Nation: Preview of the SALT Debate

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"Killer amendments "ahead?

After Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT II treaty next week, it goes before the Senate for a ratification debate that will range over the whole relationship between the world's two superpowers. To help clarify some of the complex issues, TIME last week convened a panel of experts for an all-day conference in Manhattan. Among them were two of the key Senate staff members now polishing arguments for the showdown on the floor: Richard Perle, 37, a former consultant to the Defense Department, adviser to SALT Critic Henry Jackson of Washington and widely considered to be the best informed opponent of SALT in Senate staff circles, and Larry Smith, 43, for four years a strategic affairs specialist on the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee and now administrative assistant to SALT Supporter Gary Hart of Colorado. Their forceful views suggested an important conclusion: instead of a simple either/or verdict, the Senate outcome may well turn on whether amendments can be devised that will allay the doubts of skeptical Senators without wrecking ten years of negotiations with the Soviets. Perle himself made it plain that the foes of SALT are likely to use amendments as the primary way to attack the treaty, with a reopening of negotiations as the ultimate goal. A summary:

Perle: We're Falling Behind. The principal worry about SALT, Perle repeated over and over, is that the treaty as now drafted would permit the Soviets to continue their menacing strategic-arms buildup, while lulling the U.S. into a false sense of security that would prevent it from spending enough on defense. Said he: "In the last decade the Soviets have spent on strategic forces roughly $100 billion more than the U.S. has spent. We have seen an enormous shift in the strategic balance. In virtually every category in which the Soviets were behind a decade ago, they are now ahead." SALT II, he believes, would do less to limit than to legitimize that buildup: "While it is true that the Soviets will in certain particulars be constrained from doing things that they otherwise would be free to do, there is enough freedom in the treaty to let them continue to invest in strategic forces at the rate at which they have been investing."

On the U.S. side, he contends, "the legalistic interpretation of the treaty that says that all of our research and development programs can go forward misses the fundamental point. They are not going to go forward. We can't go to the country and ask for the kind of increase in effort that is required, after having gone to the country to explain that this arms-control agreement is going to stabilize U.S.-Soviet relations and bring the strategic competition under control."