’s worth remembering that there were days in the early 1980s when East-West relations seemed every bit as intractable.

Yet agreeing to talk about arms opened lines of communication between the superpowers that had seemed tightly closed. Any confidence that negotiators could be trusted to talk straight was confined at first to technicians who could verify what their counterparts were telling them. But eventually confidence spread to political leaders, and that could be an important history lesson for other parts of the world.

There probably are only four smaller countries that now have, or know how to build, nuclear weapons. But there are more than 20 small nations with chemical weapons, some of which could be mounted on missiles. And the world trade in missiles is on the increase.

So enough Third World countries--perhaps still including Iraq--can threaten their neighbors with missiles to warrant trying to teach them the lessons of START--arms reduction and open-door verification policies.

The START treaty will include 12 different kinds of verification inspections, including one type that will require so little advance notice that it will amount to surprise visits. This and other verification procedures will be an important part of the model for smaller nations.

The big incentive for the United States and Soviet Union to share the lessons they have learned drawing up START is that they need a way to prevent regional conflicts into which they may be drawn.

Reason enough for the superpowers to stop selling arms in the Third World and start selling START.