INSPECTION: Why We Insist on It - How It Could Work

THE Geneva Conference is deadlocked over the vital, complex issue of inspection. The West will sign no treaty renouncing nuclear testing unless inspectors can actually go inside the Soviet Union to discourage cheating. The Kremlin replies that foreigners will never be allowed to prowl around Russian territory. Andrei Gromyko's argument: inspection is unnecessary because the West has modern instruments that can detect blasts thousands of miles away.

Where Gadgets Fall Short. The U.S. and its allies have indeed ringed Russia with sensitive gadgets--radio and radar devices, microbarographs and seismographs recording pressure and earth waves of possible nuclear blasts, high-flying planes collecting air samples that might contain nuclear debris. Far above them have soared the U.S.'s Samos and Midas, orbiting surveillance satellites equipped with photo and infra-red detectors.

But there are some kinds of underground and small atmospheric explosions that even this elaborate network cannot detect with certainty. Last autumn, observation posts in Sweden and France confused a small Russian test blast with the Soviets' long-awaited 58-megaton shot simply because it took place simultaneously with an earthquake in California. Recent underground tests in Nevada confirmed that earthquake confusion is possible unless seismographs are within a few hundred miles of the site. Hence the Krishna Menon plan presented at Geneva urging monitors in neutral nations near Russia would change nothing. To be above suspicion, any nuclear power must be ready to permit seismographs, accompanied by teams of trained foreign inspectors, on its soil.

What the U.S. Wants. The West has a workable plan based on a 1958 experts' report envisioning a worldwide network of some 180 control posts. The draft proposed that 19 of them be located in the Soviet Union, 16 on the smaller U.S. territory, all spaced 600 to 1,000 miles apart. The foreign technicians in the control posts in Russia--one-third would be Russians, one-third U.S. and British, and one-third from other countries--would be confined to their stations. They would merely report instrument readings suggesting a blast, and then an international team would move in to interview citizens, search for radioactive rock, etc., within strictly limited areas. The U.S. wants a minimum of twelve such on-site inspections a year in Russia. At one point, the Russians seemed to agree to the principle of inspection, but held fast to only three annual on-site checks. Furthermore, the Russians insisted that Soviet officials must be in charge of all control posts and on-site checking stations.

The wrangle dragged on for three years, while the U.S. did not test and the Russians prepared last fall's 50 explosions. After that, Moscow dropped all discussion of any form of international inspection, retired to its present stand: a test ban with national "self-inspection" as the only control.

The "Absolute Minimum." When the U.N. got disarmament and test-ban talks going again fortnight ago, the West began tossing out more hints of compromise; Britain's Foreign Secretary Lord Home promised the "absolute minimum" of verification (the term now used for detection and inspection). On the larger question of what the experts call"G. & C" (general and complete disarmament), the U.S.'s Dean Rusk suggested an intriguing scheme designed to soften Russian fear of inspection "espionage." It was similar to the plan of random geo graphical samplings proposed by Harvard University's International Law Professor Louis B. Sohn. Under the "Sohn Zone" system, each country would be divided into a number of areas; once the nuclear nations had reported their total number of weapons in each area, an international disarmament organization would choose a zone at random for minute inspection. The theory is that Russia (or any nation) could be certain that most of its territory would be free from prying foreigners, yet would find it difficult to violate its arms-control pledge for fear of exposure by a random spot check. The Russians are not interested.

Playing with Words. But if the major powers cannot get to gether on the first step of a nuclear test ban, there is no hope of progress toward the glittering goal of G. & C. As played by the Communists, general and complete disarmament is a word game that permits everyone to inspect the disarming, but not the arming. Moscow would welcome witnesses to the destruction of a certain number of guns and bombs, but would not let outsiders in to see whether Russia is turning out bigger and better arms at factories elsewhere. As one American expert puts it: "We're invited to watch the bonfire, but we're not permitted to inspect the production lines."

Even with inspection, disarmament would be risky. According to President Kennedy's scientific adviser, Jerome B. Wiesner, the best that can be achieved is a combination of inspection techniques that would produce an "adequate likelihood" of detecting violations. For example, even if ironclad controls were accepted by each nation -- inspection of such things as plant output records, manpower, ore supply and electricity consumption -- could anyone be sure a would-be cheater had not hidden a stockpile of undeclared H-bombs? Even with all this data, experts estimate they might miscalculate a nation's supply to the extent of 50 to 500 large nuclear weapons.

Utopian Hopes. Looking far ahead are scientists who think of "nonphysical" techniques. This is what Lewis C. Bohn, an arms-control specialist, calls "knowledge detection." Says Bohn: "Instead of focusing on the violation itself as a secret physical phenomenon, one can focus on knowledge concerning it, as a mental phenomenon in the heads of human beings." He suggests that an international arms control body might be given access to, say, 1,000 citizens of each country-- a cross section of high-ranking people including industrialists, scientists, bankers, even Cabinet ministers, who would be regularly quizzed with the aid of lie detectors and induced to tip the world off to their country's treaty violations. Lesser citizens, such as plant guards, railroad engineers and clerks, would be lured by appeals to idealism or financial rewards.

How far Russia is from opening up its society to such an extent was well illustrated at Geneva last week. Gromyko was asked how Russia could assure the world that it was not cheating. Said he loftily: "The subject would not come up. If a treaty had been signed, it would be an insult to the Soviet people to allege that Russia was not abiding by it."

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