USSR: Euromissile move would scotch arms talks

December 23, 1982

A senior Soviet official said Wednesday there would be no point in continuing talks with the United States on limiting medium-range nuclear weapons if NATO deployed cruise and Pershing II missiles.

Leonid Zamyatin, head of the Communist Party's international information department, appeared to be expanding on a speech by party leader Yuri Andropov Tuesday, when he said there would be ''serious consequences'' for arms control talks if the NATO deployment went ahead. When NATO announced its deployment decision in December 1979, Moscow said the basis for talks on medium-range forces had been destroyed.