DIPLOMACY: The Quiet Buildup to SALT II

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A week ago, the sad ending of Secretary of State Cyrus Vance's mission to Moscow seemed to herald a critical break in Soviet-American relations—an end to SALT, perhaps, if not an end to detente. The Soviets had rebuffed as unacceptable new strategic arms proposals offered by the Carter Administration. In addition, there was a continuing volley of and-American rhetoric in the Soviet press and the angry diatribe by Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko (TIME, April 11).

By last week there was growing evidence that all the early alarms had been much too strident. To begin with, the Soviets indicated that they might have overreacted to the Administration's position. The decidedly mellowing tone was set during a Kremlin dinner for visiting Cuban Premier Fidel Castro, at which Soviet Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev suggested that the Moscow chill had not been intended as a deepfreeze. He referred to the U.S. as "our partners" and scolded the Americans for "losing their constructive approach" and for adhering to a "onesided position." A "reasonable accommodation is possible" in arms limitation, he declared, if the U.S. would only seek "mutually acceptable solutions, not in words but by deeds."

Tn Washington, meanwhile, Vance stressed the Administration's conviction that negotiations over SALT II have only just begun (see interview). He said both sides would be working quietly toward the next meeting in Geneva in late May. President Carter too insisted that SALT II is still on target and predicted that the chances of reaching a new arms agreement before the expiration of SALT I in October are "much better than fifty-fifty."

There were more specific indications that both sides had read the danger signals correctly and decided to shift their diplomacy into a lower key. At midweek Vance received Soviet Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin at the State Department for an unannounced and fruitful meeting. Later, Carter disclosed that he had received personal assurances from Brezhnev that the Soviet Union was as serious as the U.S. in its pursuit of a new agreement. Then, in a statement that was both conciliatory in tone and extraordinary in concept, Carter declared that if the Soviets gave him evidence that the U.S. proposals presented at Moscow were inequitable, he would consider changing them when the talks begin next month in Geneva. With dizzying speed, the diplomatic chill turned into a spring thaw. The Moscow "failure" might yet prove to have been a successful first step.

Meanwhile, foreign policy experts continued to analyze the three general criticisms of the Administration's approach to the Moscow meeting: 1) 1) THAT WASHINGTON HAD ALARMED THE NOTORIOUSLY SECRETIVE SOVIETS BY PUBLICIZING THE DETAILS OF ITS NEW PROPOSALS BEFOREHAND.