Of Bases & Bombs

At first glimpse, it certainly bore all the signs of a U.S.-Soviet deal. First the news broke that Premier Khrushchev, in a se cret letter to President Kennedy, had agreed to remove the biggest obstacle to a nuclear test-ban treaty by permitting on-site inspections in Russia. Soon afterward, the U.S. confirmed that it was preparing to dismantle its Jupiter base in Turkey, the very thing that Khrushchev had demanded when the U.S. forced him to get his medium-range missiles out of Cuba, and its bases in Italy, too.

Was there really a deal? No. The two events have really no connection. The Khrushchev offer, while proof of his continued mellowing, is negligible; any test ban would depend on conditions virtually impossible to fulfill now. As for the removal of American missile installations from Turkey and Italy, its purpose, said President Kennedy, is simply to put the U.S. "in a stronger position" by substituting potent Polaris submarines for the immobile, vulnerable IRBMs, sitting ducks for Soviet retaliation.

Solid v Liquid. Months before Khrushchev suggested his Cuba-for-Turkey swap, the Joint Chiefs had begun considering the phase-out of bases in Turkey, Italy, and in England as well. The dismantling of the 60 Thor missiles in Britain is to begin this spring. More than compensating for their loss are eight Polaris subs operating out of Holy Loch, Scotland, each toting 16 missiles. To replace the 15 Jupiters in Turkey and the 30 in Italy, the U.S. plans to deploy possibly six subs in Mediterranean waters. Total firepower: 96 missiles, each with a nuclear-tipped warhead packing the equivalent of 800,000 tons of TNT. Compared with Jupiter's 1,500-mile reach, the current Polaris missiles have a range of 1,380 to 1,725 miles, and before long the subs will get A-3 models with a 2,875-mile range. Though Moscow is hard at work on antisub devices, U.S. experts see no evidence that the Russians have come up with an effective defense against the fleet of 41 Polaris subs that will be at sea by 1967. Both Turkey and Italy swiftly accepted the changeover. To provide berthing facilities for the subs, the U.S. hopes to expand its naval base at Rota on Spain's Atlantic coast.

Question of Boxes. The chance of a workable nuclear test-ban treaty seemed equally remote. Actually. Khrushchev first agreed to the principle of on-site inspections way back in 1959, when Britain's Prime Minister Macmillan was in Moscow, only to shelve it after he broke the three-year test moratorium in 1961. But having concluded his own latest nuclear test series. Khrushchev doubtless figures that he has little to lose from an effort to stop all testing--for a while.

"The time has come now." Khrushchev wrote Kennedy just before Christmas, "to put an end once and for all to nuclear tests. We are ready to meet you halfway." To Nikita, halfway meant two or three inspections each year to investigate suspicious tremors: the U.S. thought that eight inspections would be the minimum, having whittled that down from its original twelve. While the U.S. has been demanding that at least a dozen unmanned seismic detection stations, or "black boxes," be installed on Soviet soil, Khrushchev said that three would do--one each in Siberia's Altai Mountains, the Virgin Lands of Soviet Central Asia and the Soviet Far East. "We believe," he concluded, "that now the road to agreement is straight and clear."

Atmospheric Noise. This was clearly not Kennedy's view, but he declared himself "encouraged." suggested that exploratory talks be held and, after they got started, ordered a halt to the current series of U.S. underground tests to improve their chances of success. Last week Soviet U.N. Ambassador Nikolai T. Fedorenko and Veteran Geneva Negotiator Semyon K. Tsarapkin were closeted in Washington with U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Chief William C. Foster and British Ambassador Sir David Ormsby Gore.

There was no shortage of problems. In Moscow, dour Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko declared, "France must sign." fully aware that De Gaulle has no intention of joining a test ban. Another question was how to ring in Red China, which is expected to explode an A-bomb by year's end. Since Peking had not yet done so, Gromyko said, the problem was "artificial." Anxious to keep the talks going. U.S. officials grasped at straws --and hopeful phrases. "I don't think this closes the door," said one. "It's just atmospheric noise."

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