Danger: Killing SALT Forever

The SALT II treaty has been in legislative limbo since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan last December, but in the past week its fate has become one of the most heated and important disagreements between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Carter wants to save the treaty, Reagan wants to kill it. As TIME Diplomatic Correspondent Strobe Talbott reports, the issue has grave implications:

There is a political and historical irony in the positions of the two candidates on SALT II. Reagan proposes to scrap the present treaty and reopen negotiations with the Kremlin. His goal: a new agreement that would substantially reduce the Soviet arsenal of intercontinental missiles and thus blunt the danger of a surprise attack against the American rockets. Reagan hopes to induce the Soviets to go back to the bargaining table by threatening a new arms race.

In its broad outlines, Reagan's plan is almost identical to Carter's at the beginning of his presidency in 1977. Carter had inherited from Gerald Ford a SALT II agreement that was nearly complete, but Carter wanted something better, a "real arms control" treaty of his own that would roll back, rather than merely slow down, the Soviet weapons program.

Carter then, like Reagan now, wanted to protect U.S. missiles against the theoretical possibility of a Soviet pre-emptive strike. Carter then, like Reagan now, told the Kremlin, in effect, either make more concessions or face new and bigger U.S. missiles.

The Soviet leadership threw Carter's "comprehensive" proposal right back in his face; his ill-considered initial approach to the Soviets was one of Carter's major foreign policy mistakes. The SALT II treaty he ended up signing with Leonid Brezhnev in 1979 was based largely on the deal that Ford had struck with Brezhnev three years before, although the final agreement did contain some advantages for the U.S.

Carter rightly calls Reagan naive for thinking the Soviets can be intimidated into accepting deep cuts in their existing arsenal by the threat of a future U.S. buildup. But were it not for Carter's own similar naivete four years ago, SALT II would almost certainly have been signed--and ratified--early in his Administration, long before its passage was "linked" to Soviet behavior in Cuba and Afghanistan. Such linkage was always dubious, since SALT benefits both sides.

When Carter made his false step with SALT II early in 1977, the SALT I interim agreement on offensive weapons still had seven months to run. Since then, the superpowers have been adhering to SALT I even after it expired, and to the main provisions of SALT II even though it remains unratified.

But SALT may well die in the coming months. The Soviets are unlikely to renegotiate the treaty. Despite the far greater vigor and efficiency of the U.S. economy, the Soviet political system is better prepared for the arms race Reagan is threatening. The Kremlin leaders need not worry as much about public opinion or democratic procedures; they can quickly decide to produce even more guns and less butter. Before the U.S. could even muster the domestic political consensus and the vast expenditures necessary for such a race, an exceedingly difficult challenge in itself, the Soviets could increase both the number of their missiles that have multiple warheads and the number of warheads per missile. They could --and probably would--do so simply by accelerating programs that are now being held in check by SALT. This spurt in Soviet warheads would not only bury SALT, probably forever, but would also compound the "vulnerability" of American missiles. That dismal prospect has converted the Joint Chiefs of Staff, never SALT enthusiasts, into lobbyists for the ratification of the pending treaty.

Even if Carter is reelected, a number of key pro-SALT Senators may not be.

Despite a post-election rescue attempt by Carter, the Senate still may end up pulling the plug on a negotiating process that is at least as important to the U.S. as it is to the Soviet Union.

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