Nuclear Weapons Ussr

The West should feel "terrorized" by the nuclear threat posed by the breakup of the Soviet Union, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, the former Soviet foreign minister, was quoted as saying in an interview published Monday. "In a situation of general instability, anything can happen," Shevardnadze told the Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera when asked if he has faith in the security of the arsenal.

Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin, clearly asserting his authority as the new leader of the disintegrating Soviet Union, said Monday that the new Commonwealth of Independent States will grow to 10 republics by the month's end. With Secretary of State James A. Baker III standing at his side in the ornate St.

The prospect of an unprecedented joint U.S.-Soviet peace mission to the Middle East was raised by Kremlin officials Monday as President Bush arrived here for a two-day summit meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander A. Bessmertnykh, declaring that "I think the time is right" for a Mideast peace conference, suggested that he and Secretary of State James A.

All but final agreement on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the first in history to actually cut the nuclear arsenals of the superpowers, was announced here Sunday by Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander A. Bessmertnykh after four intensive days of negotiations. "We've now reached agreement on almost all outstanding issues--in fact, all of them save for one," Baker announced.

When negotiations for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, began in 1982, the two superpowers stared each other down with arsenals of long-range nuclear weapons that totaled roughly 8,500 Soviet warheads and 9,000 American units. In those chilly days of nuclear rivalry, Dmitri F. Ustinov, the Soviet defense minister at the time, marked the occasion by charging that Washington was aiming to "attain military superiority over the Soviet Union."

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, responding to an appeal from President Bush, agreed Monday to send his foreign minister and army chief of staff to Washington this week to try to settle a festering arms control dispute and clear the way for a summit meeting before the end of this month. Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander A. Bessmertnykh and Gen. Mikhail A. Moiseyev, chief of the general staff, will arrive in Washington late Wednesday for talks Thursday and Friday with U.S.

House and Senate negotiators approved a $500-million aid package to help reduce the Soviet nuclear arsenal and feed the Soviet republics this winter. The package, which trimmed $200 million from a measure passed by the Senate, was included in a supplemental appropriations bill that lawmakers were rushing to complete before Congress adjourns for the year.

The United States and the Soviet Union agreed Tuesday on measures that will allow them to verify the unilateral arms cutbacks each has announced recently and to lay the foundation for further disarmament talks. Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev said that he and President Bush are creating two working groups to keep each other informed on the progress of the new cutbacks and assess each other's proposals for more sweeping reductions in their strategic arsenals.

Here are the depths to which the long-vaunted superpower summit has fallen: On Monday night, President Bush will dine with the queen of Thailand, then climb on a plane, fly until dawn and begin a day of talks with the leaders of Spain, Israel, a smattering of foreign ministers and--oh yes, with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Not long ago, U.S. presidents spoke hopefully of the day when the leaders of the two superpowers might sit down together even once a year.

Soviet Defense Minister Yevgeny I. Shaposhnikov, moving to allay Western jitters triggered by the Ukraine's claims to the nuclear weapons based on its territory, declared Saturday that all strategic arms will remain tightly under the Kremlin's control. To avoid further political wrangling over the armed forces, Shaposhnikov called on the republics of the collapsing Soviet Union to sign a treaty creating a "defense union of sovereign states."