Salt Shaker

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When news of the tentative decision leaked last month, it seemed a great victory for the State Department and arms-control advocates. To stay within the missile limits set by the unratified SALT II accord, President Reagan had agreed to dismantle two aging Poseidon submarines when a new Trident sub is launched this month. The complex compromise, reached at a secret National Security Council meeting, seemed to have something for each of the warring factions in the Administration: though it preserved SALT II for the moment, it also accelerated work on the small mobile missile known as the Midgetman and ordered a study of the larger, multiwarhead Mobileman missile sought by the Pentagon.

Now it emerges that the President's tentative decision contained another major concession to Pentagon hawks. In a confidential letter to West European leaders that was discussed in the corridors of the Tokyo summit last week, Reagan declared his intention to break the SALT II treaty later this year as the Air Force increases the number of B-52 heavy bombers outfitted with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. For the past five years, the Air Force has been converting B-52s to carry the low-flying self-guided cruise missile. So far, more than 100 have been modified, and conversions are running at about one every three weeks. At that rate, the U.S. will violate the overall 1,320 limit on ballistic missile launchers and bombers carrying cruise missiles by December.

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher protested the decision strongly, though quietly, to Reagan, and other allied leaders were also upset. Reagan promised to take their views into account when the matter is discussed at another NSC meeting, perhaps this week. Abandoning SALT II would be a blow to the sputtering arms-control talks that resumed in Geneva last week. The timing could also be awkward: the Soviets are now hinting that they may agree to a Washington summit between Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in December, just when the breach would occur.