Moscow's Promising Offer

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The broad outline is believed to include at least four major elements. First: long-range nuclear delivery systems on both sides--missiles and bombers --would be reduced as much as 50%. Second: what Moscow calls "nuclear charges"--the warheads and bombs carried by these vehicles--would also be reduced. Third: there would be a percentage limit on the nuclear charges that each side could put on any one segment of its strategic forces. Land- based missiles (ICBMs) or submarine-launched missiles (SLBMs), for instance, could carry only a specified proportion of each country's warheads. The fourth and stickiest provision: neither side could test or deploy space- based defenses.

In principle, the first three points appear to coincide with U.S. goals. The Reagan Administration has sought both a gross reduction in weaponry and a strict limit on warheads, particularly those borne by ICBMs. Moscow has invested most of its nuclear resources in giant land-based multiwarhead missiles, the deadliest arrows in its strategic quiver. Their accuracy, power and speed give them "hard-target kill capability," the theoretical ability to destroy U.S. missiles in their underground silos. Until now, the Kremlin has been extremely reluctant to dicker about explicit limits on warheads. The Soviets' current arsenal of land-based warheads is about 6,400, vs. the Americans' 2,125. (Counting all nuclear weapons, the U.S. still has a small numerical lead, roughly 11,000 to 10,000.)

The precise details of these Soviet proposals could make them seem less attractive than they do in broad outline. Washington and Moscow differ, for instance, in the method of counting nuclear charges. That alone would require much hard bargaining, which would not be close to completion before the summit. Still, the concept is attractive to many American arms-control experts. It could eventually produce a deal that substantially reduces the Soviet advantage in ICBM warheads.

From the White House's viewpoint, the Kremlin's price for this promising new approach is high, perhaps prohibitive. The demand that Reagan agree to confine his prized SDI program to laboratory research has so far met adamant rejection. Reagan restated his position after seeing Shevardnadze.

It was the threat of an American breakthrough in strategic-defense capability that brought Moscow back to the bargaining table last March after a 16-month absence. That same fear appears to have produced the Soviets' new willingness to negotiate on warheads. Now Gorbachev is adroitly reversing the pressure, using the prospect of real reductions in offensive weaponry to lure the U.S. away from SDI. The Soviet leader is also reversing the historic flow of arms-control proposals. Traditionally the U.S. proposes, and the Soviet Union disposes.

Reagan is under pressure from other sources as well. Many Government alumni in the national-security community argue that SDI's main value is as a bargaining lever. Gerard Smith and Paul Warnke, who negotiated for the Nixon and Carter Administrations respectively, contended last week that full development of defensive weaponry would "drive the nuclear arms race to an even higher level." Writing in the New York Times, they said that a trade- off has "the makings of an agreement of historic proportions."