Toward A Nerve-Gas Arms Race

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Moreover, the Pentagon says, nearly three-quarters of this year's $970 million chemical-warfare budget will be spent not on arms but on detection and avoidance measures. The military is putting less emphasis on bulky protective gear for soldiers than on sensors for locating chemical-weapons launchers and improved decontamination methods. The Army is also setting up training programs using live nerve agents at its chemical-warfare school in Fort McClellan, Ala.

The Administration is pursuing negotiations with the Soviets aimed at eliminating both stockpiles and production. Earlier talks led Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze in August to announce that his country had accepted in principle a 1984 American proposal for short-notice inspections. The best way to assure continued Soviet cooperation, concludes a defense official, is by "expressing our resolve to modernize. Only then do the Soviets become willing to talk." Perhaps. But in the name of deterrence, the U.S. may find itself drawn into a particularly odious and dangerous kind of arms race.