Spaced Out

Prospects for talks grow dim

For nearly five weeks the U.S. and the Soviet Union have been sparring over the possibility of resuming a high-level dialogue. The question first arose when Moscow surprised the Reagan Administration by proposing a meeting in Vienna on Sept. 18 to begin negotiating a ban on weapons in space. The U.S. accepted, but said that it also wanted to talk about earthbound nuclear arms. Last week it became clear that neither side was willing to meet the other's terms, and that the prospects for a fall Vienna parley were growing dim.

From the start Moscow indicated that it was not in a mood to compromise, an attitude that became even clearer last week when Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Bessmertnykh declared that the latest U.S. proposal for an agenda "continues to be negative." For the first time the Soviet remarks prompted an angry U.S. response. Said National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane: "It appears the Soviets were not serious about their proposal."

From the Soviet standpoint, a major obstacle to the proposed talks was Washington's insistence on discussing strategic and intermediate-range nuclear weapons. The Soviets have steadfastly refused to address those subjects since they abandoned two sets of arms talks in Geneva last fall. But the Soviets, McFarlane said, then further hardened their position, trying to set "preconditions" for the Vienna negotiations. Among them was an insistence that the U.S. agree in advance to a moratorium on the testing and deployment of antisatellite systems. The Soviets already possess such a system; the U.S. does not. According to McFarlane, such prior commitment to a moratorium would in effect "prejudge" the outcome of the talks.

President Reagan may find some consolation for his disappointment over the failure of the Vienna meeting to materialize. His Administration is divided over the space-weapons issue (the State Department favors talks, the Pentagon opposes anything but the most modest agreement), and he is unlikely to come under domestic political pressure to make concessions to the Soviets just before the election. The jockeying now will be over which side takes the blame for saying no.

In an apparently unrelated incident last week, half a dozen Soviet policemen beat up an off-duty U.S. Marine attached to the American consulate in Leningrad. He was not seriously injured, but it was not the first such incident this year. In April, an unidentified youth attacked a U.S. consular officer on the street. Administration officials said last week that they were becoming annoyed at the "disturbing pattern of official involvement in a campaign to harass and isolate Americans in the Soviet Union."