Soviets Urged to Cut Non-Nuclear Arms
WASHINGTON — U.S. arms negotiators should work to encourage reductions in Soviet chemical and conventional forces as they strive for a treaty to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear weapons from Europe, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Sunday.
Nunn, a leader of Senate opinion on military issues, suggested on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley†that any treaty negotiated at Geneva to implement the ban in Europe on intermediate-range weapons recently endorsed by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev should include “a supreme national interest clause.†It would reserve for this country the right not to remove 20% to 25% of its missiles until it is satisfied with the balance of conventional and chemical forces in Europe.
There is legitimate anxiety among U.S. allies in Europe, Nunn said, adding that withdrawal of the U.S. Pershing 2 and cruise missiles that would be affected by the Gorbachev proposal would seriously impair the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s defenses against the Soviet Union’s numerically superior conventional forces.
With a national interest clause, Nunn said, “it would be in our interest†to accept an intermediate-range nuclear force treaty requiring both sides to remove all intermediate-range missiles from Europe and limiting each side to 100 warheads on such weapons inside its own territory. He said that there should also be agreement on verification procedures and on short-range missile strengths.
The net effect of such a treaty, he noted, would be to reduce the number of Soviet warheads by about 1,200, while about 200 U.S. weapons, already deployed, would be shelved.
Both Nunn and Maynard W. Glitman, chief U.S. negotiator on the European missiles question, who appeared earlier on the same program, agreed that it would be inadvisable to try to include limits on conventional forces in a treaty on intermediate-range missiles.
“We cannot wrap all of this in one treaty, and I’m not advocating that,†Nunn said. But he suggested that “we ought to serve notice in advance to everyone that we are going to look at these two matters, and during the four- or five-year period during which these missiles are withdrawn and hopefully destroyed, we’re going to take a careful look at conventional balance and at chemical balance and arms control progress. . . . “
Senate ratification of the final product of the Geneva negotiations--provided it is acceptable to President Reagan--was forecast by Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.), who was interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press,†along with Max M. Kampelman, the chief U.S. arms control negotiator. Kampelman refused to set a target date for submission of a treaty to the Senate.
Democratic Support Likely
The majority Democrats are likely to help provide the two-thirds vote required under the Constitution for ratification of treaties, Bumpers said, because they believe that there is “a very strong need for at least this embryonic beginning in the arms control process.†Hence, he said, “anything that Ronald Reagan puts his stamp of approval on is likely to go through the Senate.â€
Bumpers suggested that on-site verification of the treaty’s provisions might require special legislation if Soviet inspectors are to have access to U.S. arms plants. While U.S. inspectors might have no problems once they had clearance from the Kremlin to visit government-owned plants, he said, private U.S. firms are unlikely to cooperate automatically with Soviet inspectors.
Kampelman called the objection “somewhat premature†and argued that procedures “acceptable to the United States†can be developed in the treaty.
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