America Plays Black

By Strobe Talbott

Something quite fundamental has changed during the past year in the way Washington deals with arms control, and it was apparent last week in the lengthy and excruciatingly nuanced reply by President Reagan to the letter that Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev sent him in June. For the first time in the history of nuclear diplomacy, the U.S. has been responding to Soviet proposals rather than taking the initiative. Moreover, the American response has frequently been delayed, tentative and ambiguous. In chess terms, it is as though, after years of playing white, making bold opening moves, the U.S. has elected to play black, letting the U.S.S.R. advance its pieces toward the center of the board while the U.S. counters with pawns.

Since the two sides returned to the negotiating table early last year, the Soviets have produced a flurry of proposals setting forth the broad outlines of the socalled grand compromise: Moscow would agree to significant reductions in offensive weaponry primarily affecting its land-based missile arsenal if Washington would agree to curtail its Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars, the plan for a space-based antimissile shield. Gorbachev's letter proposed linking cuts in offensive missiles to an agreement by both countries to honor for at least 15 more years the 1972 antiballistic-missi le agreement, which would confine SDI to laboratory research and prohibit development, testing and deployment. As Reagan was taking flak at home and abroad for announcing that he planned to abandon the SALT II treaty, Gorbachev showed new signs of flexibility at the Geneva arms-control talks.

Reagan's response -- which he amplified in a presidential directive to American negotiators in Geneva -- inches the U.S. position toward the Soviet one on some issues relating to offensive weapons; it would, for example, ease the American insistence on a ban against mobile long-range missiles. But in the all-important area of strategic defense, Reagan is still holding back.

He indicated a willingness to amend the ABM treaty to tighten some of its imprecisions and extend the period of notice each side would have to give before withdrawing from the treaty. This willingness to dicker with Moscow over the ABM treaty is being interpreted as a sweetener, a hint to the Soviets that the U.S. may be prepared to agree later to a longterm restriction of SDI. So it may be. But the fact remains that the U.S. is still playing hard to get on SDI. The Administration had long since reaffirmed a policy of abiding by the ABM treaty, and the terms of the treaty itself call for periodic review of compliance and applicability to new systems (the third review is scheduled for next year). Therefore Reagan's willingness to discuss differences of interpretation makes explicit something that was already implicit in U.S. policy. While Reagan may have touched the SDI piece, he has yet to move it forward.

He may actually have moved it backward. Reagan indicated to Gorbachev that he wants to loosen the strictures on the development and testing of exotic defenses so that the 1972 pact would permit the U.S. to proceed unfettered with SDI if and when the program is ready to move from the laboratories on earth to experiments in space. That is exactly what the Soviets want to stop, since they would then have to develop expensive offensive and defensive countermeasures. Moreover, for the record at least, Reagan remains committed to eventual deployment.

The Reagan letter, according to one State Department official, "will keep the Soviets guessing about what our real bottom line is." Some in the Administration are pleased with this strategy. They say it is a healthy change. The U.S. had grown too much into the habit during the '70s of making the first move, then adjusting and compromising to accommodate Soviet recalcitrance. They are glad to see the tables turned, with the Soviets saying "please" and the U.S. saying "no, thank you" for a change.

There is also a widespread view, which may yet be confirmed, that Reagan may prove to be the great negotiator, biding his time, enticing ever more attractive offers from the other side, waiting until just the right moment to pounce on the best deal he can get. But there is another, less encouraging reason for the American strategy of playing black: the Administration is still so sharply divided over arms control that it quite simply is incapable of making bold or even straightforward moves. Once again last week's developments demonstrated the point. The Reagan response to Gorbachev was -- and continues to be -- the object of ferocious intramural battling and bickering between the State Department and the Pentagon.

Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and his anti-arms control alter ego Richard Perle fought hard against the modest concessions on offensive weapons ^ and even harder against any concession on SDI. "Anything that gives up strategic defense would be undesirable in every way," Weinberger insisted last week. Even if the Soviets were to reduce their offensive arsenal in return, he added, curtailing SDI would be "a bad bargain for the world." Secretary of State George Shultz and his aides, especially Paul Nitze, have fought just as hard to move pieces rather than merely touch them.

The Reagan letter was approved after two days of particularly intense senior-level infighting and sent to Moscow last Friday. If it leads to a compromise between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, fine; but it is first and foremost a compromise between State and Defense, an instrument not so much of international diplomacy as of bureaucratic management.

The next stage in the process -- an attempt by American negotiators to explain to their Soviet counterparts what the letter means -- will be complicated by a similar dispute in Washington. State is trying to interpret the letter in a way that leaves the negotiators with more latitude, while Defense protests and obstructs every inch of the way. The Soviets, who have been complaining about not knowing whom to listen to in the cacophony coming out of Washington, will be all the more confused.

With reporting by Johanna McGeary/Washington