Saying A-parity exists, Warnke urges a halt

Another arms control expert has leaped into the nuclear freeze and no-first-use fray, Monitor correspondent Brad Knickerbocker reports.

In a speech April 14 at the National Press Club, Paul Warnke said ''a state of parity exists'' between American and Soviet nuclear forces, that production and deployment of such weapons should be halted by both countries, and SALT II adopted while new arms reductions negotiations proceed.

Mr. Warnke, former director of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and chief negotiator for the strategic arms limitation talks, said: ''Our retaliatory forces are more than adequate to deter nuclear war.''

Pointing to a continued modernization of US submarine, bomber, and ballistic-missile forces since 1970, Warnke rejected Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr.'s assertion that the United States has seen ''a decade of unilateral restraint.'' He said it should be made clear to the Soviet Union the US will not use nuclear weapons ''unless, and only unless, theirs are used against us or our allies.''