SALT: Toward a Breakthrough

The Kremlin changes nyet to da, raising new hopes for detente

Jimmy Carter walked over to a shelf in the White House last week and took down a plastic model of lethal U.S. and Soviet missiles; the Russian rockets were painted a sinister dark gray, the American ones good-guy white. Built to scale, the gray weapons dwarfed the white missiles, reflecting the Soviet Union's enormous advantage in rocket power. "Now you see why it's so important to limit these things," remarked the President with a smile as he presented the model to his guest, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko.

It was a fitting memento of their meeting. The President and the Russian diplomat had just concluded what may prove to be the most productive round of strategic arms limitation talks since Soviet Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev and Gerald Ford set SALT II guidelines in Vladivostok in November 1974. At his press conference later in the week, Carter said that the Soviets "have been fairly flexible in their attitude and we have tried to match their cooperative stance ... We have narrowed down the differences to a relatively small number." To avoid raising hopes, the President added that "an immediate agreement is not in prospect."

Privately, however, Administration officials were saying that a "conceptual breakthrough" had been achieved, and that the chances of concluding a SALT II agreement before the end of 1977 had vastly improved. The Soviet-American understanding came virtually on the eve of the formal expiration of a key section of SALT I (TIME, Oct. 3) and breathed life into the faltering spirit of detente.

Last week's unscheduled session at the White House was convened at Gromyko s request. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance dashed back to Washington from the U.N. General Assembly session in Manhattan. Gromyko brought the Politburo's approval of a formula aimed at breaking the SALT deadlock. From the White House meeting and Vance-Gromyko talks in New York City later in the week, the following prospective compromise for SALT II has emerged:

-- The Vladivostok guidelines on the total number of strategic launchers allowed each side will form--as Brezhnev has long demanded--the core of a new eight-year agreement. The ceilings, however, will be lowered (perhaps as much as 10%) from the Vladivostok limit of 2,400 launchers (including long-range bombers) of which 1,320 can be armed with the cluster warheads known as MIRVS (multiple, independently targeted, re-entry vehicles).

> The Soviets modified their proposal that U.S. planes armed with cruise missiles be counted against the MIRV quota.

As a concession to the U.S., there will be an "allowance" for bombers armed with cruises. But the total will be less than the 200 the Air Force was planning to deploy if there was no SALT II agreement.

Under a formula still to be negotiated, the cruises will be indirectly included "in the context" of the MIRV limits.

-- Restrictions on the range of air-launched cruises will be omitted from the main body of a SALT II accord, but will appear in a separate protocol that will probably run for three years. Then the U.S., which opposed a drastic curb on cruise range, may have the right to upgrade its cruises, if necessary, to maintain their deterrent value (primarily their ability to penetrate Russian air defenses).

-- The U.S.S.R.'s monster-size rockets like the SS-18 will not be limited in numbers --as the U.S. had sought. They will be counted, as would any other ballistics missile, against the overall ceiling.

The Russians have agreed in principle to some restrictions on the testing and deployment of new iCBMs.

Last week's understanding was a welcome development for the Carter Administration, which had been trying for nine months to get SALT back on track. The long impasse, in part, was the result of the President's inexperience in dealing with the Soviets. He put the Kremlin on the defensive with his evangelistic human rights campaign and his unexpectedly sweeping proposals for arms cuts, which Vance carried to Moscow in March. Since Carter's concepts would have required the Russians to give up existing (albeit aging) systems while the U.S. merely sacrificed weapons on the drawing board, it was not surprising--in retrospect--that Brezhnev thundered an unequivocal nyet (TIME, April 11).

Vance and Gromyko made some progress during their May meeting in Geneva, but the Russian still blasted Washington for seeking "unilateral advantages" from SALT, and the Soviet press denounced the Pentagon for attempting "to stir up a new round in the arms race."

What especially annoyed the Kremlin was Carter's brand of open diplomacy. During Vance's March visit to Moscow, for instance, the Secretary candidly briefed the press on the course of the talks and seemed to blame the Russians for their collapse. The continuing deadlock quickly convinced the Administration of the virtues of secrecy--at least as far as SALT is concerned. The so-called back-channel that Henry Kissinger found very useful in concluding SALT I was reactivated. Thus, while U.S. and Soviet SALT delegations have been meeting regularly in Geneva to discuss secondary issues (like methods of verifying compliance with a treaty), exchanges on key points have taken place in Washington, with Soviet Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin as the intermediary. (Some U.S. officials regard Dobrynin, who has been the Kremlin's man in Washington since J.F.K.'s day, as a "Kissinger holdover" and wanted to "cut him down a peg or two" by opening a parallel back-channel in Moscow. When Vance pressed Soviet leaders to use U.S. Ambassador Malcolm Toon as a conduit for SALT proposals, they balked.) But even on the back-channel there was little hard bargaining until the recent talks with Gromyko. Though both sides made compromises, Moscow seemed to bend the most. The U.S. had already dribbled out many of its concessions during the past nine months.

Why did the Kremlin suddenly change its nyet to da? Kremlinologists speculated that Brezhnev, who has staked much of his prestige on arms control, may have decided that time was running out.

Explains one analyst: "The Russians had used up their rejections. We kept telling them (and they believed it) that this time around it had to be yes or maybe but not another big no. If they played the rejection card again, the game would be over."

Also, U.S.-Soviet relations have improved a bit. Carter has muted his human rights campaign, while Brezhnev no longer blusters--as he did in spring--that SALT could be a casualty of U.S. "psychological warfare" against the U.S.S.R.

The final details of the conceptual breakthrough will be hammered out in in tensive negotiations between the two official delegations and in the Washington backchannel. Chief U.S. Arms Negotiator Paul Warnke has already returned to Geneva. Among the sticky problems he and his Soviet counterpart, Vladimir Semyonov, will have to resolve: By how much should the Vladivostok ceilings be reduced? How many U.S. planes may carry cruise missiles? How extensive will be the limits on testing new ICBMS?

The answers to these questions will determine what kind of support the draft treaty will receive from the Senate, which must ratify it by a two-thirds vote. The agreement limiting missile testing, for instance, will be carefully scrutinized by Senators who worry about the threat facing the Minutemen once the accuracy of Soviet silo busters (like the SS-18) improves. The U.S. has already proposed that each nation be allowed only six missile test flights a year.

If more than six tests are allowed or if the limit applies solely to new missile systems (and not to those already deployed), the treaty will probably face opposition from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and SALT skeptics like Democratic Senator Henry Jackson of Washington. Jackson will question any treaty that counts air-launched cruise missiles as part of the quota set for missiles carrying MIRV cluster warheads. The Administration has already begun briefing congressional leaders on the emerging accord.

From the guidelines, it seems clear that any sharp cut in arms levels must await a SALT II. At best, SALT II will freeze the numbers of strategic arms deployed at just below the current levels. Nonetheless, SALT II would improve the climate for progress in a number of other pressing East-West negotiations, such as a nuclear test ban and demilitarization of the Indian Ocean. Gromyko last week told the U.N. that his country was prepared to suspend underground nuclear testing; this week, when Carter addresses the General Assembly, he is expected to call for measures to halt nuclear proliferation.

One potential dividend of last week's advances in SALT is that Brezhnev and Carter may at last get together. Discussions are already under way to consider setting a time and place for a summit, which, according to protocol, should be on U.S. territory since the last summit (between Ford and Brezhnev) was in the Soviet Union. Hawaii is one possibility if :he Soviets insist on meeting outside Washington. Alaska has also been mentioned, but that state's long wintry nights and frosty days would hardly appeal to he Georgia-bred President. There may be another disadvantage. As an Adminstration wag put it: "Brezhnev might get to Alaska and demand it back." Wherever the summit eventually convenes, continued momentum on SALT is certain o top the two leaders' agenda.

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