Rebuff in Geneva

In a three-hour presentation in Geneva last week, U.S. Negotiator Arthur Dean unveiled the details of the latest Kennedy Administration proposal to break the U.S.-Soviet deadlock over methods of working out a nuclear test ban treaty. Behind the new Kennedy plan was the notion that recent improvements in the techniques of distinguishing underground A-blasts from earthquakes make it safe for the U.S. to reduce its inspection requirements. Main points of the proposal: > If the Russians agreed to on-site inspections by international teams, the U.S.

might be willing to reduce the number of such annual investigations from the previously proposed minimum of twelve.

If--and only if--the Russians accepted on-site inspections, the U.S. would consider drastically modifying its demands for monitoring posts on Soviet soil. Not only might the U.S. reduce its demands for a total of 19 Russian posts to around eight, but it might agree to have them manned by Soviet nationals--provided they were supervised by international teams.

The Russians could hardly wait to say tyet. When Dean finished, Soviet Negotiator Valerian Zorin read a prepared text that derided the U.S. concessions. The proposal, gibed Zorin, was "just the old American position dolled up in a new guise to deceive the neutrals." The Administration's proposal got more notice at home than it did at the inter national conference table. For the whole question of the U.S. position at Geneva was becoming a political issue. Declared Senate Republican Leader Everett Dirksen: "Hat in hand, the Kennedy Administration sent our negotiators back to Geneva with a new set of concessions," which "the Russian representative threw cold water on before they were even formally presented." Dirksen icily suggested that "a firmer American negotiating position might be achieved if it sent demands to Geneva instead of concessions."

New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who has begun to step up his criticism of the Kennedy Administration, issued a special statement to get into the argument. "In the last 18 months," he said, "we have moved steadily towards the Soviet position. This continual weakening of our position has been accompanied by a growing Soviet intransigence which has seen the Soviets withdraw many points already agreed to. This is no accident. Why should the Soviets accept any United States proposal when every refusal elicits a new United States offer?" The Administration's concessions, said Republican Rockefeller,*"seem to me to run a high risk of endangering our national security."

From the tenor of the remarks, it was clear that the Republicans thought they had found a strong issue for 1962's fall campaign--and perhaps beyond.

*Last week Rockefeller confidently challenged Kennedy to come into New York State this fall and oppose his campaign to be re-elected Governor.

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