Up to The Presidents

ARMS-CONTROL TALKS BETWEEN RUSSIAN PRESIDENT Boris Yeltsin and President Bush this week serve as a reminder that both countries still have thousands of warheads in their nuclear stockpiles. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which the Senate will debate later this month, cuts warheads 30% for both sides. Bush has already proposed further reductions to 4,700 warheads, and Yeltsin trumped this by suggesting 2,500 on each side.

The stumbling block is U.S. insistence that the Russians scrap their entire post-START arsenal of 154 land-based SS-18 missiles, each of which carries 10 warheads. Yeltsin demands as a quid pro quo that the U.S. dismantle its fleet of multiple-warhead Trident submarine-based missiles. After a final meeting with U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev reported "good progress" but added that "the rest will depend on our Presidents."