Nation: SALT: The Home Stretch

Vance and Gromyko "work on the last details of an arms pact

The question was one that reporters asked at just about every meeting between Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko: How far apart were the two diplomats in their seemingly endless effort to work out a second-stage SALT treaty? In Geneva last week Gromyko answered by holding his hands about a foot apart.

"Large?" asked a reporter trying to gauge the distance.

"Medium," said Gromyko.

Actually the gap was quite small, but still too wide to be bridged last week. Despite three days of hard bargaining over arms limits,...

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