The Moment of Truth

By George Russell

New U.S. missiles arrive, and the Soviets prepare to walk out of Geneva

Western governments had long agonized over the decision. Soviet officials had churned out increasingly dire warnings of what the consequences would be if the decision was made. Step by ponderous step, the issue had grown in importance until it loomed as a fundamental test of wills between the Soviet Union and the 16 members of the NATO alliance. Last week the moment of truth was finally at hand in the protracted East-West war of nerves over the deployment of intermediate-range Pershing II and cruise missiles in Western Europe. The first new U.S. nuclear weapons had arrived. It was now up to the Soviets to make good on their many threats to begin a new and uncertain chapter in the tortuous history of the nuclear arms race.

For once, it seemed to be Moscow that was wavering. After a week of mixed diplomatic signals, Soviet arms negotiators indicated that they would attend at least one more meeting this week of the faltering Geneva arms talks that are intended to limit the spread of the intermediate-range missiles. The Kremlin's decision appeared to be a tactical one. The Soviets were waiting for the results of a vote in the West German Bundestag that is expected to give final approval to deployment of controversial Pershing II nuclear ballistic missiles on West German soil before the end of the year. A walkout by the Soviets at Geneva could occur at any time after the vote; the only uncertainty was over how the walkout would occur, and exactly when. In the tense interlude, the new stage in the Euromissile campaign was dramatically summed up by French President Franc,ois Mitterrand in a national television appearance. Said he: "The crisis we are experiencing is the most serious the world has known since Berlin and Cuba."

It was a crisis that announced itself discreetly, with the touchdown of a U.S. Air Force C-141 StarLifter transport at Britain's Greenham Common air force base, 50 miles west of London. Aboard the aircraft was a tarpaulin-swathed shipment of nuclear-tipped Tomahawk cruise missiles, the first of 41 nuclear weapons systems that are scheduled to be placed in Britain, Italy and West Germany by the end of the year. Word of the shipment's arrival was broken by British Defense Secretary Michael Heseltine, who made the announcement in the House of Commons to choruses of "Hear, hear!" from his Conservative Party colleagues and cries of "Shame!" from opposition Labor Party benches.

In the tumultuous parliamentary debate that followed, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was treated to unusually hostile attacks. Newly chosen Labor Party Leader Neil Kinnock called her a "lackey" of the Reagan Administration for accepting the weapons. Social Democratic Leader David Owen criticized the government for failing to insist on a so-called dual-key control arrangement with the U.S., which would have ensured a British veto over the use of the missiles. Such an arrangement, the opposition charged, was in effect in Britain during the 1950s and 1960s with an earlier generation of U.S. medium-range weapons. At that time, however, Britain had purchased the missiles from the U.S. to ensure dual control. In the case of the cruise missiles, the Thatcher government decided that the $1.4 billion price tag was too high. In any case, the dual-key argument was not altogether relevant. In a series of written understandings dating back to the early 1950s, Washington and London have always acknowledged that the use of U.S. nuclear weapons based in Britain would require explicit permission from 10 Downing Street. Thatcher and President Reagan reaffirmed that understanding four months ago.

British antinuclear protesters quickly went on the offensive, demonstrating in London and attempting to obstruct the entrances to Parliament. At the heavily guarded Greenham Common base, where a makeshift women's "peace camp" has existed for 26 months, 150 demonstrators tried to block the gates. The authorities were unmoved: by week's end 550 protesters had been arrested. The day after his Commons announcement, Defense Secretary Heseltine came under assault personally. As he arrived to address a meeting of Conservative students at Manchester University, he was sprayed with red paint by left-wing demonstrators who screamed, "Better Red than dead!"

The hooliganism provided an ugly backdrop for the arrival of the cruise missiles, but far tougher threats have been hanging in the air for weeks. The person delivering them, in name at least, has been Soviet Leader Yuri Andropov, who has not been seen in public since Aug. 18. In an Oct. 26 Pravda interview, Andropov established the ground rules upon which the Soviets said they would act. Said he: "The appearance of new American missiles in Western Europe will make a continuation of the present [arms] talks in Geneva impossible." Andropov's failure to appear at the Nov. 7 military parade honoring the 66th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution fueled further speculation last week about the reasons for his absence, officially said to be the result of a "severe cold."

Andropov's statement was interpreted as an ultimatum buttressing the longstanding Soviet position at the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) talks in Geneva: although Moscow insists on preserving a large number of triple-warhead SS-20 missiles aimed at Western Europe, not one new NATO missile was acceptable. The explicit threat was of a Soviet walkout at the talks and collapse, for a time at least, of the second track of NATO's "double-track" strategy, adopted in December 1979, of planning to deploy the new missiles while simultaneously talking about limitations on all such weapons in Europe. The chief Soviet arms negotiator in Geneva, Yuli Kvitsinsky, had even said privately that a walkout would come between Nov. 15 and Nov. 22. Were the Soviets bluffing? No one was sure.

The initial impression of U.S. officials in Geneva and Washington last week was that, after the arrival of the first cruise missiles in Britain, the Soviet walkout was imminent. As Heseltine made his announcement in London, the U.S. delegation, led by Chief Negotiator Paul Nitze, was holding a meeting in its eight-story headquarters, situated, ironically, on Geneva's Avenue de la Paix (Avenue of Peace). The delegates' purpose: to give a final review of a refined U.S. bargaining position that they intended to present to the Soviets the following day. The U.S. proposal was an elaboration of a position previously outlined by President Reagan. It offered to reduce the number of new NATO single-warhead missiles in Western Europe to considerably fewer than the 572 Pershing II and cruise missiles currently planned. In exchange, the Soviets would have to reduce the number of SS-20s throughout the U.S.S.R. from 360 to 140.

Some American officials privately concede that the U.S. offer was largely cosmetic, designed to show the world that the Administration would stay at the bargaining table as long as was necessary to reach an agreement. The Soviets were equally conscious of the intent. The official news agency TASS had already put out a statement declaring that the forthcoming U.S. proposal was "patently unacceptable."

Then a strange diplomatic drama began. Half an hour after Heseltine spoke in London, a shipment of Soviet gifts, including caviar and vodka, arrived at the U.S. headquarters in Geneva. The gesture is customary at the end of each bargaining "round" of several months. The U.S., however, had proposed to keep the negotiations going until the year-end holidays. The Soviets had previously agreed to show up for the Tuesday meeting, but the arrival of the gifts was seen as a strong hint that the session would be the last one.

On Tuesday came a surprise. During a 35-minute session, by far the shortest of the two years of talking, Chief Soviet Delegate Kvitsinsky agreed to hold another session at the neobaroque Soviet mission two days later. Then he offered what amounted to a revision of Andropov's Oct. 26 ultimatum. According to Kvitsinsky, the threatened "consequences" of NATO missile deployment would occur with the arrival "on the continent of Europe" of "short-flight-time" systems on the periphery of the Soviet Union. His statement implied that collapse of the talks would occur only after West Germany had acquired its first complement of Pershing II missiles, which require twelve to 13 minutes to reach the Soviet Union (vs. several hours for a ground-launched cruise missile). The Soviets have always objected to the Pershing IIs more than the cruise missiles, not only because the ballistic Pershing IIs are faster but because the Soviets have a particular phobia of any German fingers near a nuclear trigger, even though the Pershing IIs will remain under total U.S. control.

Why, then, the goodbye gifts? U.S. officials in Washington speculated that the Soviet delegation, acting on its own initiative, had assumed that the talks were about to collapse. According to the U.S. theory, the Soviets received overnight instructions from Moscow that said, in effect, "Keep talking--at least for now."

Thursday's 2-hr. 15-min. missile meeting produced no movement between the two sides. The Soviets then insisted that the next meeting take place on Wednesday, Nov. 23. The demand was aimed at providing time for Moscow to digest the outcome of the Bundestag debate on the Pershing II deployment, which is not scheduled to come to a vote until late Tuesday, Nov. 22.

Despite the threats, the alliance has remained united in its resolve. After three days of debate, Italy's parliament last week voted, 351 to 219, to back the government of Socialist Prime Minister Bettino Craxi in fulfilling the Italian commitment to accept 112 cruise missiles as its share of the NATO nuclear burden. French President Mitterrand, whose country is not in NATO's military command though it is a member of the political alliance, used much of a 90-minute television broadcast last week to put the blame for the missile crisis squarely on the U.S.S.R. He declared that "the leaders of the Kremlin seek to have a regional advantage and hope that they will perhaps succeed one day in separating Europe from the United States." In an acid commentary on Western Europe's active antinuclear peace movement, Mitterrand observed that "there are surely people in the Soviet Union who are pacifists, but their country is developing its armaments. In the West, on the other hand, we are developing pacifism."

With their eye keenly on the upcoming West German vote, the Soviets were making a final attempt to strengthen antimissile sentiments in Western Europe. Late last week a West German government spokesman said there had been a new "signal" from the Soviets, to the effect that they would drop their longstanding insistence on counting independent British and French nuclear forces in any Geneva agreement. There was less to the signal than the West Germans thought. In private discussions with Nitze in Geneva, Kvitsinsky had tried to get the U.S. to make a missile offer of "equal reductions on both sides," and said that if such an offer was made Moscow might be willing to postpone--but not drop--the issue of British and French forces. What Kvitsinsky meant by equal reductions on the American side was cancellation of the entire NATO deployment. The U.S.S.R., however, would be able to keep at least 120 SS-20s trained on Western Europe. The U.S. was not about to accept this feeler. Said a U.S. official: "It's still zero for us but not zero for them." Moscow leaked its version of the discussion in Bonn to muddy the upcoming Bundestag debate.

On the eve of the parliamentary vote, former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt appealed to a special conference of the opposition Social Democratic Party to support the deployments. West Germany, Schmidt told some 400 delegates, "must keep to its word in spite of all the disappointments about speeches and about behavior in Washington." He added: "My second reason is that the political equilibrium would be enduringly disturbed if the Soviet Union forged ahead with its unprovoked, one-sided buildup." The speech received only perfunctory applause. Said a delegate: "We see his voice as a voice of the party's past." At the urging of former Chancellor Willy Brandt and SPD Floor Leader Hans-Jochen Vogel, the conference voted overwhelmingly to reject the new missiles. Only 14 delegates supported Schmidt.

If the deployments go ahead, Moscow will probably fall back on other threats in addition to a walkout. One is to move new, shorter-range nuclear missiles onto the territories of East Germany and Czechoslovakia. The Kremlin has also said it would put the U.S. under an ill-defined "analogous risk." This might include the use of low-trajectory ballistic missiles, weapons useful for surprise attack, on submarines close to U.S. shores and the deployment of new cruise missiles on Soviet subs (see box). Nonetheless, the Administration remained confident that the Soviets would eventually return to the bargaining table. Said one official: "The Soviets don't have an alternative strategy to detente."

A muted recognition of that reality came from the Soviets last week as they marked the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between their country and the U.S. "We have got to find a way out of this mess we are in," Soviet Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Dobrynin said at a commemorative dinner in Washington. Amid hints that Andropov might reappear for a meeting of the Central Committee next month, a message from him was conveyed to an Iowa banker. In it, Andropov said that the Soviet Union "has always been striving to live in peace with all the states, to develop mutually beneficial cooperation also with the United States." Characteristically, Andropov noted that current tensions, including those brought on by the missile issue, were "by no means the result of the Soviet Union's policy."

--By George Russell.

Reported by Frank Melville/London, Strobe Talbott/Washington, with other bureaus

With reporting by Frank Melville/London, Strobe Talbott/Washington This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.