On-site inspections and short-notice inspections will be permitted within the Soviet Union.

United Nations officials say unannounced or short-notice inspections are really the heart of any monitoring system, however.

The United Nations has maintained a fleet of aircraft to carry out short-notice inspections in Iraq.

So long as short-notice inspections were allowed, there was a good chance, too, of seizing and destroying any and all manufacturing equipment before it could be moved.

The officials said the two sides had not resolved the question of how many short-notice inspections would be carried out each year after the missiles were eliminated.

"It makes short-notice inspections shorter," he said.

The Russians resisted an American demand that new bases for SS-25 missiles also be subject to such short-notice inspections.

The old plan also raised the possibility of extensive short-notice inspections in both countries.

Each side will have an annual quota of short-notice inspections for 13 years after the treaty goes into force.

The United States has yet to define some key elements of its verification plan, such as the scope of short-notice inspections.