No fruit in Geneva yet

Press, 1 June 1985, Page 18

No fruit in Geneva yet

Because the Soviet Union and the United States have both described the arms control talks being held in Geneva as “fruitless,” the conclusion should not be drawn that the talks will end without agreement. The new round started yesterday and the descriptions may well be an opening ploy. No assurance of success is in sight; but it must be assumed, because the talks started again at all, that both the United States and the Soviet Union want to continue. Neither side, of course, wants to be accused of being the spoiler. What the Soviet Union wants has been plain from the start. It wants an end to the Americans’ strategic defence initiative, the plan to base weapons in space that would destroy missiles in flight. It would like its own missiles to remain untouched by any agreement. What the Americans want is to get substantial cuts in Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles and intermediate-range missiles, and to leave the strategic defence initiative untouched. The two positions are directly opposed and neither side can get all that it wants. The negotiators will have to compromise. More than that, if they fail, the chances are strong that relations between the Soviet Union and the United States will deteriorate and the arms race will run faster. The Geneva talks are a continuation of talks that were broken off in November, 1983. They were then known as the Intermediate Nuclear Forces talks and their main subject was the deployment of medium-range nuclear weapons in Europe. The Soviet Union broke off the talks when American nuclear weapons were deployed in Europe. During 1984, there were no discussions on the subject at all. The strategic defence initiative had become an important element in the discussions in March, 1983, when President Reagan made his famous “star wars” speech. In the middle of last year, the Soviet Union proposed a treaty to avoid the militarisation of space. It had probably hoped to embarrass President Reagan, then in his re-election campaign. However, the United States seized the offer with enthusiasm, pointing out that Soviet missiles would pass through space and therefore the militarisation of space should be discussed. This was not what the Soviet Union had in mind and it backtracked from its proposal. President Reagan was re-elected and another year began before the Soviet Union agreed to go back to the bargaining table. By this time, the emphasis in the talks had

changed. The Soviet Union had become alarmed at the prospect of engaging in a costly race with the United States over anti-missile defence. This consideration assumed greater importance for the Soviet Union than the deployment of the missiles in Europe. In the meantime, the Soviet Union had deployed intermediate-range missiles in East Germany and Czechoslovakia. The Soviet Foreign Minister, Mr Andrei Gromyko, and Mr George Shultz, the American Secretary of State, met on January 8. In the end, three subjects were agreed upon for the Geneva talks: the American space initiative, strategic weapons, and the intermediate-range weapons. The first session of the new talks was held in March and April. Attitudes within the Soviet Union have to be guessed at because the debates are not conducted openly. Nevertheless, some idea may be gained to explain what made the Soviets return to the table. The Soviet Union had come to the conclusion that the Reagan Administration was almost impossible to deal with and had hoped that President Reagan would not be returned to office. When it became clear that he would not only be reelected but re-elected overwhelmingly, it was acknowledged that the Soviet Union would have to deal with him. At the same time, concern was heightening within the Soviet Union that the United States would embark on a hightechnology defence system and, unless there was an agreement, the Soviet Union would have to follow. The Soviet Union wanted to avoid that path. In the United States, the debates are conducted openly. There has been profound dissatisfaction with the arms control agreements reached by earlier Administrations and some aversion to arms control talks at all. The first Reagan Administration would probably have preferred to rearm and negotiate later. Public concern made this a difficult policy to follow. The United States wants actual cuts in the number of weapons. The Reagan Administration tends to have used the arms control talks as a way of increasing the spending on arms, the argument being that the United States has to negotiate from strength or, alternatively, it has to have systems to give away as bargaining chips. That the United States Administration has used the arms control talks in this way has not escaped Soviet notice. In spite of mutual suspicion, both sides are talking and possibly listening. They have much at stake. So has the rest of the world.