ARMS PACT-OUTLOOK CALLED DIM ANYWAY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000200980176-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 22, 2010
• Sequence Number: 176
• Publication Date: January 4, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/22 : CIA-RDP90-00806R000200980176-8
STAT
THE NEW YORK TIMES
4 January 1980
A}MS PACT OUTLOOK
CALLED DIM ANY!NAY
Carter, by Asking Delay in Debate,
Said to Admit Poor Chances
in View of.Afghan Events
By CHA RLES MOHR
Special to The New Yprk Times
WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 - Administra-
tion officials and members of Congress!
said today that President Carter's re-i
quest to the Senate to delay debate of thei
nuclear arms treaty with the Soviet)
Union was an acknowledgment that it no
longer had a chance of being approved
after the Soviet intervention in Afghani_I
stan.
The sources differed on whether there
was a reasonable chance that the treaty
could be revived and ratified later.
Even some protreaty senators and!
staff aides agreed with Senator Bob Dole,i
Republican of Kansas, who said, "I think!
that SALT 11 is dead for 1980." White
House officials and other senators who
are committed to the treaty expressed]
hope that it might be possible to take up
the treaty this year and win approval.
The disagreement was based in part on-
differing views of whether the treaty had
been moribund before the Afghan events.
President Carter today sent a letter to
the Senate majority leader, Robert C.
Byrd of West Virginia, asking him to
"delay consideration of the SALT II
treaty on the Senate floor." The letter,
and a White House statement, said the
President still believed the treaty was in
the national interest. But the statement
said that, in light of the present crisis,
Mr. Carter believed it was inappropriate
to debate the arms treaty at this time.
Senate Democrats Pressed Carter
The Senate's, Democratic leadership
was reported to have urged the President
to request delay of a floor debate. "We
wanted to prevent the Republicans from
claiming they had forced withdrawal of
the treaty," a Democrat said.
Nevertheless Senator Howard H.
Baker Jr. of Tennessee, the Senate Re-
publican leader and a Presidential candi-
date, said at a news conference that the
President's statement was "altogether a
.victory for those of us who would not sup-
port the treaty in the first place" and who
believed that it should have been condi-
tioned on Soviet behavior.
Senator Baker said the Administration,
which had opposed connecting the treaty
to Soviet foreign policy, had now "em=
'braced linkage in a lavish way."
Democrats tended to put a simpler con-
struction on the President's decision, sug-
gestin>g that he had acted not because he
wanted to Punish the Soviet Union or be-
cause he felt the treaty had lost value.
"I am convinced," said Senator Gary
Hart, Democrat of Colorado, "the Presi-
.dent's decision on SALT does not spring
from a lack of confidence in the merits of
:thte treaty, but rather a concern that re-
'ce.t Soviet activities would cause a suffi-
?cirnt number of Senators to reject it at
this time."
Debate Now Termed Impractical
A White House official said it was "just
not practical" in the present atmosphere
to seek approval by 67 senators, the two-
thirds needed for approval if all 100 sena-
tors voted. The Senate will begin a new
session on Jan. 22. The official said it
might still be possible to win Senate con-
sent this year.
-Senator Byrd said he supported the re-
quest for delay, adding "It would not be
conducive to the SALT process to bring
up the treaty at this time." But he said he
continued to believe that the treaty
.. ,should be ratified because it is in the se-'
curity interests of the United States."
' Both the President and Senator Byrd
stressed that the treaty had not been
withdrawn and remained on the Senate's
calendar.
Ronald Reagan, the Republican aspir-
it for the Presidency, said the Afghan
crisis had offered President Carter a con-
Venient opportunity to avoid a defeat of
the treaty.
' Informal polls of uncommitted sena-
tors, including one by The New York
Times, indicated even before the crises in
Iran and Afghanistan that there was a
serious possibility the treaty might be de-
feated. By this week there was wide-
spread agreement that, if debated early
this year, the treaty would be rejected.
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
15emocrat of New York, summed it up by
saying that the President's request for
delay "is unfortunate, but altogether un'
derstandable."
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/22 : CIA-RDP90-00806R000200980176-8