Nuclear Tests

A team of nongovernmental American scientists leaves here today for the remote steppes of Soviet Kazakhstan to begin performing a task that no Western specialist has ever been permitted to do - monitoring the seismic conditions around the Soviet nuclear testing site at Semipalatinsk. The group's yearlong mission is scientific, but its primary goal is political: to prove to the world - and, in particular, to skeptics in the Reagan administration - that verification is not the main obstacle to a treaty banning nuclear tests.

Still seeking to prevent Pakistan from testing nuclear weapons, the Clinton administration signaled yesterday that taking the "high moral ground" could reap Islamabad significant U.S. military assistance. While the White House has made no firm offers, high-ranking officials said key members of Congress were warming to the notion that a "courageous" decision to refrain from testing would deserve some type of reward. "If we're in a world where Pakistan doesn't test, then a lot of options open up," said national security adviser Samuel R. Berger.

The United States and Soviet Union yesterday announced plans for new talks on two nuclear arms fronts this month, and U.S. officials said they hoped that the expanded dialogue would lead to a summit by year's end. In one set of low-level talks, U.S. and Soviet experts will discuss nuclear test bans. Although both sides apparently remain far apart on the issue, the meetings would be the first U.S.-Soviet sessions on the subject in six years. The White House also formally announced that other groups representing the two sides would meet in Geneva next week to discuss President Reagan's recent decision to renounce the unratified 1979 SALT II arms limitation accord.

The Soviet Union has stolen the disarmament show with a dramatic invitation to U.N. leaders to witness the destruction of intermediate-range nuclear missiles on its soil next month. Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, speaking yesterday at a U.N. disarmament session, asked Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, members of the Security Council and representatives of the 102-nation non- aligned movement to come to the nuclear bonfire in July. The Soviet missiles will be among the first scrapped under the now-ratified Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty.

VIENNA - North Korea has invited the International Atomic Energy Agency to return, three years after expelling its nuclear monitors, the agency said Monday. The United States said such a move would be welcome but remained critical of the North's missile test plans. Without disclosing the North's terms, IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor said it received the invitation on Friday. That was the same day that Pyongyang announced it planned to test a missile by launching a satellite, a move that Washington has suggested could jeopardize a nuclear moratorium deal reached with the United States last month.

India's 13-month-old Hindu nationalist government collapsed yesterday, raising concerns about the country's economy and efforts to end the nation's nuclear arms race with Pakistan. The collapse paves the way for India's sixth prime minister change since 1996. If opposition parties fail to form a government, new elections could be called four years ahead of schedule. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party lost a confidence vote, 270-269, after key allies deserted it and formed a partnership with the opposition Congress Party led by Italian-born Sonia Gandhi.

Indian lawmakers in New Delhi were debating India's recent nuclear tests yesterday when news reached Parliament that neighboring Pakistan had tested five nuclear bombs of its own. The lower house of Parliament erupted with shouts and jeers. A stone-faced Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee leaped to his feet and exclaimed that the Pakistani tests justified India's decision to test five nuclear bombs earlier this month. "We had apprehensions about this," Vajpayee told legislators, some of whom angrily accused the government of setting off a nuclear arms race on the subcontinent.

Joining a growing chorus of criticism at home and abroad, President Clinton said yesterday that he was deeply disturbed by India's nuclear weapons testing and vowed that he would "fully implement" a law ordering widespread economic sanctions. A day after India took the world by surprise by breaking its 24-year-old moratorium on nuclear testing, the U.S. intelligence community came under criticism for failing to anticipate the underground explosions. And Clinton appealed to Pakistan and China not to conduct their own tests as the White House tried to save a three-year effort to ban nuclear weapons tests worldwide.

Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary said yesterday that victims of past government-supported radiation testing should be financially compensated, and that she would work to make sure the practice "never happens again. " In a phone interview, O'Leary said her office has been flooded by calls since it set up a special 800 number last week to gather information about radiation testing. She said the office was "in no way prepared" for the more than 600 calls that have jammed the lines since then.

In Water, Michael Caine is the governor of the tiny British colony of Cascara and - like all mad dogs and Englishmen - strides into the midday sun. He sports one of those silly feathered hats and says he feels as if he's wearing a chicken on his head. The film itself is a dead duck. Although Dick Clement's comedy boasts some topical material - a mandatory "Shall we wake the President?" gibe and a well-taken swing at the French attitude toward those who object to their nuclear tests - Water is really an invitation to step into a time machine.