Andropov’s space vow cautiously welcomed

Press, 20 August 1983, Page 11

Andropov’s space vow cautiously welcomed

NZPA-Reuter Moscow The Soviet President, Mr Yuri Andropov, has pledged that the Soviet Union will not be the first to launch new anti-satellite weapons into space, and the proposal has received a cautious welcome from United States senators.

Western military experts said that the pledge appeared to be timed to coincide with the planned testing of an American aircraft-launched anti-satel-iite weapon, possibly this month or next. Mr Andropov announced the initiative to a group of nine visiting United States Democratic Party senators yesterday.

The official Soviet news agency, Tass, quoted him as saying: “The U.S.S.R. assumes the commitment not to be the first to put into outer space any type of anti-satellite weapon, i.e. imposes a unilateral moratorium on such launchings.”

Senator Claiborne Pell, who led the delegation, told a news conference that he thought Mr Andropov’s offer deserved to be taken seriously. In Washington, a State Department spokesman, Alan Romberg, said that the United States would study the offer carefully. Western arms experts said that Mr Andropov’s statement appeared to reflect Soviet concern about the orbital anti-missile system which President Ronald Reagan called for in March to protect the United States from any Soviet nuclear attack.

They said that Moscow feared it did not have the technology to match American developments in space weaponry.

Mr Andropov also proposed at his meeting with the senators that both Powers scrap their existing “killer satellite” arsenals.

Military experts said that the Soviet Union had developed and tested a groundlaunched anti-satellite system which would explode a huge charge near orbiting American reconnaissance and guidance craft. They said that in the event of a war the side which had the ability to knock out surveillance satellites and strategic missiles would have a clear advantage. Moscow appeared to fear Washington was pulling ahead. Arms experts say that the system the United States is developing would use an Fl 5 Eagle fighter aircraft to launch a non-explosive homing vehicle into space. The device would home in electronically and destroy its target by direct impact. Western diplomats said that Mr Andropov’s offers on space weaponry were unlikely to generate much excitement in the West, where the nuclear debate centres on the planned deployment of American medium-range missiles in Europe.

The Soviet President made no new proposals to break the deadlock in United States-Soviet talks at Geneva on limiting medium-range nuclear systems.

Western diplomats had thought that he might offer some new proposal and said that his failure to do so suggested the Soviet Union would not make any new concessions to prevent the deployment of cruise and Pershing 2 missiles in Western Europe. Mr Andropov said that if deployment went ahead it would alter the international climate, and the United States would also “feel the difference.” The nine United States senators are in the Soviet Union for a week as the guests of the Soviet Parliament.

Mr Pell said that Mr Andropov had spoken vigorously, clearly, and forcefully during their meeting. Mr Andropov, whose health has given cause for concern in recent months, had a first-class mind and was in good shape for his age, Mr Pell said.

In Geneva, a Soviet diplomat indicated yesterday that his > country would retaliate if the United States ended a 14-year-old pause on chemical weapons production and began to make nerve-gas shells. The Kremlin’s ambassador to the Geneva Disarmament Committee, Mr Victor Issraelyan, accused Washington of dragging its feet in talks at Geneva on an international convention banning chemical weapons. It was doing so to have, “a free hand in order to implemen the full-scale plan of the Pentagon to build up the American

chemical arsenal.” The American move "represents another step towards implementation of a SUSIO billion programme of preparations for chemical war, and threatens a new spiral in the chemical arms race,” he said. On August 1, Congressional negotiators gave tentative approval to a Senate bill to allocate SUSI3I million for nerve-gas and so-called binary nerve-gas artillery shells in 1985. The binary variety uses two different chemicals that become lethal only when they are united by the force of flight. Mr Issraelyan, in a speech to the 40-nation committee, which will end its 1983 session next week, urged faster action on a chemical weapons ban. He said that there had been some progress in the (Northern) summer talks, but not enough. He proposed the creation of a system of special storage dumps where chemical weapons could be destroyed before international monitors.

Western experts in Geneva say that the Soviets have up to 350,000 tonnes of chemicals such as nerve agents and jnustard gas, much of it assigned to troops. The Americans are said to have only one-hundredth as much, most of it old and unusable.'

Britain has destroyed its chemical stockpile, and several other European governments are expected to do likewise.