Reagan plans arms talks

Press, 3 February 1981, Page 8

Reagan plans arms talks

NZPA Washington Reagan Administration officials said yesterday that despite the harsh words uttered by President Reagan and his Secretary of State (Mr Alex:nder Haig) last week about the Soviet Union, plans were being developed for resuming discussions with: Moscow on key arms-control questions. The officials said that if the Soviet Union disregarded the warnings from the United :. States and other Western countries and intervened militarily in Poland, this would likely make any such arms-control talks im- ; Poland has become a serious concern of the new Administration,, ; with Mr Haig said to be following developments personally. Mr Haig, in his first message to the Soviet Foreign Minister (Mr , Andrei Gromyko) emphasised the dire coh? sequences to East-West relations thatXwbulT be caused by an intervention. Mr Gromyko responded,, in a message delivered by the Soviet Ambassador in Washington* (Mr Anatoly Dobrynin) late last week, and reportedly adhered to Moscow’s position that the Soviet Union was backing Poland’s efforts to solve its problems by. itself and that

Western countries should not interfere. So far, Soviet troops deployment around Poland have no’ changed significantly since the Carter Administration in early December expressed public and private concern' about a possible invasion. But Mr Haig said in his hews conference ..last week that the. readiness of the Soviet forces, estimated at 500,000 had declined somewhat. At the week-end, Mr Reagan’s White House chief of staff, James Baker, said that the President’s hard line against the Soviet Union was meant to send a .message to Moscow that there would be no “business as- usual”- between the two super-Powers. He told television " interviewers that the .President “means what he says and says what he means,’’ adding that Mr Reagan might have trouble^.trusting Soviet leaders. .>■ ■ “They should be thinking that there is a President of the United States today who is going to. be realistic with respect to the Soviet Union and not naive;” he said. Mr Baker was referring to the President’s first press conference last week in which he said Moscow’s leaders were, willing “to lie, to cheat to commit any crime" to promote world revolution. ’ -