Shultz, Gromyko Vow Peace Effort : Talks Open Today in Geneva; Both Promise to Try Seriously for Accord

Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko, clearly aware of the worldwide attention that their meeting has attracted, competed with each other Sunday in declaring a commitment to peace.

“President Reagan has sent us here on a mission for peace,” Shultz said as he stepped off his U.S. Air Force jet in snowy Geneva, where temperatures hovered around 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

“The President has made very clear that the United States will work hard to achieve agreements that will contribute to the security not only of the United States and the Soviet Union but of the rest of the world as well,” Shultz said.

Arriving at the same airport a few hours later, Gromyko said his country is prepared for talks to produce, “in the long run, the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.”

Gromyko Uses English

Gromyko, who seldom uses any language but Russian when speaking in public, used accented but clear English as he read his statement from a small, frequently folded piece of paper, perhaps to obtain maximum exposure on U.S. and European television broadcasts.

Behind the generalities, there were clear signs that the bargaining will be tough when Shultz and Gromyko sit down today for the first superpower arms control talks in 13 months.

In his brief arrival statement, Gromyko twice linked progress on arms control with the Soviet demand for restrictions on U.S. research into space-based defense systems, nicknamed “Star Wars.”

That is the one subject on which, according to U.S. officials, the Reagan Administration will not compromise.

“We have come to Geneva to discuss with Secretary of State Shultz questions related to the conduct of negotiations on space weapons and nuclear arms,” Gromyko said, describing it as a “complex of interrelated questions.”

‘Path of Radical Reduction’

He later called for talks that “would prevent an arms race in outer space and at the same time ensure advancement along the path of radical reduction in nuclear arms.”

Shultz, in his arrival statement and in an earlier press conference aboard his aircraft on the flight from Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, said nothing about the specifics of the negotiations, although he said the U.S. delegation is “prepared for serious discussion.”

He was asked repeatedly by reporters to outline his response to the Soviet position on strategic defensive systems.

His only reply: “We have our views and our way of expressing our position. We are going to do that, and we’ll just have to see what emerges as a result of our discussions, and I am not going to speculate, in other words, about the substance of the outcome here.”

However, a senior Administration official, briefing reporters last week in Washington, said the United States is not prepared to bargain away its right to conduct research on defensive systems that are at least a generation away. He said it will be up to some future President to decide if such weapons should be deployed, if and when the technological problems are solved.

A retired U.S. diplomat with wide experience in Moscow said Sunday that the Soviets appear to be worried that the United States will make a technological breakthrough that would tip the balance of nuclear power. He said Moscow is not reassured by Reagan’s position that defensive weapons do not threaten anyone.

The diplomat also said normal Soviet distrust of U.S. intentions has increased to “dangerous” levels since Reagan took office, in part because of the harsh anti-Soviet rhetoric that the President employed early in his term. In the past year, Reagan, who once called the Soviet Union an “evil empire,” has toned down his criticism of the Soviet system.

Shultz brought with him to Geneva one of the largest and highest-ranking U.S. delegations ever to attend arms talks. The delegation also reflects all shades of opinion within the Administration on the proper way to deal with the Soviets on arms control matters.

Tense Mood on Flight

The mood on the flight from Washington was tense. One passenger said it was like a dressing room of a football team before a championship game.

In addition to Shultz, the delegation includes the White House national security adviser, Robert C. McFarlane; the director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Administration, Kenneth Adelman; Assistant Secretary of State Richard R. Burt; Assistant Defense Secretary Richard N. Perle, and the chief U.S. negotiators at the suspended strategic arms reduction talks and intermediate-range nuclear forces talks, retired Lt. Gen. Edward L. Rowny and Paul H. Nitze.

Perle is the recognized leader of Administration hard-liners who are skeptical of arms control negotiations because, in their opinion, the United States always gives up more than it wins in such talks with the Soviets.

In a widely quoted quip first reported last week by the Washington Post, Perle said of the Shultz-Gromyko talks: “They’re going to produce this mouse, and this mouse is going to scurry across the stage, and the press is going to say: ‘Well, was that it?’ It’s not a good situation for the West . . . a lot of controversy over who’s to blame, why more progress wasn’t made.”

Perle and Burt, often cast as Perle’s chief bureaucratic opponent, will not attend the actual talks. That role will be limited to Shultz, McFarlane, Nitze and Arthur A. Hartman, U.S. ambassador to Moscow. During the period of internal controversy in Washington over strategy for Geneva, those four men were essentially in agreement.

In his airborne press conference, Shultz attempted to minimize disagreements within the Administration.

‘Pattern of Interaction’

“There will be a strong pattern of interaction between the people in the room and the people who aren’t there so that all members of the delegation will have the ability to make input and make their comments as we go along,” Shultz said.

Both Shultz and Gromyko acknowledged in their arrival statements that the two-day session ending Tuesday is intended only to break the ice in arms control talks. Actual negotiations, if they are ever held, will come later.

Nevertheless, more than 1,000 reporters, including the anchormen of all three U.S. commercial television networks, registered Sunday to cover the talks.