Reagan tilts toward new satellite program to detect Soviet cheating

President Reagan has tipped national security insiders that hewill approve a $6 billion to $12 billion satellite program to lessenSoviet treaty cheating without which, key senators of both partieswarn him, the new START pact he hopes to sign in Moscow will be deadon arrival in the Senate.

This top-secret plan to break last year's budget accord with ahuge supplemental has lukewarm backing at best in the Pentagon andthe CIA, but full support from the national security aide, Lt. Gen.Colin Powell.

Sen. David Boren, Democratic chairman of the Senate IntelligenceCommittee, and Sen. William Cohen, Republican vice chairman, havespent hours pushing the project with Mr. …