SMILES AND SUSPICION AT SALT

AS the U.S. and Soviet Union opened their arms control talks in Helsinki last week, there was an unaccustomed outpouring of bonhomie. In a unique display of diplomatic cordiality, the Soviet and U.S. ambassadors in the Finnish capital issued joint invitations, printed in Russian and English, to a cocktail party for Finnish leaders and the two delegations to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). In the unlikely surroundings of Helsinki's Kaivohuone restaurant, which usually echoes to the beat of restrained rock and the coo of unescorted birds at the bar, U.S. Chief Delegate Gerard Smith and his Soviet counterpart, Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Semyonov, clinked champagne glasses and exchanged pledges of good will while the other American and Russian delegates chatted with one another and munched smoked reindeer canapes.

Yet amid the smiles there were also secrecy and latent suspicion. To the dismay of the 220 foreign correspondents who had come to Helsinki for the opening of the most important disarmament talks in history, the U.S. delegation accepted a Soviet proposal that there should be a complete ban on news announcements and background briefings. As Semyonov explained to newsmen at the cocktail party: "This is a time to see and a time to hear, but it is also a time to be silent with the press."

Tails They Win. Though the neutral Finns are excellent hosts, the Americans were extremely unhappy about security arrangements. No more than 100 yds. from the U.S. consulate, where the 26-man American delegation has its temporary offices, there are three apartment buildings. U.S. security men suspect that KGB agents, who are known to be active in Helsinki, have set up electronic surveillance devices in them in order to eavesdrop on the American delegation.

On the American side there was also concern that the Soviets, who have made considerable strides recently in building up their nuclear arsenal, are pressing for a clear first-strike superiority over the U.S.

The speaking order at the talks was determined by the toss of a coin--an American quarter. The Soviets called tails and won the right to speak first. The U.S. became the home team and held the first session in its embassy; the second, two days later, took place in the Soviet embassy. The sessions were marked by an encouraging absence of polemics and posturing. Each side seemed earnest and genuinely eager to get down to the essentials of the difficult and long bargaining that was bound to precede an arms agreement. Unlike most international conferences that meet amid splendor and pomp, the arms talks were held in modest, almost cramped surroundings. In order to accommodate a conference table, a glass partition had been ripped out between two offices in the U.S. embassy. Even so, the room was hardly large enough to hold the negotiators and translators.

First-Strike Theory. As kick-off speakers, the Russians did not make any startling proposals. Instead, they seemed eager for the U.S. to take its turn. The Soviets were probably taken aback by the candor and completeness of the American presentation. As TIME Correspondent John Steele reported from Helsinki, the whole thrust of U.S. tactics is to 1) convince the Soviets of the devastating strength of America's weaponry, and 2) persuade them that the U.S. seeks only a retaliatory second-strike capability that would be used in the event of an enemy attack.-

Between long pauses for the translation into Russian, Chief Delegate Smith revealed the details of the U.S.'s vast and widely dispersed nuclear striking force. At the same time he stressed that the deployment of the U.S. power reflects its defensive, not aggressive, nature. For example, the U.S.'s 1,054 land-based iCBMs and 656 submarine-borne Polaris missiles are targeted on Soviet cities and military bases only as a retaliatory threat. The Americans argued that the U.S. is not seeking a first-strike capability that could knock out the Soviet nuclear force in a surprise attack.

By the same token, the American delegates explained that the Safeguard, the U.S. anti-ballistic missile system, is also defensive in nature in that it will be deployed only around missile sites, in order to defend them from a first-strike attack, and will not be placed around cities, where its presence could be construed as an attempt to ward off a retaliatory attack by the Soviets.

MIRV Threat. After having expounded U.S. strength and strategy, the Americans frankly talked about what bothers them in the present Soviet approach. The main thing is the Soviet development of huge MIRVs--multiple nuclear warheads that vastly increase the destructive ability of a single missile. While the U.S. leads in MIRV development, the American warheads are small, about one-third of a megaton. By contrast, the Soviets are developing enormous MIRVs; each packs an approximately eight-megaton wallop that could obliterate vast areas in a single explosion.

Reported Steele: "Their potential MIRV warheads are of far greater power than our own. We regard them as a first-strike weapon because they have the capability of blasting our Minuteman silos and destroying them. We are also alarmed by their ABM capacity, particularly their at least 67 "Galosh" ABM sites around Moscow. We are concerned, too, about the Tallinn SA-5 system, or line, along the Baltic coast, which, though initially an antiaircraft system, has a marked ABM capability, and the SA-2 surface-to-air system, which we suspect has some anti-missile capability. The positioning of their ABMs around their cities indicates a drive for a first strike pre-emptive capability. That is what we are trying to explain to the Russians in Helsinki."

Soviet Doubts. So far, the Soviets have been explicit on only one point. As always, they resist the suggestion of on-site inspections by the other side to guarantee compliance with a disarmament agreement. The Soviets, in fact, regard U.S. insistence on inspection as a device to open Soviet nuclear facilities to foreign spies. As a counterargument, the Soviets insist that reconnaissance satellites are capable of keeping track of the other side's missile developments. While the satellites are able to photograph missile installations with great precision, they obviously cannot see through a missile cone to detect whether underneath it there is a single or hydraheaded MIRV warhead.

The Soviets also insisted that they need demonstrations of the U.S.'s peaceful intentions. Soviet delegates say they suspect that the American "military-in dustrial complex" may try to torpedo the talks. As Pravda put it last week: "There are forces in the U.S. which oppose nuclear disarmament. These forces, which consist mainly of the military and industrial monopolies, have a great influence on the U.S. Government."

According to present plans, the two sides will spend another week or so testing intentions in Helsinki before each team goes home for a thorough appraisal of the outlook for possible agreement. If it is bright enough--and other outside factors do not intrude--the two sides intend to reconvene in January, probably in Vienna or Geneva.

* According to the rule of thumb of missile strategists, one missile power takes advantage of another by attacking its silos instead of its population centers: this way, the other nation's retalitory power is immediately demolished. The ability to do this is termed first-strike capability. A non-aggressor nation, on the other hand, merely wants to forestall attack. This it does by aiming its missles at potential agressor's cities as a retalitory threat: then it protects these retalitory missiles with ABMS. This is described as a second-strike capability.

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