"I want you to listen carefully," said Chief U.S. Negotiator Max Kampelman with a wide smile, "and I want you to listen with your constructive ear." Victor Karpov, his Soviet counterpart, smiled back, though somewhat less amiably. There was little likelihood of Karpov's attention wandering. He knew that Kampelman was about to unveil a sweeping new American proposal in response to the arms-control plan that the Soviets had tabled with much fanfare five weeks ago.
As the third round of the seven-month-old arms-control talks came to a close last week, Karpov had been preparing for a farewell session with his American counterparts before flying back to Moscow for an important meeting in advance of this month's superpower summit. Then suddenly his plans changed. A long cable with new instructions had arrived at the U.S. delegation's headquarters through special, secure channels, and Kampelman requested that the talks be extended to consider the latest U.S. offer. After consulting Moscow, Karpov agreed. So for 55 minutes on Friday morning, he listened intently as Kampelman and his colleagues read from a 16-page document summarizing the U.S. proposal.
On the surface, the two sides suddenly seemed to be edging toward genuine compromise. Both talked of dramatic cuts in nuclear arsenals and a limit of 6,000 on the number of nuclear "charges," the new arms-control argot for warheads and bombs. Both offered freezes and reductions on missiles in Europe. But on closer scrutiny, the underlying differences remained so significant that it was still hard to tell if both sides were motivated by a sincere desire for an arms-control agreement as well as by their continuing quest for propaganda advantage. The two nations still disagree, for example, on how to define the warheads to be included in the limit of 6,000 nuclear charges. And even if both could agree on reducing offensive weapons, the Soviets are still insisting on a trade-off: cuts in missiles in return for a ban on Star Wars. That point was as sticky as ever. President Reagan, again last week affirmed his determination to proceed with research and testing of his Strategic Defense Initiative. Behind the scenes in Geneva, Soviet officials had hinted at a possible walkout if there was no movement on SDI.
The surprising new U.S. offer reflected the intensity with which both sides are maneuvering in advance of the long-awaited first summit between Reagan and Soviet Communist Party Chairman Mikhail Gorbachev, set for Nov. 19 and 20. The President authorized the latest proposal just a week after he had tried, in his speech to the U.N., to shift the focus of world attention to issues like regional conflicts. He also gave an interview to five Soviet journalists--the first such session since John Kennedy spoke with an Izvestiya editor in 1961 --sat for questions from the BBC and held a hastily arranged televised briefing at the White House to announce his new arms initiative. For their part, the Soviets showed signs of new flexibility about their own proposals, suggested they might halt work on a controversial radar facility and offered an exit visa to Yelena Bonner, the ailing wife of Soviet Dissident Andrei Sakharov.