Why The Details Are Sticky

* "Ban land-based MIRVs" hardly has the resonance of "Ban the Bomb," and it is impossible to imagine demonstrators chanting "Down with nuclear SLCMs." Which proves once more that George Bush will never be a sloganeer, and he still has not quite mastered the vision thing. After excessive hype by White House aides, Bush's speech Friday evening offered not a promise of a brave new nuclear-free world but a complicated mix of ideas old and new, unilateral actions and proposals for fresh negotiations with Moscow. And in those negotiations, the U.S. opening position to some extent will continue the old game of "Let's get rid of the mainstays of your nuclear arsenal, but not of ours."

If the speech -- and proposals -- was not all it could have been, it nonetheless marked a step away from the nuclear brink that was bolder than anyone could have predicted. Bush's initiatives implicitly recognize that a world bristling with nuclear weapons ready for instant launch is not just menacing but also outdated and irrelevant, the relic of a cold war that is over against an enemy that, as Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell puts it, "has vaporized before our eyes."

The White House also seems to recognize that the plodding, haggle-for-years- o ver-every-fine-point style of arms-control negotiation has become obsolete. The bargaining cannot be dispensed with yet, but it is being short- circuited by unilateral action. Discussions to get rid of tactical nuclear weapons -- artillery shells, warheads on short-range missiles -- may bog down in minutiae. So, said Bush in effect, don't bother. Just junk those weapons. All of them. Now. And hope that induces the Soviets to follow. Says Michael Mandelbaum, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations: "The Bush plan is a combination of a bold stroke and bowing to the inevitable. Bush is getting out ahead -- not a whole lot, but enough."

Gorbachev's assessment was not much different. On Friday morning the Kremlin leader received a letter from the White House outlining the proposals. He talked them over with top advisers, including arms-control negotiator Victor Karpov and Defense Minister Yevgeny Shaposhnikov, and then took a phone call from Bush -- all before the President went on TV. Sounding a bit incredulous, Gorbachev asked whether some of the American moves really were unilateral rather than conditioned on a Soviet response; Bush assured him they were. That extensive consultation was itself a welcome illustration of the current ; civility in U.S.-Soviet relations. Not too long ago, the Kremlin and the White House regularly irritated each other by publicly springing major policy pronouncements with little or no advance warning.