Andropov plays a clever but ambiguous card in the missile game
The very words were calculated to convey an impression of Soviet flexibility and weary impatience with the U.S. "The Soviet Union has stated its readiness not to have in Europe a single missile and a single plane more than possessed today by NATO countries," said Soviet Leader Yuri Andropov. "We are told that in this event the Soviet Union would have more missile nuclear warheads. All right, we are prepared to reach agreement on the equality of nuclear potentials in Europe, both as regards delivery vehicles and warheads, with due account, of course, for the corresponding armaments of Britain and France." With that reasonable-sounding sally last week, Andropov once again put the Reagan Administration on the defensive in the escalating propaganda war over the projected deployment of U.S. Pershing II and cruise missiles in Western Europe beginning late this year. Conceded a senior White House official: "It was a well-played card."
Speaking at a reception in Moscow for East German Leader Erich Honecker, Andropov also warned that if the U.S. missiles are deployed, "a chain reaction is inevitable." Said he: "The U.S.S.R., the German Democratic Republic, the other Warsaw Treaty countries will be compelled to take countermeasures." If the Andropov proposal was consistent with past maneuvering in the missile game, combining offers of flexibility with threats of escalation, it nevertheless appeared to suggest that the Soviet Union was inching toward a more conciliatory stance in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) talks scheduled to resume in Geneva next week. For the first time since those negotiations began in October 1980, Moscow sounded ready to discuss numbers of warheads rather than missiles.
Stung by passage of a congressional nuclear-freeze resolution, President Reagan took pains to describe the possible softening of the Soviet position as "encouraging." Said he: "We're going to give this serious consideration, as we do any proposal that they make." But Reagan added that a fuller analysis of the ambiguity-ridden Soviet plan would have to await the return to Geneva of U.S. Negotiator Paul Nitze.
There was sound reason for Reagan's guarded response. Andropov's remarks reflected no change in the Soviet demand that British and French nuclear forces be included in the INF arithmetic, a possibility long ruled out by Washington and its NATO partners. Britain and France have always contended that their comparatively small forces are national deterrents that are incapable of defending all of Western Europe or of threatening the Soviet Union with a first strike and, hence, should remain outside any discussions between the U.S. and the Soviets. While praising the Soviet willingness to focus on warheads "as a sign of progress," the State Department said that the U.S. would stand by its commitment to exclude British and French nuclear forces from the Geneva negotiations. U.S. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger went so far as to suggest that the tactic might be designed to bring the INF talks "to a halt."