Soviets rejected bigger cuts, say treaty advocates

Press, 12 July 1979, Page 6

Soviets rejected bigger cuts, say treaty advocates

NZPA-Reuter Washington The United States wrung concessions from the Soviet Union in nearly seven years of negotiations of the new Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, but the Russians rejected calls for deeper cuts in its nuclear arsenal, the Carter Administration has told critics of the treaty. In evidence to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, officials have said repeatedly that limiting strategic nuclear arms is a step-by-step process and that additional cuts are hoped for in the S.A.L.T. 111 ireaty on which egotiations will start when S.A.L.T. II is ratified. The treaty signed by President Carter and the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, in Vienna on June 18, has come under attack from both liberals and conservatives in the first two days of hearings by the Defence Secretary (Mr Harold Brown) and a military assessment by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Senator Jesse Helms, a North Carolina Republican, asked the Secretary of State (Mr Cyrus Vance) if it was not an arms escalation treaty. “No, it is not.” Mr Vance replied. Mr Vance said that Senate

rejection of the treaty would be a very, very serious blow to America’s European allies and that he does not know whether the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation would survive it. He also said that failure to ratify the arms-limitation pact would affect the future of arms control and cast a chilling shadow over the whole range of East-West relations. A Liberal Democrat, Ed-, mund Muskie, expressed concern over the continuing arms build-up permitted by the pact and said, "I just don’t believe that by 1985 (the treaty’s expiration date) that reductions will be possible.” Another Liberal Democrat’, George McGovern of South Dakota, wondered if the Administration would be submitting a list of weapons it wanted to win support for the treaty, including the MX missile programme. In a televised debate on S.A.L.T. 11, the treaty's leading Senate opponent, a Utah Republican, Jake Garn, said the pact legalised a new arms race. He said that at the time of S.A.L.T. I Americans were told its imperfection would be fixed in S.A.L.T. II and that now they were being told that S.A.L.T. II would be fixed in S.A.L.T. TIT.