Nation: Why Moscow Stalled SALT

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Carter's China deal may cause more trouble than he expected

Never had hopes for a SALT II agreement been higher. Success seemed so imminent at the pre-Christmas conference in Geneva that two key members of the U.S. delegation flew home for the holidays, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko announced plans to depart for Moscow, and arrangements were made for reporters to be briefed extensively in the U.S. on the details of the new arms control treaty. In Washington, the White House alerted the TV networks that President Carter might be making a major statement that they would want to broadcast live. There was speculation a similar statement would be made in Moscow by Soviet Communist Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev. The two leaders, it was assumed, would announce their long awaited summit in mid-January. Would there be any fallout on SALT from Washington's decision to normalize relations with China? Absolutely not, Carter told a TV audience. Said Secretary of State Cyrus Vance: "We are close to the end of the road."

Wishful thinking. Gromyko had to delay his departure, the special press briefing was not called, and Washington and Moscow never issued their synchronized statements. Instead, Vance and Gromyko faced dozens of reporters and cameramen on the patio in front of the U.S. mission and admitted that success had eluded them again. Said Gromyko: "A lot of work has indeed been done, but there is still some work to be done." Explained Vance: "We will continue to work on those questions ... through our regular diplomatic channels."

With that, the odds for a Carter-Brezhnev summit this month dropped to zero. Said the President during a Christmas-morning chat with newsmen in Plains, Ga.: "We have an excellent chance of a fairly early meeting between myself and President Brezhnev. My guess is, though, that it will not be in January." Carter then added: "I think we will have the SALT agreement. It just takes time."

What went wrong? This question prompted intensive Washington postmortems last week. Explained a U.S. official with intimate knowledge of SALT: "We're trying to think it all through right now, to see where it went off the track."

There are two main theories. The first argues that Brezhnev has been much more upset and angered by the pace of U.S. normalization of relations with Peking than the White House expected—or revealed. As a result, Brezhnev slowed down SALT in order to delay his summit with Carter. According to this argument, the ailing Soviet leader fears that if he visits the U.S. in mid-January, he risks being overshadowed and forgotten in the excitement over the visit of China's Vice Premier Teng Hsiao-p'ing on Jan. 29.