Many U.S.-Soviet differences cloud hopes for S.A.L.T.

Press, 15 June 1979, Page 5

Many U.S.-Soviet differences cloud hopes for S.A.L.T.

NZPA-Reuter

Washington

President Jimmy Carter will leave for Vienna today with cautious hopes for broadening SovietAmerican detente during summit talks with the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev.

The main business at the summit meeting, the first meeting between the two leaders, is the signing of the new Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (S.A.L.T. II), which was negotiated for more than six years and is now under strong attack in the United States Senate. American officials said Mr Carter did not believe there would be a big breakthrough in improving Soviet-American relations but hoped that he and Mr Brezhnev could lay the foundations for long-term progress.

The Americans do not expect that the Soviet Union will change its policies overnight merely to help Mr Carter win his uphill fight for Senate ratification of S.A.L.T. n.

Some officials feared that lack of specific progress in reconciling competing United States and Soviet policies in Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere might antagonise senators whose votes are essential for S.A.L.T. II ratification by the Senate. Two imponderables hovering over the Vienna meeting are Mr Brezhnev’s failing health and Mr Carter’s political weakness at home. The Soviet leader is suffering from undisclosed ailments, although American officials reported that he seemed to have recovered to the point where he will be able to hold a constructive dialogue at the summit meeting.

The problem for the Carter Administration is who Mr Brezhnev’s successor will be and if he will follow the policy of detente pursued by the Soviet leader since he and Richard Nixon signed the S.A.L.T. I agreement. The political outlook for Mr Carter appears to be difficult and there is no assurance that Congress will follow his lead. Mr Carter has suffered several serious defeats on foreign and domestic policies and he is leaving for Vienna with no assurance that he can win the two-thirds majority needed for ratification of S.A.L.T. 11.

On the eve of his departure, a key member of the President’s Democratic Party challenged S.A.L.T. 11.

Senator Henry Jackson, a Washington State Democrat and a defence expert, claimed the treaty favoured the Soviet Union and called it “appeasement in its purest form.” He also predicted it would not be ratified by the Senate unless it was amended.

Carter Administration officials have warned that if the Senate failed to ratify S.A.L.T. II it could plunge the world into a dangerous nuclear-arms race.

The Secretary of State (Mr Cyrus Vance) told a press conference later that the senator was misguided and wrong. The private comments of other officials indicated that the White House was angered by his criticisms as Mr Carter was about to leave.

At the summit meeting, officials said, Mr Carter would try to engage Mr Brezhnev in meaningful discussions but would warn that the Soviet leader must not entertain any misunderstandings about American resolve. The White House press secretary, Jody Powell, would not confirm or deny a “Washington Post” report that Mr Carter had told groups of journalists and Congressmen that some Soviet journalists had lied to him in the past The report

said Mr Carter had stated he knew these officials would be in Vienna and he did not intend to be misled by them.

S.AL.T. II is the first accord between two big Powers actually providing for a reduction in arms stocks. The Soviet Union has agreed to cut back its strategic nuclear delivery rockets to 2400 pieces and reduce them further to 2250 by 1981. The United States is allowed to build up to the second figure. Both Powers regard S.A.L.T. as the touchstone of the relationship between them, and the twists and turns of the negotiations in the 2| years since Mr Carter became President have contributed to the fraying of detente.

Evidence Of the importance attached by Moscow to the summit meeting, which takes place 18 years after President Kennedy and the Soviet Prime Minister, Nikita Krushchev, had a bitter encounter in Vienna, came in the composition of the Kremlin delegation.

Soviet sources said Mr Brezhnev was bringing three other members of the Communist Party’s Politburo, the country’s 13-man effective ruling body, with him. They were the Foreign Minister (Mr Andrei Gromyko), the Defence Minister (Mr Dmitry Ustinov), and his close aide, Konstantin Chernyenko. Another key member Of the Kremlin team will be Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, a missile expert and Chief of Staff of the armed forces as well as a member of the Communist Party’s “parliament,” the policy-setting Central Committee. The inclusion of Marshal Ogarkov and Mr Ustinov, who also has marshal’s rank although he comes from a civilian background, was a clear sign of Soviet readiness for wide-ranging exchanges in armaments control, military confrontation, and disarmament issues. In President Carter’s team are the counterparts of the two Soviet officials — the Defence Secretary (Mr Harold Brown) and General David Jones, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — as well as the Secretary of State (Mr Cyrus Vance) Austrian authorities have mounted a large security operation to protect the two leaders. Some 6000 police and specially trained antiguerrilla squads have been mobilised.

The summit meeting begins formally on Saturday with two meetings at the United States Embassy, and will continue on Sunday at the Soviet Embassy. There will be long gaps between the sessions, and a leisurely dinner for about 18 guests each night, on Saturday given by Mr Carter, and on Sunday with Mr Brezhnev as host at the Soviet Embassy, It was in the Hofburg’s gilded halls 165 years ago that the great Powers of the time, triumphant after routing Napoleon Bonaparte but deeply suspicious of each other, gathered at the Congress of Vienna to write a European peace. But there may also be a final session on Monday morning before the signing of S.A.L.T. II — particularly if the talks are going well and the two sides need more time to establish each other’s exact viewpoints. Mr Carter will fly home the same day — for an immediate appearance before Congress to report on the discussions. Mr Brezhnev is also expected to return to Moscow on Monday.