Civics Lesson

Byrd instructs the Soviets

He strongly denied that he had come to the Soviet Union to give the Kremlin a U.S. civics lesson, but that is exactly what West Virginia's Robert Byrd did last week. During a five-day visit to the U.S.S.R., the Senate majority leader repeatedly stressed to his hosts that the Senate is determined, as set forth in the U.S. Constitution, to play its own independent role in SALT II.

Speaking to a group of Soviet officials, Byrd cautioned that Moscow would "not contribute to a constructive discussion of the treaty" by expecting the Senate to be the White House's rubber stamp. Byrd was presumably alluding to Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko's statement that it would be the "end of negotiations" if the Senate amended SALT II. Byrd also advised the Soviets not to be offended by the rhetoric that will be sounded during the SALT debate. Said he: "The conscientious application of our constitutional process [should not be viewed] as a challenge to the Soviet Union."

Byrd missed few opportunities to stress that as a Senator he is not tied to the White House. Thus, even though State Department experts had accompanied him from Washington, he pointedly took none of them and no members of the U.S. Embassy with him for his 1-hr, and 45-min. meeting with Soviet Communist Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev. Administration officials were similarly excluded from Byrd's more-than-two-hour talk with Gromyko. This session began on an amiable note, with the Foreign Minister observing that his pile of briefing notes was thinner than Byrd's thick folder. "That's just my notebook," replied the majority leader. "I'm going to write down what you tell me."

What he wrote down--as well as what he specifically told the Soviet leaders --was kept secret. To reporters in Moscow, Byrd merely said: "I did not come here expecting simple answers. I asked questions, made suggestions and observations. It may take some time for it to be known what the Soviet response will be."

Byrd acknowledged that his views on SALT had been influenced by his talks with the Soviets. Said he: "What I have heard here will help me consider." As one of the Senate's most powerful members, he could play the pivotal role in determining the treaty's fate. On leaving Moscow, Byrd said: "I will not make up my own mind immediately. I will await at least some of the hearings." Those hearings were scheduled to begin this week when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee opens the great debate by calling two of SALT'S strongest supporters: Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Defense Secretary Harold Brown. qed

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