Andropov's Ultimatum

By Russ Hoyle

If the missiles go in, the Soviets pledge to walk out at Geneva

Seldom had the vast Soviet propaganda machine sputtered and coughed so loudly. It began when Kremlin Spokesman Leonid Zamyatin strongly hinted three weeks ago that the Soviets would pull out of the Geneva talks on medium-range missiles if NATO went ahead with deployment of Pershing II and cruise missiles in Europe. Two days later, Warsaw Pact foreign ministers meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria, ambiguously announced that they favored continuation of the negotiations, but only if NATO delayed deployment. Then Zamyatin took another tack, telling the West German magazine Stern that it would be the fault of the U.S. if the negotiations were suspended, but that he opposed breaking off the talks.

Last week Soviet Leader Yuri Andropov put an end to the mounting speculation over Soviet intentions at Geneva. "The appearance of new American missiles in Western Europe," Andropov declared in an interview with the Communist Party newspaper Pravda, "will make a continuation of the present talks in Geneva impossible." He added, "On the other hand, the Geneva talks can be continued if the United States does not start the actual deployment."

Andropov's announcement was an obvious bid to cow West European leaders into seeking a delay in deployment. It came on the heels of large antimissile demonstrations across Western Europe the previous weekend, and only a day after U.S. forces invaded the Caribbean island of Grenada. It was the second threat from the Kremlin in two days. Before Andropov's message was released, the Soviet Defense Ministry confirmed that Moscow was prepared to retaliate against Western deployment by moving new nuclear missiles into East Germany and Czechoslovakia. "Preparatory work is being started on the territory of the German Democratic Republic and Czechoslovakia for the deployment of missile complexes," said the statement, which was read over Soviet television. "These steps are one of the planned measures in case the American missiles are sited in Europe."

NATO arms-control experts downplayed the Soviet threat to station new missiles in Eastern Europe: some Soviet missiles and warheads were already in the East bloc satellites, and their replacement by a new generation of shorterrange, mobile SS-21s, SS-22s and SS-23s has been expected for some time.

Andropov's ultimatum was another matter. Since the planned mid-December deployment of the NATO missiles in West Germany and Britain is now a virtual certainty, Andropov was effectively signaling the collapse, for the moment, of the second track of NATO's 1979 "double-track" strategy: to pursue both the deployment of new medium-range weapons and an agreement on their limitation. Although he was careful to propose marginal Soviet "concessions" in order to achieve at least the appearance of continued flexibility, Andropov asserted that Moscow "will not retreat" from its stance that a nuclear balance now exists in Europe. Any new U.S. missiles, he insisted, would "sharply change the entire military strategic situation to NATO's advantage."

His statement was clearly designed to lay blame on the U.S. for any failure of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) talks. It amounted, in the words of one Western diplomat, to a "last-ditch effort" to drive a wedge between NATO governments. On both counts, the Soviet strategy seemed to fall flat. In Washington, President Reagan deftly countered Andropov by challenging the Soviets "to negotiate seriously at Geneva" and vowing that the U.S. "will stay at the negotiating table as long as necessary." NATO defense ministers, meeting last week at the Canadian resort of Chateau Montebello, near Ottawa, summarily dismissed the Soviet walkout threat and announced that NATO planned unilaterally to scrap 1,400 existing warheads in Western Europe during the next five or six years. The weapons are part of the alliance's stockpile of tactical nuclear arms, which many experts feel are obsolescent and redundant; they would join 1,000 old warheads that have already been withdrawn in anticipation of the deployment of the 572 new missiles.

For its part, the U.S. State Department called Andropov's threat to end the INF talks "totally unjustified." Officials also charged that the proposed Soviet concessions did not begin to address the two basic points of contention in Geneva: first, that Moscow refuses to accept the deployment of any new NATO missiles in Europe; second, that the Soviets want "compensation" for the independent nuclear deterrents of Britain and France. The U.S. rejects both positions. The Soviet party chief offered to lower the number of Soviet SS-20s from the current level of 243 to "about 140." Since each of the SS-20s is equipped with three warheads, the total figure would closely match the 434 warheads in the French and British arsenals. The offer represented a slight improvement on a December 1982 Soviet proposal to reduce the number of SS-20s to 162. However, SS-20 warheads are independently targetable--the British and French weapons are not--and are less vulnerable to attack.

Andropov also promised, pending an INF agreement, to put an end "to the deployment of SS-20 missiles in the eastern areas of the U.S.S.R." Chief U.S. Negotiator Paul Nitze and his Soviet counterpart Yuli A. Kvitsinsky tentatively agreed to a similar freeze on Soviet missiles aimed at China and Japan during their now famous and repudiated "walk in the woods" in July 1982. But even then, the deal would have left the Soviets with 90 SS-20s in Soviet Asia; today the figure would be 108.

U.S. officials charged that both new proposals were "too vague" and contained "unacceptable conditions" for agreement. But the Americans cautiously refused to close the door on "certain proposals," like Andropov's offer to measure the European nuclear balance in warheads rather than in launchers. Washington also blasted the Soviets for using the two years of negotiations to "dramatically" increase the number of their SS-20s in Asia and for publicly airing the current proposals in order "to split the allies and their public."

Andropov's shift in tactics suggests that Moscow now views deployment as unavoidable. Soviet Negotiator Kvitsinsky said as much to a group of West German disarmament experts in Geneva last week. Social Democratic Arms Spokesman Egon Bahr, who participated, reported afterward that Kvitsinsky "told us that the Soviet Union regards Nov. 22* as the watershed date after which negotiations would be pointless." Bahr said he was given the impression that there is no chance of an accord before the deployment." Similarly, U.S. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger reported to the NATO defense ministers that the talks have ground to a halt and seem unlikely to get anywhere. Yet at least one U.S. official said he "would not exclude some kind of agreement in Geneva even at this late hour."

Even as Western embassies in Bonn were reporting that the worst of Western Europe's "hot autumn" had passed without major incident, antimissile protest leaders converged on the West German capital to plan what they promised would be an equally tense and active winter of discontent over the missiles. Earlier in the week, a seven-member delegation from the radical Green Party, including Petra Kelly, a Bundestag deputy and prominent antimissile spokeswoman, flew to Moscow at the sudden invitation of Soviet leaders. The Soviets got more than they had bargained for. As tourists in Red Square watched in disbelief, Kelly and her colleagues staged a five-minute antinuclear rally directed at both NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Still, the seven Greens later promised to recommend the Andropov proposals to their countrymen, despite their disapproval of the Soviet human rights record and the invasion of Afghanistan.

Back in Bonn last weekend, West German activists were considering a number of strategies for the coming months, including a lobbying effort aimed at influencing the outcome of the Nov. 21 Bundestag vote on deployment, which is expected to be carried by pro-NATO forces. Said Protest Leader Jo Leinen: "We must let people know that we are still fighting."

Few NATO or West European government officials seemed worried about a resurgence of peace demonstrations. "Whatever we did," said British Defense Minister Michael Heseltine, "[the peace protesters] would not change their minds." Nor was there much concern about the threat of a Soviet walkout in Geneva. Said West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher: "Since the Soviet Union has considered it quite natural to negotiate with the West while continuing its deployment of SS-20 missiles, it would make no sense for Moscow to break off negotiations just because we started to deploy." Far more worrisome to officials in Paris, London and Bonn was news of the U.S. invasion of Grenada. It was widely unpopular in Western Europe and seemed certain to complicate NATO's already testy internal relations.

As they pored over Andropov's announcement last week, Western analysts were struck by the manner of its delivery: it came in an interview, rather than in an address made in person by the Soviet leader. Inevitably, there were questions about his physical and political wellbeing. "Where is the man?" asks U.S. Kremlinologist William Hyland. "Is he an apparition?" Andropov has not been seen in public since Aug. 18, and Hyland has noticed an uncharacteristic tendency of Soviet leaders recently to emphasize different aspects of Soviet policy with little apparent coordination. "That's just not the Soviet way," notes Hyland. "It suggests disarray."

Whatever his travails, Andropov seems to have sharply limited Soviet options. After last week's ultimatum, Moscow cannot continue the arms talks, at least for a time, without losing considerable prestige. Key U.S. officials believe the Soviet move is an opportunity for the West to see to it that Moscow gets full blame for jeopardizing the arms-control process. They point out that the negotiators routinely take a Christmas-New Year's recess, and expect the Soviets to extend the break for several months. That will give the Soviets time to assess West European reaction and begin their counterdeployments before returning to the bargaining table. If the Soviets fail to resume the talks, their intransigence could backfire by uniting Western opinion behind NATO.

--By Russ Hoyle.

Reported by Roland Flamini/Bonn and Strobe Talbott/ Washington, with other bureaus

* The date that components of the first Pershing II missiles are scheduled to be flown into Ramstein Air Force Base near Frankfurt. The missiles will be operative by Dec. 15.

With reporting by Roland Flamini/Bonn, Strobe Talbott/Washington This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.