Russian warning on arms talks progress

Press, 22 February 1978, Page 18

Russian warning on arms talks progress

By

VICTOR ZORZA

in Washington

The Kremlin has taken the unusual step of warning President Carter that unless he restrains the hawks in his Administration, the arms limitation talks could be wrecked, and that this “can

have only one outcome — a sharp increase in the danger of a nuclear missile catastrophe.” When “Pravda” devotes nearly a whole page to the subject, then something is

obviously the matter. The question is, what? On the face of it, “Pravda” is concerned at the lack of progress in S.A.L.T., at the slowness of the negotiations, at the emergence of new American demands which, it claims, go beyond the previous more moderate American positions. At no point does “Pravda” expressly blame the Administration for this supposed change. Indeed, it notes that President Carter has stressed repeatedly the great importance of reaching a new agreement, and that this gave a strong impetus to the negotiations. So far, so good. But this, it says, is not to the liking of those forces “which want to retard and even to wreck altogether” the S.A.L.T. accords, and are making S.A.L.T. the focus of an acute political struggle in the United States. It trots out the traditional list of cold warriors, from the Pentagon and the Committee on the Present Danger to the military-industrial complex, but these “open opponents” seem to cause it less concern than the hidden adversaries whom it evidently regards as far more dangerous. It speaks of certain unidentified figures “who do not appear to oppose an agreement directly, but who in fact strive by every means to erect more and more obstacles on the path to its conclusion.” They claim that they only want to improve the treaty, but when the government fails to do this

they “cast off their masks” and accuse it of being too soft and compliant in its dealings with Moscow. But is “Pravda” speaking only of the traditional cold warriors outside the administration? To those prepared to read between the lines, another message becomes evident. What “Pravda” is saying, at this deeper level, is that some of President Carter’s advisers are as bad as the outside cold warriors — such, for instance, as Dr Zbignieuw Brzezinski, the President’s National Security Adviser. Apart from the Defense Secretary (Mr Harold Brown), who as the Pentagon’s top official is by definition a black beast in the Soviet view, Dr Brzezinski is the Administration’s member attacked most frequently — and. indeed more sharply than Mr Brown, because he is perceived by the Kremlin to act as President Carter’s evil spirit. Some of the detailed and specific objections which “Pravda” raises against American attitudes on S.A.L.T. can be traced back to Dr Brzezinski’s own earlier views on arms limitation issues. "Pravda” does not name him, as it did when it sniped at him on lesser matters, because in this context it would be impolitic to do so. But Soviet officials appear to work on the assumption that in the determination of S.A.L.T. policy, Dr Brzezinski is the hardliner — whatever his Washington detractors, who regard him as blowing hot and cold, depending on the President’s mood of the moment, may say.

At the other end of the spectrum Soviet officials see Mr Paul Warnke, the chief S.A.L.T. negotiator and head of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, whom they regard as a moderate. In this the Washington view concurs with theirs, and both are right. The Russians have also found him a tough negotiator, with a nimble lawyer’s mind, who can drive a coach and four through a poorly constructed argument — but who can also seize an opening which is barely there and enlarge it sufficiently to give a new impetus to negotiations on an issue that might have seemed dead. In the middle they see the Secretary of State (Mr Cyrus Vance), who indeed acts as something of a middleman, though perhaps with a slight inclination to favour Mr Wamke’s views over Dr Brzezinski’s at least on S.A.L.T. matters. For all their ritual attacks on the Pentagon’s Mr Brown, the Russians seem somewhat puzzled by the man who, on the one hand, presides over the biggest American military budget in history, while on the other hand is making a more determined effort to curb the appetites of the military than any Secretary of Defense since Mr Robert McNamara. In the end, to their own surprise, the Russians came to regard Mr McNamara as a dove, but by then it was too late and he was on the way out of the Pentagon. Mr Brown is no more a dove than Mr McNamara was at

first, but he is not a hawk either. It is in the Kremlin s power, by its reaction to his policies, to push him in one direction or the other. For all “Pravda’s” careful wording and its failure to discuss directly the attitudes of the key Administration figures, this is really the issue to which it addresses itself between the lines. It is warning the Adminstration in effect that the Kremlin can only be pushed thus far and no further on the various S.A.L.T. issues in dispute, and it is telling President Carter that if he listens to Dr Brzezinski rather than to Mr Warnke, the S.A.L.T. agreement might come to grief. But if that is the Kremlin’s message, it might also have one effect that Moscow did not intend. By showing President Carter how concerned it is about Dr Brzezinski’s views, it might have persuaded the President that his National Security Adviser is a good man to have around for more reasons than all the obvious ones. If Dr Brzezinski is the hardliner that the Russians take him to be, and if he has the influence on the President which they suspect he has. then the diplomatic and strategic game is played for higher stakes than it otherwise would be. In a game for higher stakes the United States, with the greater resources behind it, is the more likely winner — so long as the game is kept to conventional stakes, and stays away from the nuclear ones. (c) 1978, Victor Zorza.