Limited Nuclear Response

By WALTER ISAACSON

Brezhnev's answer to Reagan's arms plan may be a start for START

With golden medals glimmering on the breast of his dark suit, Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev slowly made his way though the lilacs and carnations to the podium. "Glory! Glory!" chanted 6,000 exultant members of the Young Communist League as their ailing leader, in his deep and slurred growl, began to speak. But a dramatic hush descended over the Kremlin's Palace of Congresses when Brezhnev reached the heart of his 35-minute address. The Komsomol delegates knew, as did Washington and the rest of the world, that the Soviet leader was planning to answer Ronald Reagan's proposal, made earlier this month at Eureka College in Illinois, for Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START).

Predictably, Brezhnev complained that the U.S. proposal was "absolutely one-sided." Yet, amid his anti-American rhetoric, there was a cautious but clear sign that the two superpowers might resume discussions of ways to lessen the global peril wrought by their growing strategic arsenals. For Brezhnev also said of the U.S. offer, "In our opinion, this is a step in the right direction."

The Administration was satisfied by this response. The White House issued a statement declaring, "We welcome President Brezhnev's willingness to begin negotiations." Reagan was less guarded. "Do you have any reply to Brezhnev?" a reporter asked. "Not that you'd want to print," the President shot back. But then he added: "I'm kidding. I think we'll be meeting." Reagan's flippant remark, while inappropriate, reflected optimism within the White House that the President's arms-control speech, and Moscow's answer, will defuse domestic antinuclear sentiment and help smooth the way for his forthcoming trip to Western Europe.

The exchange of oratory indicated that the two leaders agree on the need for negotiations but on little else. In order to preserve what the Soviets see as parity, Brezhnev proposed that the two sides agree to freeze nuclear weapons at the current level as soon as talks get under way. Replied the White House: "A freeze would codify existing Soviet military advantages and remove Soviet incentives to agree to substantial reductions."

The Administration also opposes a freeze because it feels that the number of missiles on each side may be negotiable but the modernization of the U.S. arsenal is not. A National Security Decision Directive, outlining the Administration's military and diplomatic stance against the Soviet Union, was prepared by the National Security Council and signed last week by the President. It states that building modern missiles is a first priority. The right to produce the MX advanced systems will therefore not be bargained away. Said NSC Director William Clark last week, discussing the directive: "The President views the production of a modern intercontinental ballistic missile [ICBM] as absolutely essential."

Brezhnev charged that the American plan is designed to achieve U.S. military superiority, since it would exclude from negotiations "the strategic arms it is now most intensively developing." By limiting the number of land-based warheads to 2,500 apiece, Reagan's START proposal would weaken the backbone of the Soviet Union's strategic arsenal, the 5,500 warheads it deploys on ICBMS. In return, the U.S., which has only 2,152 warheads on ICBMS, would have to give up half of its 4,928 submarine-based warheads but could proceed with production of the planned MX ballistic missile, the low-flying cruise missile and the B-l bomber. Nonetheless, the Administration has said that when negotiations begin, all systems "will be on the bargaining table."

The Administration is determined to avoid repeating what it regards as a major error made by Jimmy Carter. In 1977, Carter abandoned his proposals for "deep cuts" in strategic weapons almost as soon as the Soviets had denounced his plan as unacceptable. The Reaganauts believe that 1) arms-control proposals should be designed to meet U.S. interests rather than what the Soviets might accept and 2) American negotiators should advance their proposals with the same kind of iron-pants stubbornness that Moscow's men have traditionally shown.

Administration officials believe that the Soviets, who are now completing a major strategic-weapons program, will have to agree to reduce some of their existing systems in order to prevent the U.S. from deploying some of the weapons planned in the Reagan defense buildup. Says one senior official: "What do the Soviets see? They see us opening production lines for MX missiles, cruise missiles, B-l bombers, and soon Stealth bombers and Trident II missiles. We could go on building them in definitely." Soviet officials object to that kind of argument as intimidation. Said Radomir Bogdanov, an arms-control expert at Moscow's USA Institute: "It's the usual American tactic of threatening your bargaining partner."

Reagan's START plan has also been subjected to criticism from U.S. defense experts on both the left and right. The main complaint: the President's plan would reduce rather than increase strategic stability because it would make land-based missiles more vulnerable to enemy warheads. Argues Herbert Scoville Jr., president of the left-of-center Arms Control Association in Washington: "The START proposal will not achieve the President's goal of improved stability, but will instead increase the likelihood of a first strike." A report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace contends that limited reductions in nuclear missiles would "have no significant impact on strategic vulnerability."

In order to shield U.S. land-based missiles from a Soviet first strike, Reagan last week told the Pentagon that he favors what is known as the "dense pack" method for basing the new MX. Up to 100 MX missiles would be clustered in deep, hardened silos within a 12-sq.-mi. area. Enemy warheads coming into such a small area would cause the first of them to explode the others. Theoretically, some of the MX missiles in the dense pack would survive and be able to launch through the rubble after the attack.

Under Reagan's START proposal, the U.S. could replace its smaller Minutemen and aging Titans with up to 250 MX missiles, each of which can carry ten warheads (to one for the Titans and three for the Minuteman III). But unlike the mobile race-track system proposed by President Carter, the dense-pack MX deployment appears to be a violation of SALT II, which was never ratified by the Senate but is being informally honored by both countries. That treaty forbids the construction of any new fixed missile silos. If the dense pack were protected by antiballistic missiles, as some top Pentagon officials suggest, it would also violate provisions of the 1972 ABM treaty.

The Kremlin is considerably more reluctant than the White House to abandon these past arms accords. Said Brezhnev last week: "It is necessary to preserve everything positive that was achieved earlier. A good deal of useful work has already been done." During his 1980 campaign, Reagan vehemently denounced the SALT process as "fatally flawed." Consequently, there are political reasons why he cannot easily accept the advice of former Secretaries of State Edmund Muskie, Cyrus Vance and Henry Kissinger to adopt the SALT II provisions as a first step in the new START process. For the Soviets, Reagan's refusal poses a dilemma. As one Central Committee member told TIME last week: "We don't want to make the face-saving problems more difficult for Reagan, but you cannot simply put SALT II aside. How can we start on another blood-spilling operation to reach definitions and frames of reference when we already spent twelve years at it, and when the next American President may throw these out as well?"

Much of the public maneuvering by both sides is designed to gain propaganda points, particularly in Western Europe. A growing antinuclear movement, tinged with anti-Americanism, has arisen in opposition to the U.S. -backed plan to modernize NATO's intermediate-range nuclear forces. Part of Brezhnev's speech last week was aimed at the Western European audience. He pledged that a Soviet freeze on its own medium-range missiles would be extended to preclude the deployment of SS-20 missiles, which have a 3,000-mile range, any place in the Soviet Union from which they could strike West Germany.

Reagan did some appealing to Europeans too. In his Eureka speech, he abandoned an approach that Western allies have long opposed: the linking of future arms talks to Soviet good conduct around the world. In discussing the new National Security Decision Directive, Administration officials suggested that linkage has been displaced by the idea of "shrinkage"--pressuring the Soviets to turn their attention inward to the needs of their own people rather than pursuing expansionist aims. NATO foreign ministers, meeting in Luxembourg last week, declared their support for Reagan's "far-reaching but realistic offer" to begin START talks. It remains to be seen how much the prospect of a summit meeting and START negotiations will blunt the force of the European disarmament movement, which threatened to disrupt the President's scheduled trip to Britain, France, Italy and West Germany.

A landmark event in relations between the superpowers took place ten years ago this week: Richard Nixon's visit to the Soviet Union to sign the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty. Reducing strategic weapons promises to be more of a challenge than limiting them. "We want to talk, but the basis must be acceptable," warns Georgi Arbatov, a member of the Central Committee who is the top authority on American affairs. The Administration's arms-control planners feel much the same. Yet the very fact that the powerful antagonists of East and West are edging uncertainly to ward the conference table may do much to tame the fears about nuclear war on both sides of the Atlantic.

-- By Walter Isaacson.

Reported by Erik Amfitheatrof/Moscow and Bruce W. Nelan/Washington

With reporting by Erik Amfitheatrof, Bruce W. Nelan

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