Negotiating a Build-Down

By WALTER ISAACSON

Washington works out an arms-control agreement--with itself

After months of arduous negotiations, an agreement on Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) was finally reached. All the parties involved at last accepted a radical new "double build-down" plan that would reduce the total destructive capabilities of the Soviet and American strategic arsenals as well as cut the number of warheads on each side's long-range missiles. Amid the fanfare and self-congratulations at the Rose Garden ceremony marking the agreement, it was easy to forget that the tough bargaining had taken place entirely within Washington, and that there was no sign at all that what had been worked out between the White House and Capitol Hill would be accepted by the Kremlin.

Indeed, the Treaty of Pennsylvania Avenue seemed to have followed Alice through the looking glass. Usually the White House sets U.S. arms-control policy and tries to get Congress to go along. This time President Reagan let a group of Congressmen take the lead in fashioning an imaginative initiative of their own. Even if Moscow spurns the new proposal, the unprecedented way that it evolved has changed the nature of the domestic debate over nuclear arms. "We have been able to get the Administration to adopt an arms-control approach that is genuinely bipartisan and will provide a consistent, sustainable basis for the next Administration, whatever it is, Democratic or Republican," said Congressman Les Aspin of Wisconsin, a liberal Democrat.

Reagan was amply rewarded for not standing on presidential prerogative. In the first place, he secured congressional backing for the MX missile. He is also able to present Moscow with a START proposal that enjoys strong bipartisan support. Said Kenneth Duberstein, the presidential assistant who helped to put the package together: "It gives a signal to the Soviets that we are united." Not least of all, Reagan may have been able to dispel his image as an inflexible hard-liner and defuse the arms-control issue before the 1984 elections. Said one of his senior advisers: "This is what we should have been doing a year ago."

The double build-down plan still includes Reagan's original START proposal that both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. reduce from approximately 8,500 apiece to 5,000 the number of warheads they have deployed atop long-range missiles. It incorporates the novel proposal that both sides destroy more than one old weapon for each new one deployed as they modernize their forces. Reflected too is the idea that certain weapons are more threatening, or "destabilizing," and should be discouraged. For example, large land-based missiles that carry multiple warheads have the capacity to destroy enemy missiles in a pre-emptive strike and are more susceptible to being destroyed by a first strike. Since both sides know that they may have to use such missiles first if they are to use them at all, they encourage hair-trigger reactions. In addition, the new proposal meets the Soviet desire that bombers, in which the U.S. enjoys a strategic advantage, be simultaneously placed on the negotiating table in Geneva with land-based missiles. A complex formula has been devised to measure each country's nuclear firepower on missiles, submarines and planes (see box).

The build-down idea began to take shape last January when Maine Republican Senator William Cohen wrote an article in the Washington Post suggesting that any new arms-control agreement include the build-down proposal. A few days later, Cohen got a call from the President. "I like the concept," Reagan said. "I hope we can make it work." Other Administration officials were far more skeptical. They argued that reducing the number of nuclear missiles does not necessarily lead to greater stability, and they objected to mixing bombers in the same negotiating pot with ballistic missiles. But Cohen had an important hole card: if he could persuade a core group of moderate Senators to join with him, they could block the funding for the new MX missile.

Cohen was able to enlist Democrat Sam Nunn of Georgia, who is respected for his knowledge of defense issues, and Republican Charles Percy of Illinois, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. When Reagan's chief arms-control negotiator, Edward Rowny, protested to Cohen that build-down would only complicate matters in Geneva, the Senator asked: "How about no MX?" Replied Rowny: "I need the MX to get a treaty." Said Cohen: "You need build-down to get the MX."

A group of House Democrats led by Aspin, Albert Gore of Tennessee and Norman Dicks of Washington was urging that the U.S. shift away from large, MIRVed missiles and instead deploy mobile ones with single warheads, like the proposed Midgetman. This had been recommended by Reagan's bipartisan panel on nuclear strategy chaired by Lieut. General Brent Scowcroft, which had nevertheless favored emplacing a limited number of MX missiles while the Midgetman was being developed.

The Soviet attack on Korean Air Lines Flight 007 caused hard-liners within the Administration to suggest stonewalling Congress. Ronald Lehman, the chief arms-control expert on the National Security Council, argued to the President that the anti-Soviet sentiments aroused would make it possible to pass the MX in the Senate without any concessions on build-down. He was supported by Rowny and Kenneth Adelman, the head of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. But Duberstein kept the pressure on to continue to seek an accord with both groups in Congress.

Flying to Seattle Sept. 7 for the funeral of Washington Senator Henry Jackson, Nunn and Cohen assessed the objectives of arms-control activists in both houses of Congress. Their House colleagues had been emphasizing different approaches, and the Administration had played both sides off against each other. Over the next two weeks, Nunn, Cohen and Percy joined forces with Aspin (who had plugged double build-down in a letter to Scowcroft in August), Dicks and Gore in the House, forming what became known as "the Gang of Six." The group agreed on a set of principles, including a commitment to less vulnerable missiles and to some formula for reducing total nuclear destructive capacity.

Scowcroft played honest broker between the Gang of Six and the White House. He worked closely with R. James Woolsey, a Democrat and a key member of the Scowcroft Commission, who was Under Secretary of the Navy for Jimmy Carter. Glenn Kent, retired Air Force officer and nuclear-weapons specialist at the Rand Corp., was brought in to translate arms-control goals and principles into computable figures.

Kent came up with a new unit called Standard Weapon Station (SWS) to calculate the destructive capability of bombs and missiles on each side, giving added weight to weapons that are particularly destabilizing. It is an ingenious, though dauntingly complex common denominator for Sena tors who want a mutual build-down, House members who want a shift to ward mobile missiles, Administration officials who want the chance to upgrade U.S. forces, and Kremlin leaders who want to negotiate all strategic systems at one time. Proponents suggested that the build-down be stretched out until 1996 to give both sides time to make orderly reductions as they modern ize weapons systems.

The NSC met on Sept. 29 to consider the evolving plan. "I am prepared to accept this," the President declared over Rowny's strong objections. But when Clark and other White House aides went to Percy's office the following day, a Friday, they met resistance from the Senate side of the Gang of Six. Clark's presentation was sloppy, and Lehman kept launching into long editorials about the President's flexibility. "This thing is full of waffle words," Cohen said of the draft document. "We can't satisfy this guy," complained Clark. "Not with something like this," the Senator shot back. Scow croft and Nunn, however, saw that they were on the verge of an agreement. "We can do a better job," said Scowcroft. "Let's take it up tomorrow."

After a series of weekend meetings and phone calls, the differences had been narrowed to a few words. The Gang of Six met with Scowcroft in Cohen's Senate office Monday morning and moved to the White House Situation Room that after noon. The main sticking point: the White House had proposed saying that the President would "explore" reducing American nuclear arsenals aboard planes and submarines if the Soviets would make corresponding cuts in their land-based missile forces. Cohen, who has a poet's fascination with words, insisted that he "seek" such a tradeoff. Reagan, who had been briefed on the dispute, joined the group. "That's exactly what I plan to do," he said. "We all agree. It's just a matter of how to say it." Cohen, now convinced that the President was sincere in supporting the new approach, backed off. Lehman suggested that they use the word "negotiate." A fact sheet was released publicly that included the phrase "The U.S. delegation will be prepared to ... negotiate trade-offs."

Another major concession, made despite Rowny's opposition, was the inclusion of Woolsey as an "at large" member of the START delegation. He is expected to be Congress's watchdog. "If Ed Rowny came back and said double build-down won't fly, I wouldn't believe him," said Aspin. "But I trust Jim Woolsey to give it a real try."

Reagan invited the top House and Senate leadership to the White House Roosevelt Room on Tuesday to be briefed on the plan their colleagues had helped frame. The President gave an emotional pitch for arms control, saying that he could remember when wars used to be fought only among armies. "Now people talk about wiping out civilian populations," he said. "Doesn't that alone argue for eliminating nuclear weapons?" For the first time in any such meeting with Reagan, the congressional leaders gave him a standing ovation. When he went out into the Rose Garden to announce the plan publicly, Reagan made clear the flexibility of the proposal he was endorsing. Said he: "There will have to be tradeoffs, and the U.S. is prepared to make them so long as they result in a more stable balance forces."

This, of course, does not mean that Rowny's Soviet counterpart, Victor Karpov, will be prepared to make the tradeoffs, especially those envisioned by the U.S. The Soviets have already presented their own START plan, which builds on the unratified SALT II agreement. The build-down approach represents a radical departure in the SALT-START process, and it is likely to upset their yearning for consistency. In addition, the new U.S. initiative would still require a major reduction in the weapons the Soviets prize most, their land-based ballistic missiles.

Perhaps as important, the Soviets are currently more concerned about the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) talks, also under way in Geneva, which seek to control medium-range missiles based in Europe. If there is no progress on this front and NATO proceeds with its planned deployment this December of U.S. Pershing II and cruise missiles, the Soviets have promised to "reassess" (translation: become even more hardline) their position at the START negotiations.

The overall atmosphere between Washington and Moscow is so poisonous in the wake of the Korean Air Lines incident that little immediate progress is possible in Geneva. But by agreeing to an imaginative new initiative, Reagan has shown that he now believes arms control is too important to be linked to other problems the two superpowers may have. In addition, he has shown that even if he cannot deal effectively with the Kremlin on the issue, he can still do business with Congress. And that might make the Kremlin realize that it will have to do business with him.

--By Walter Isaacson. Reported by Douglas Brew and Strobe Talbott/Washington

With reporting by Douglas Brew, Strobe Talbott This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.