Senate Critics to Slow Treaty; Approval Seen

After nine years of tough negotiation and a dramatic signing ceremony Wednesday in Moscow, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty faces a final pair of obstacles--ratification by the U.S. Senate here and the Supreme Soviet in Moscow.

While hard-liners in both capitals are expected to attack the START accord, experts said that in Washington, at least, opposition is likely to be more noisy than it is effective.

In the Senate, only one lawmaker--Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and an ardent skeptic of Soviet military intentions--has told defense leaders he will oppose the treaty, Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams said.

Three other Senate conservatives--Steve Symms (R-Ida.), Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyo.)--regularly vote with Helms on arms control matters, although none has announced his opposition.

In the Soviet Union, where the national legislature is no longer a rubber-stamp body, the treaty may also be opposed by conservatives--in the Soviet context, those who resist the changes diluting the Communist Party’s former monopoly of power. These voices, and some from the military, have criticized the treaty as unequal, requiring greater cuts in the Soviet arsenal than the Americans will have to make.

While experts believe the START treaty ultimately will win ratification on the U.S. side, it will be buffeted along the way by debates over some of the most controversial defense spending programs before Congress, including the B-2 bomber and the program to develop a space-based missile defense, the Strategic Defense Initiative.

In one initial assessment delivered Wednesday on the Senate floor, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) declared that the treaty greatly favors the United States and urged Senate ratification after a full debate.

As many liberals have done, Biden chided negotiators for failing to achieve the deep reductions in nuclear weapons that were an early goal of negotiations.