Sweet and Sour

Jockeying over Geneva positions

The President is committed to getting results," declared National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane. "We will be both flexible and constructive." Promised Soviet Leader Konstantin U. Chernenko: There are no preconditions, and the Soviet Union is willing to discuss all nuclear weapons systems.

Those upbeat sounds last week were designed to create a favorable atmosphere for the meeting on Jan. 7 and 8 in Geneva between Secretary of State George Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, at which the two will try to set the agenda for a resumption of arms-control talks between the superpowers.

In Washington, McFarlane was presiding over an interagency group attempting to resolve conflicts, primarily between the State Department and the Pentagon, over just what the U.S. bargaining position should be. He insisted publicly that the principals, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA, had reached agreement on about 85% of the U.S. position. But the disputed 15% appears to involve the core issues between doves and hawks that have hobbled the Administration's arms-control efforts for nearly four years. Said one official: "Frankly, the key elements--especially how we handle space weaponry--are yet to be resolved."

Reagan's Star Wars plan to provide a space-based defense against intercontinental ballistic missiles seemed to be emerging as one of the most contentious issues in both capitals. Chernenko mentioned "nonmilitarization of outer space" first in his list of topics to be negotiated, followed by a "reduction of strategic nuclear arms and medium-range nuclear weapons." (He invited Industrialist Armand Hammer, 86, a longtime friend of Soviet leaders, to Moscow as an unofficial pre-Geneva go-between, and Hammer readily accepted.)

While the Administration remained divided over Star Wars, four former U.S. officials assailed the idea in Foreign Affairs, the U.S. quarterly. The critics were former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, onetime National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, ex-Arms Negotiator Gerard Smith and George F. Kennan, Ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1952. They argued that Star Wars does not "respect reality," chiefly because a leakproof defense is impossible and the attempt to create one could nullify Reagan's effort at reaching an agreement on arms control.

How the disagreement over Star Wars and other U.S. bargaining positions will be resolved is likely to remain a mystery until the players show their cards in Geneva. The Administration clamped a strict gag order, enforceable by criminal prosecution, on all participants in the internal arms-control dispute.