Nuke Rattling

Moscow's two-edged warning

Since talks on reducing nuclear weapons in Europe resumed two months ago, U.S. and Soviet negotiators have followed a prescribed ritual of meeting twice a week for an exchange of views. But so far, there seems to have been more talk in newspaper columns than behind the closed doors in Geneva. In keeping with that tradition, two top Soviet officials issued warnings in the press last week about what the Kremlin might do if NATO went ahead with plans to start deploying 572 U.S.-built intermediate-range missiles in Western Europe later this year.

The first propaganda salvo came from Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, Chief of the Soviet General Staff. In a rare interview, Ogarkov bluntly described the consequences of any NATO missile buildup as "very sad, very bad." The Soviet Union, he told the New York Times, would have to respond to a NATO nuclear attack by striking back directly at the U.S. Declared Ogarkov: "If the U.S. would use these missiles in Europe against the Soviet Union, it is not logical to believe that we will retaliate only against targets inEurope."

Georgi Arbatov, director of the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies and a man believed to be close to Soviet Leader Yuri Andropov, followed Ogarkov's lead with an authoritative commentary published the same day in Pravda. He offered an equally chilling assessment of how Moscow would respond to the deployment of new American missiles in Europe. To preserve nuclear "equality," Arbatov said, the Soviets "would have not only to add to our missiles in Western Europe but also to deploy them near American borders." The meaning of the final phrase was left deliberately vague, but Western arms analysts thought it unlikely that Moscow would risk putting missiles back in Cuba. A more probable alternative would be to station submarines armed with new sea-launched cruise missiles off the U.S. coast.

For all the tough talk, the Soviets were careful to hold out a tattered olive branch. Ogarkov's public comments stopped well short of more serious threats that Soviet officials have made previously through diplomatic channels. Arbatov also noted that any change in Washington's attitude "will, of course, be noticed in Moscow." TIME has learned that President Reagan recently invited Soviet Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin for a private chat and assured the veteran diplomat that he is personally committed to peace. It was a tiny step in easing tensions. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.