Nearer a summit meeting

Press, 24 July 1986, Page 24

Nearer a summit meeting

Clear signs have at last emerged that not only will the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union meet this year, but when they do significant progress will be made on arms control. When they met last year Mr Gorbachev and Mr Reagan said that they would meet again, in Washington in 1986, and in Moscow, in 1987. Some hopes about arms control were raised by their first meeting, but that was probably too optimistic; it was enough that Mr Gorbachev and Mr Reagan actually met.

Since that time there has been little progress on arms control at Geneva. The United States has said that it would no longer be bound by the terms of the Second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty; the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty has been underthreat because of the development of the Strategic Defence Initiative; and the Soviet Union was critical of the United States bombing attack on terrorist targets in Libya.

On the surface, at least, those developments seemed to make a second summit meeting less likely. However, the Soviet Union made several arms control proposals which appeared to the United States to be of interest, and during his visit to Britain this month, the Soviet Foreign Minister, Mr Shevardnadze, seemed confident that a summit would be held and that the United States would consider changes in the Strategic Defence Initiative programme. Besides these official moves, a team of American scientists has been to the Soviet Union to set up seismic nuclear test monitoring equipment and a team of Soviet scientists has set up monitoring equipment in the United States. American scientists are not Government employees. Neither country would ordinarily allow foreign scientists to set up monitoring equipment in sensitive defence areas. The fact that both the United States and the Soviet Union have allowed this planning to go ahead suggests something is stirring.

The United States Administration is under domestic pressure to make progress on arms control. It has seemed several times to be on the verge, but nothing was accomplished. The

Administration is under a threat of losing its credibility on the issue at home. The role of the private American scientists is a little obscure.

What seemed to be happening was that the United States was under pressure to match the Soviet move of suspending nuclear tests, but the United States Government argued that verification procedures were needed. Some American scientists were convinced that the seismic monitoring devices were adequate to prevent any cheating. What is not clear is whether it was these scientists or others who went to the Soviet Union to set up the monitoring devices there. In any case a major step towards verification has been taken. The United States has also been under pressure from Western Europe, which was highly critical of the decision to abandon the S.A.L.T. Two agreement. The Europeans’ main hope from the summit meeting and the accompanying negotiations is that a deal will be made to remove intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Europe. The Soviet Union wants two main things: the retention of the A.B.M. treaty and a delay in the “star wars” programme. The United States is looking for significant cuts in the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile numbers. President Reagan seems ready to concede a significant delay in the deployment of the “star wars” technology.

President Reagan began his first term in a belligerent mood. The mood has been toned down during his second term in office and the professed intention is towards negotiation on arms control. The inner circle of Reaganites always considered that too much had been given away in S.A.L.T. Two and the recent abandonment of its provisions will have given satisfaction to that inner circle. No date for a summit meeting has been fixed and no final agenda announced. If he is of a mind to do it, the immensely popular President Reagan could carry the American public with him on arms control. The American public trusts conservative Presidents in dealing with the Soviet Union and no-one really challenges President Reagan’s credentials as a conservative.