News In Brief

July 30, 1984

Weinberger reaffirms US desire for weapons talks

Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger said Sunday the United States wants to meet with the Soviet Union at the proposed space-weapons talks in September in Vienna, and he blamed Moscow for setting preconditions. Henry Kissinger, in an article published in yesterday's Washington Post, said it would be better to delay the negotiations until after the November elections.

The United States has agreed to discuss space weapons at the Soviet-proposed talks in Vienna, even though Moscow has rejected Washington's efforts to include strategic-arms negotiations. Weinberger said the United States would resist Moscow's preconditions that the talks be limited to just space weapons and that Washington place a moratorium on testing of outer-space weapons.