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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 21, 1971)
( World Kews Nixon announces break in SALT talks in nation-wide radio-TV address WASHINGTON AP—President Nixon announced Thursday what he termed a major step in breaking the stalemate on nuclear arms talks between the United States and the Soviet Union. Nixon went on nationwide radio television at noon to read a brief statement about the long-stalled J.S.-Soviet Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), timed with a similar statement issued in Moscow. The President said that as a result of negotiations at the highest level, the United States and the Soviet Union: —“Have agreed to concentrate this year on working out an agreement for the limitation of the deployment of an tiballistic missile systems (ABMs).” —“Have also agreed that, together with concluding an agreement to limit ABMs, they will agree on certain measures with respect to the limitation of offensive strategic weapons.” “The two sides are taking this course in the conviction that it will create more favorable conditions for further negotiations to limit all strategic arms,” the statement added. “These negotiations will be actively pursued.” Praise, optimism and some skep ticism greeted the announcement in Congress. One of those voicing skepticism was Sen. J.W. Fulbright, D-Ark., chair man of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who said he also was puzzled. “They seem to think it is significant,” Fulbright said. “Whether it is or not I don’t know.” He added that “There must be smomething more to it than I can grasp.” Another Democratic leader, Rep. F. Edward Hebert of Louisiana, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, commented that “it’s all well and good, but let’s keep our power dry.” Republicans and some other democrats rated the development favorably. * Whether the two superpowers will actually reach a disarmament accord in the talks that began in 1969 remains to be seen. White House officials acknowledged that the two sides have not abandoned basic positions, which so far have defied lengthy efforts by negotiators for an agreement. But the high level announcement did seem to indicate an interest by the leaders of both great powers in pushing ahead with the search for an accord on curbing the nuclear arms race, rather than letting the effort die in a diplomatic stalemate. Ambassador Gerard Smith, head of the U.S. delegation to the SALT talks, currently being held in Vienna, is slated to return there shortly to wind up the current negotiating session. He expects the next round will begin in Helsinki early this summer. White House officials declined to predict an arms limiting agreement with the Soviets will be reached this year. But they said that with the new high level political impetus from Washington and Moscow they expect the pace of negotiations to quicken. Whether either the United States or the Soviet Union made much of a con cession in issuing Thursday’s statement was not clear from the public wording. Varying interpretations were offered here and in Moscow. The SALT talks which got under way in Finland in the fall of 1969 have been bogged down since last year over what strategic weapons should be included in an arms control deal. After the United States turned back a Soviet bid to include short-range tactical U.S. nuclear weapons based in Europe, the Russians proposed last fall that as a first step the two sides agree on a limitation of defensive missiles—ABMs. The United States objected to an ABMs-only deal. Its envoys said that ABMs were designed to counter in tercontinental ballistic missiles, and therefore any meaningful strategic disarmament pact should include restrictions on both offensive and defen sive weapons at the same time. The U.S. Safeguard antiballistic missile system has a mission of protecting U.S. ICBMs from Soviet missiles should the Soviets launch a first strike. The Nixon administration is now asking Congress to expand the Safeguard ABM system. The basic U.S. negotiating proposal at SALT has been to offer a curb on ABMs in return for a limit on offensive missiles, particularly the giant Soviet SSTs. White House officials said the work on the Safeguard ABM will be going ahead pending what might come out of the salt talks in the future. Senate blocks draft extension due to date dispute WASHINGTON AP—An at tempt to fix a date for voting on an amendment to limit extension of the draft to one year was blocked in the Senate late Thursday. Democratic and Republican leaders then announced they would try to invoke cloture limiting debate sharply on all remaining amendments to the draft extension bill Sen. John Stennis, D Miss., declared it was imperative for the Senate to pass the measure by June 15 and send it to conference with the House, if it is to be signed into law by June 30 when the present Selective Service Act expires Stennis said he never had voted for cloture but has always felt he might have to do so if a paramount issue of national defense arose. The one-year amendment is sponsored by Sens. Richard Sch weiker, R-Pa., and Harold iiugnes. u-iowa. As the bill came to the floor from the Armed Services Committee headed by Stennis, it provided for a two-year ex tension The Schweiker-Hughes amendment also provides for a much greater pay increase for members of the armed forces, an effort to lay groundwork for an all-volunteer army. Sen Robert Byrd, D-W.Va , assistant Democratic leader, proposed an agreement which would have provided for a vote next Monday on the pay section of the amendment Then there would have been votes next Wednesday on a substitute of Sen Mark Hatfield, R-Ore , to end the draft ami establish a volunteer army and chi a proposal of Sen Peter H Dominick, R-Colo., for an 18 month extension Finally there would have been a vote June 2 chi the one-year extension itself Several Senators announced objections to this, which blocked it. Setting the date requires unanimous consent. Objections came from Sch weiker, Hughes, Sen. Mike Craval, D-Alaska, which has announced he will filibuster against any extension, and Sen. Alan Cranston, D-Calif. Hughes said Hatfield also had told him he would object if he could be present. Byrd said Sen Hugh Scott, R Pa., the G.O.P leader, voiced the threats to invoke cloture. “If we re going to spend six, eight or 10 weeks on every bill, we’re going to be here until Christmas,” Scott said. “We’re going to have the same shabby mess we had in December last year.” Schweiker and Hughes both said they would agree to what they considered a reasonable time limit on their amendment. They offered to discuss such an agreement with Stennis and the leaders Friday. Schweicker said the one-year extension is offered as a com promise in the debate on whether or when to end the draft and substitute a volunteer armed force. Committee investigates Mayday protests WASHINGTON AP—Three Communists among leaders of two antiwar groups were em powered to sign checks covering $205,000 flowing through a Washington bank prior to spring protests here, a House Internal Security Committee investigator testified Thursday. Sydney Stapleton and Patricia Grogan, who recently ran for public office as members of the Socialist Workers Party, exer cised total control over the check signing for the National Peace Action Coalition in $121,000 moved through the Public National Bank of Washington from February through April, investigator John Stratton said. Stratton also told the com mittee that Sidney Peck, iden tified in earlier congressional records as a former Communist Party leader in Wisconsin, was among four representatives of the People's Coalition for Peace and Justice with authority to sign checks involving a flow of $84,000 through that bank over those three months Committee Chairman Richard Ichord, D-Mo., has said the Socialist Workers Party is composed of followers of the Communist doctrines of Leon Trotsky. The national coalition backed the April 24 antiwar demon stration here. The people’s coalition and the Mayday Collective were major sponsors of the May 3-6 actions marked by efforts to snarl Washington traffic. Spokesmen for NPAC and PCPJ said they did not know where Stapleton, Miss Grogan and Peck could be reached for comment on the charges. Jerry Gordon, NPAC coor dinator. said his group plans to sue the committee and the bank in federal court over what he termed the “illegal seizure of our bank records." The committee obtained the bank information through subpoena. Asked for his reaction to the developments. Gordon told a reporter: “It's simply what we expected—a kind of three-ring circus, all the timeworn and threadbare smears that the American public had heard for so many years and which are no substitute for ending the war.” News Roundup from AP reports PARIS—President Georges Pompidou and Prime Tinister Edward Heath, after hours of secret talks, jclaimed Thursday night that France and Britain are in x broad agreement on the future of Europe. On the central issue of British entry into the European Common Market, Heath expressed belief that the way will shortly be cleared §j “for a momentous step forward.” Through the day they had conferred on the future organization, aims and role of Europe in the world. High French sources said France had made a historic shift and was resolved to let Britain join the Common Market. They added some tough issues still to be ironed out. The British were twice barred from membership in the market by French vetoes in the 1960s. WASHINGTON—Rejecting efforts to put a Jan. 1, 1972 deadline on the Indochina war and to halt such major weapons as the Safeguard anti-missile system, the House Armed Services Committee approved Thursday a $21.88 billion military hardware bill. The effort to cut off all military hardware for the Indochina war after next Jan. 1 unless President Nixon notified Congress this would jeopardize release of American prisoners of war and safe withdrawal of U.S. troops was rejected 33 to 6. Reps. Lucien Nedzi, D-Mich., and Charles Whalen Jr., R-Ohio, who in troduced the amendment, said they will now take the effort to the House floor. WASHINGTON—The House abandoned its drive to g resurrect the American supersonic transport Thursday g night, but also refused to pay the $155.8 million burial money g approved by the Senate. The possibility of a House-Senate g wrangle arose when the House approved $97.3 million in jji stead, but the Senate adjourned putting off final SST action possibly until next week. The House adjourned until Monday so final action can come Friday only if the Senate accepts the House’s $97.3 million termination figure. The House rejected the Senate’s addition of $58.5 million repayment of SST money invested by airlines by a vote of 157 to 116. It then g approved by voice vote only the $97.3 million, covering •:j repayment to the major contractors, the Boeing Co. and g General Electric, and federal closing cost. CARSON CITY, Nev.—A strike by black Nevada State Si Prison inmates ended Thursday with the warden saying Si leaders had denied his contention that they struck mainly to Si segregated facilities. “They now disclaim segregation Si was the cause,” Warden Carl Hocker said, although he still believes it "may have been part of the consideration." S: Hocker said earlier he felt “beyond any reasonable doubt" Si segregation demands were the root of the trouble, although they were not on a list of demands presented before the strike Si began Wednesday. Hocker said all areas of the prison are Si integrated and he thought it was accepted by a majority of inmates. He said earlier that many inmates, including whites, seemed to want to return to segregation.
