Old Horse, New Odds

Geneva's headwaiters beamed indefatigably last week as pealing nightclub and restaurant cash registers heralded the return of the 17-nation disarmament conference after a five-month recess. Their euphoria even infected the cafe au lait-colored Palais des Nations, where some 200 reassembled officials settled back into their bronze and green leather chairs--as usual, leaving three seats vacant for nonattending France--and prepared for the sixth antiwar jaw session since the disarmament conference got under way in 1962. Buoyed by last August's partial test ban treaty, most Western and neutral negotiators expected action this time and greeted a new five-point program from President Johnson as a hopeful starting point. "The U.S.," said one old disarmament warrior, "is pumping so much adrenalin into this old horse that it may die of a heart attack."

Crusty Scratchy. As it turned out, the horse was subject to the same old binds that have hobbled serious disarmament efforts in the past: the U.S.'s insistence on a strict international control system to police arms cuts, and the Communists' equally dogged argument that Western inspection teams would in fact be "NATO spies." Thus there appeared to be little likelihood of early agreement on the U.S. proposals that both sides should 1) halt the buildup of nuclear delivery systems, notably missiles, submarines and bombers; 2) discontinue production of plutonium for warheads and systematically shut down weapons reactors; and 3) establish observation posts to reduce the risk of attack by surprise or accident.

Two other offers by U.S. Disarmament Negotiator William C. Foster also drew Soviet fire. Washington's program to curb the spread of nuclear weapons, objected Russia's crusty old Semyon K. ("Scratchy") Tsarapkin, is unacceptable because Moscow regards U.S. plans for a multilateral force of Polaris-armed surface ships simply as a device to give West Germany a finger on the nuclear trigger. Predictably, the Communists also refused to accept the Johnson Administration's proposed pact for renunciation of force in territorial conflicts, since it would specifically restrain them from abetting the Berlin dispute and subversive wars in South Viet Nam and elsewhere.

"Any Method's Good." Nonetheless, disarmament negotiators remained hopeful that the East-West arms race might be slowed by the process that Khrushchev calls "mutual example." Thus the Johnson Administration's announcement of a $1.3 billion cutback in the current U.S. military budget was balanced with Moscow's recent claim to have slashed Soviet military expenditures by 4.4%, or $666 million.

For Khrushchev in particular, further cuts in nuclear and conventional forces would conveniently ease a shortage of manpower and investment capital that has bedeviled his plans to boost output of chemicals and consumer goods. "The main thing we need now," said Foster, "is patience and determination." Scratchy Tsarapkin had a characteristic Red reply: "Any method is good provided you get results."

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