The Nation: SALT: SIGNS OF A NEW SAVOR

IN almost total secrecy, President Nixon made contact with "highest-level" Soviet officials last January, among them Premier Aleksei Kosygin. The talks continued until last week, when Nixon—and the Soviets—finally broke silence. Appearing briefly on TV, the President announced a "significant development" in ending the deadlock in the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. After 18 months of probing, the U.S. and Russia had reached an agreement on how to proceed toward limiting nuclear weapons. It was, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

By its announcement, the White House intended—as one aide put it —to administer a "kick in the tail" to negotiators at the fourth round of SALT talks in Vienna. The diplomats, who are to recess shortly, were only too happy to get the boot; when they reconvene in Helsinki this summer, they will at last have something solid to discuss. One serious obstacle to an arms-limitation treaty had been overcome. In past talks, the U.S. had insisted upon putting a ceiling on both offensive and defensive nuclear weapons; it was especially fearful of the huge, 25-megaton Soviet S59 intercontinental ballistic missile, which is capable of destroying U.S. Minuteman sites. The Soviets, on the other hand, wanted to concentrate on a reduction of defensive weapons only—anti-ballistic missiles that would protect U.S. ICBMs against Russian attack. Now Washington and Moscow linked the two types of weapons; the U.S. agreed to concentrate on the ABMs, while the Russians agreed to work (although, it would seem, more slowly) on some limitation of offensive weapons. Which side had made the bigger concession? Some congressional skeptics think that it was the U.S., but that simply is not clear yet. Both countries are running certain risks for peace. But those risks seem far smaller than the dangers of an ever-spiraling, ever more costly arms race.

Penetrating Galosh. To be sure, the U.S. and the Soviet Union have arrived at little more than a modus operandi for further talks. Nixon said as much: "Intensive negotiations will be required to translate this understanding into a concrete agreement." If a step has been taken that may reduce the quantity of nuclear weapons, their quality is still beyond control; both nations are free to continue improving the deadly efficacy of their nuclear armory. The Soviets underlined the tentative nature of the accord by announcing it with considerably less fanfare than Nixon did. Though it was read by a Soviet newscaster at the same time that the President appeared on TV, the news was omitted from subsequent Soviet broadcasts.

No details of the agreement can be hammered out until the SALT negotiations resume. The U.S. is willing to allow the ABM protection of Moscow to expand slightly; in return, it expects to retain some of the four Safeguard sites currently under way to protect American ICBM silos. Now in its initial stages, after barely gaining congressional approval, the ABM program can be modified to fit any possible agreement. Until an accord is reached, the U.S. intends to go ahead with additional ABM sites as well as with the deployment of MIRV, multiwarhead missiles designed to penetrate the Soviet Galosh (ABM) network. Said Defense Secretary Melvin Laird: "It is clear that our strength has made possible the hope for success at SALT."