Murky Outcome

A freeze vote that wasn 't

"This is a unique instance in the history of arms control," said Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill last week. Perhaps so, but the occasion was also a murky one. After more than 40 hours of amendment-filled debate spread over seven tedious weeks, the House finally voted on its contentious call for a nuclear arms freeze by the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., a measure opposed by the Reagan Administration. The tally on the nonbinding resolution: 278 in favor, 149 against. Confusingly enough, both pro-and anti-freeze legislators claimed victory.

Like many other issues that have sprung into the legislative hopper of Congress from grass-roots American concern, the final House resolution was a compromise. Originally, the document called only for the Reagan Administration to pursue an "immediate, mutual and verifiable" nuclear arms freeze with the Soviets at the ongoing arms-limitation talks in Geneva. The White House insisted, however, that an acceptable arms-reduction agreement would have to be reached before an arms freeze could take place in order to prevent any Soviet advantage in bargaining. Under the sponsorship of Republican Henry Hyde of Illinois and Democrat Elliott Levitas of Georgia, an amendment to the original House measure proposed to rescind a freeze if arms reductions did not follow within "a reasonable specified period." It passed 221 to 203, less than three hours before the final freeze vote.

Both sides in the House made predictable hay of the resulting pack age. But in a formal statement from the White House, President Reagan declared that the resolution "is not an answer to arms control that I can responsibly support."

Administration nuclear arms strategy was under nagging and contradictory pressure on several other fronts last week. In Chicago, the country's Roman Catholic bishops adopted a pastoral letter that is sharply at odds with many elements of Reagan policy (see RELIGION). And earlier in the week, three U.S. Senators, including Democrat Sam Nunn of Georgia, sent the President a letter warning of their potential opposition to deployment of the controversial MX missile. A similar message came from nine members of the House, who were led by Albert Gore of Tennessee. The price of their acquiescence, the Congressmen wrote, was a more flexible U.S. approach to the strategic-arms talks going on in Geneva. If the White House bows to the Congressmen's demand, there could be far more changes in U.S. nuclear policy than resulted from those seven windy weeks on Capitol Hill. . This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.