"Next Spring"

Moscow may wait for SALT II

As part of his Administration's response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Carter asked the Senate in January to suspend deliberation on the SALT II Treaty. The President was--and still is --committed to ratifying the treaty. But he recognized that SALT II was doomed to rejection if the Administration forced the issue. Better wait, Carter figured, until outrage over the Afghanistan invasion has died down--and until the Executive Branch is in a stronger position to press for ratification. That might mean after the November elections, when either a re-elected Carter or his successor would probably enjoy a honeymoon with a new Congress.

But would the Soviets sit still for such a delay? Time is running out on the protocol limiting American cruise missiles that accompanies the SALT II Treaty. The protocol expires at the end of 1981, four years before the treaty itself. When Leonid Brezhnev signed SALT II at the Vienna summit last June, he was assuming that it would be ratified before the end of 1979. That would have left two years for the superpowers to negotiate permanent constraints on cruise missiles in the next round of negotiations, SALT III.

Now, however, with SALT II on the shelf, the Soviets must decide whether they can live with the near certainty that the protocol will expire well before its temporary cruise missile limitations can be permanently extended. Under these changed circumstances, SALT as a whole becomes less valuable to the Soviets, since one of their main purposes is to use the negotiations to impede the American cruise missile program.

The Kremlin has been keeping Washington in suspense about how long it is willing to leave SALT in limbo. Earlier this month, however, a Soviet official known to reflect the thinking of the Politburo told TIME: "If, by next spring, SALT II is not ratified, it will be lost because the military preparations of the U.S. in all directions --Western Europe, Japan and China --lead to a changing balance of forces and wash out the agreements reached." The statement was most significant in its reference to "next spring." This authoritative indication that the Kremlin may be resigned to SALT II ratification a full year from now is more positive than anything the Soviets have told the Administration even in private diplomatic channels.

There is yet another small sign of hope in the otherwise dismal picture of Soviet-American relations. Last week the Soviets formally gave the U.S. advance notification of a test in which more than one missile was in flight at the same time. Such notice is required by SALT II--or would be if the treaty were in force.

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