THE PRESS THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 1982. Nuclear weapons move

Press, 18 March 1982, Page 20

THE PRESS THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 1982. Nuclear weapons move

The difficulty in assessing comments about nuclear arms is to know to whom the comments are being directed. Thus, when President Brezhnev says that the Soviet Union is freezing the deployment of medium-range nuclear weapons in Europe it is hard to know whether he is making an offer within the talks on medium-range missiles which have been adjourned in Geneva, or whether he is playing to a European gallery, or even to an American public. When President. Reagan replied it was likewise hard to know whether he was addressing himself to an American audience, to the allies of the United States in Western Europe, or whether in fact he was making a considered reply to President Brezhnev.

If the move by President Brezhnev were made in an attempt to make a point in the negotiations — as opposed to the propaganda — then it leaves a great deal to be desired. It is completely practicable for the Soviet Union to stop deploying any new weaponry west of the Ural mountains and still to be able to target most of Western Europe from the other side of the mountains. (The same could be done with inter-continental ballistic missiles which are aimed at the United States — although these strategic weapons would be somewhat wasted on closer targets). Western Europe, if it were subject to a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union, would have its holocaust delayed by a few minutes if the warheads came from the other side of the Urals instead of the European side. The proposal which was put forward by President Reagan and which has become the basis for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation argument, is for a “zero option”: the United States will not deploy Pershing or Cruise missiles in Europe if the Soviet Union withdraws those it now has in place. In the negotiations in Geneva, the Soviet Union has pointed to the British and French missiles already in place, as well as to the submarine-launched Poseidon missiles, before calling the whole thing square.

That is not to say that if the missiles in Britain and France as well as Poseidon were tossed into the equation, the Soviet Union would adopt the “zero option.” On the other hand, it does give some idea of

the arguments about what should be counted in the negotiations about the limitation on nuclear arms. The arms talks themselves have not been abandoned but the two sides need time to consult their governments. That is a good sign. While the talks are dormant, the other aspects of arms negotiations will, continue — the attempts to influence the public and governments in Western Europe, the attempts to influence the American public and the Congress, and the attempts by the super-Powers to influence one another. Some of the propaganda is becoming more sophisticated on the Soviet side. Last month the Soviets launched a book called “Whence the Threat to Peace?” which is a reply to the American book, “Soviet Military Power” published last September. The most convincing part of the book was an argument that Soviet development •of certain weaponry lagged several years behind American development and was done in response to American development and deployment. It was patently inaccurate about various other facts of Soviet military power.

The negotiations and the inevitable propaganda apart, President Brezhnev is obviously concerned about the deployment of the Pershing and Cruise missiles. They would represent a threat to the Soviet Union just as the Soviet missiles in Eastern Europe represent a threat to Western Europe. He could have hardly made it clearer, over the last few months, that he does not want a new arms race, particularly in nuclear weaponry. Unlike the United States, the Soviet Union does not have to worry so much about public opinion, but President Brezhnev does have to worry about devoting resources to weaponry when development of the economy is required elsewhere. The United States understands all this well enough. Friends and observers of the United States are worried that there occasionally creeps into American dealings with the Soviet Union an element of punishment for other Soviet activities. The United States and the Soviet Union, in considering nuclear arms, are dealing with nothing less than the future, of the planet. Both should tread softly because they are treading on the future of all mankind.