Cryptic hints that the gaps are narrowing
On the rostrum of the United Nations General Assembly, immediately after an attack on the Camp David agreements, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko suddenly fell silent, then leaned against the side of the speaker's desk. Two diplomats anxiously started forward, grasped Gromyko under the arms and helped him off the podium. For a time it seemed as though the 69-year-old veteran might be nearing the end of a career that has kept him at the head of the Soviet foreign ministry for an astonishing 22 years, but after a medical checkup and an hour's rest in a U.N. foyer, the durable Russian was back on the podium. His only complaint, he said, was against the "very, very hot" TV lights.
Nobody was more relieved than Jimmy Carter and his chief diplomatic aides, for they were preparing to welcome Gromyko to Washington over the weekend for what might prove to be an important new phase of the Carter Administration's 18-month preoccupation with SALT II negotiations. Gromyko is by now a matchless expert in the technicalities of strategic arms, and there is no real replacement for him on the Soviet side. "If his illness had been any worse," said one vastly relieved U.S. diplomat, "we could have kissed SALT goodbye for another six months."
Gromyko was in the U.S. for his seventh meeting with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance since the Carter Administration took office, and indications were that the gap between the U.S. and Soviet negotiators was narrowing. For more than a year, there has been broad agreement in three basic categories: limitation of total strategic missile systems to 2,250 for each side, a three-year ban on developing or testing new missile systems, and further negotiations for a SALT III treaty that would make additional cuts in strategic nuclear arsenals. At the last Vance-Gromyko meeting in Geneva, in July, both sides pressed for some exemptions in the restrictions on new weapons and it appears they tentatively agreed that each could test at least one new land-launched missile. Since then the two nations have been warily circling each other, seeking tradeoffs. Says one U.S. participant in the talks: "It's like a Chinese menu. You take three from Column A, or two from Column B, or you can mix it up."