Disarming Tiff

When the U.S. refused to go along with the Soviets' highly publicized moratorium on nuclear-weapons testing, announced just before the meeting in Helsinki two weeks ago, Administration officials were faced with a propaganda problem they hoped would quickly fade. But even as the two sides prepare for an international nuclear nonproliferation conference in Geneva later this month, the Soviets seem to be deftly augmenting their unexpected public relations advantage. Last week they offered to allow international experts to inspect two of their civilian nuclear-power reactors--a first. Meanwhile, questions continued to be raised, in the U.S. and abroad, about Washington's brisk refusal to join in the testing moratorium.

To defuse the issue, U.S. officials are portraying the Soviet moratorium as merely a propaganda maneuver. The Soviets, they say, have just completed an extensive and accelerated series of tests on their most modern intercontinental weapons, while the U.S. has yet to test its own equivalents. A moratorium would thus give them a public relations victory without costing them any military ground. "They don't have any more to do," President Reagan said in a press conference last week. So far this year, however, nine underground explosions have been announced for the U.S. v. five for the Soviets.

Secretary of State George Shultz contends that a unilateral promise of a test ban must be adequately verifiable. But many scientists maintain that any test big enough to do the Soviets military good can be monitored by today's seismic technology. Monitoring has improved so greatly in recent years, these experts say, that the U.S. could have confidence in a test ban.

To Europeans caught between the superpowers, any offer to decelerate the arms race is bound to look attractive. In Helsinki, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze proved himself as much a master of public relations as Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev. That was at least partly because Shevardnadze is a new face. But the Soviets helped themselves by holding on-the-record press conferences that received wider play than the background briefings given by U.S. officials.

Looming on the horizon is November's Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Geneva, where the Soviet offer of a test moratorium could become an important Soviet trump card if the U.S. has made no further moves by then. Already, Reagan is suggesting that he might be amenable to a "permanent moratorium" after the next round of U.S. tests. But his advisers are hedging. Said National Security Council Spokesman Edward Djerejian: "We are not proposing any new initiative."