Nation: Soured SALT

Now begins the final fight

After four months of hearings, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the SALT II treaty last week by a 9-to-6 vote. But that was the only good news for the pact's supporters.

The bad news was that the split on the committee was actually 8 to 7. The nine-vote formal majority included a waverer, Nebraska Democrat Edward Zorinsky, who voted for the treaty in committee as a courtesy to party leaders, but said he would oppose the pact in its present form on the Senate floor. Arizona's Barry Goldwater, who is not on the committee but is influential among Senate Republicans, also dealt the pact a heavy blow. He has decided to oppose the treaty because he doubts that the U.S. could adequately verify Soviet compliance with it.

Thus with floor debate unlikely to begin until after Thanksgiving, the outlook for the pact is more clouded than ever.

Moreover, opponents are threatening a prolonged talkathon that could drag on into next year's presidential primary season. If so, demands would rise that a vote be put off until after the elections. Altogether, it was an unhappy week for SALT backers, who could echo King Pyrrhus:"Another such victory and I shall be ruined."