Shultz, Gromyko in Lengthy Talks : Sessions Run 2 Hours Overtime; Both Men Emerge in Good Spirits

Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko met Monday for almost seven hours--two hours longer than originally planned--in an apparently businesslike opening of renewed U.S.-Soviet arms control talks.

The two usually dour men laughed and bantered in seeming good spirits as they returned to the bargaining table after lunch, a sharp contrast with the more reserved start to the morning session.

But there was no way to tell if the smiles were a sign of progress or merely a public relations display. Neither delegation would provide more than the most sketchy information about the substance of the talks.

No Briefing for Reporters

In a break with the usual procedure at such meetings, the U.S. side declined to brief reporters after the talks adjourned for the day. Instead, the State Department issued a terse statement, listing only the length of the sessions, held in the morning at the Soviet mission to the U.N. European headquarters here and in the afternoon at the U.S. mission.

Both sessions had been scheduled for about 2 1/2 hours and both ran almost 3 1/2, delaying the start of a reception scheduled by the United States to give a sense of participation to members of the large U.S. delegation who are not part of the much smaller group attending the actual meetings with Gromyko.

The two days of talks are scheduled to end today.

The extreme secrecy gave a varied group of demonstrators a chance to vie for attention from the 1,000 journalists and television technicians covering the talks. The clear winner in this competition was Avital Shcharansky, wife of imprisoned Soviet Jewish dissident Anatoly Shcharansky. She called a press conference to urge Shultz to raise her husband’s case with Gromyko.

Wearing a light blue skirt, white blouse and navy blue sweater, with her hair covered by a scarf in keeping with Orthodox Jewish tradition, Shcharansky said the Soviet government has provided no information about her husband’s fate for the last month, raising fears that he may be dead or dying.

“It is of urgent importance that the Soviet authorities be pressed for accurate information as to his condition,” she said.

She had met Sunday night with Assistant Secretary of State Richard R. Burt, winning an assurance that Shultz would raise the issue.

There were published reports last week that Assistant Defense Secretary Richard N. Perle, perhaps the most anti-Soviet hard-liner in the U.S. government, planned to bring Shcharansky’s wife to Geneva to dramatize Perle’s reasons for distrusting Soviet intentions. But she denied Monday that Perle had anything to do with her appearance.

“I decided to come here by myself,” she said. “I decided to be here because this is a focus of world attention.”

Anatoly Shcharansky was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 1977 on charges of spying for the United States. His wife, who now lives in Israel, said that freed Soviet prisoners who served time with her husband say “they have never seen a prisoner who was tortured so much.”

Shcharansky’s wife said she did not attempt to contact Gromyko or any member of his delegation because she has given up on direct appeals to the Soviet authorities.

The State Department issued a brief written statement saying that Burt, who is in Geneva but is not one of the U.S. officials attending the actual talks, told her that, “as is usually the case, the United States will raise human rights concerns with the Soviets.”

Nevertheless, all signs indicated that Shultz is soft-pedaling the human rights issue--although it is certain to be raised in passing--in his talks with Gromyko in an effort to thaw the current freeze in Washington-Moscow relations.

The only break in the secrecy surrounding the talks came at the start of the two meetings when photographers were given a brief opportunity to take pictures.

At one point Gromyko interrupted a reporter asking a question. “No interviews,” the veteran Soviet diplomat said in English. “No fair.”

At the opening of the morning session, Shultz and Gromyko were restrained, showing neither tension nor joviality.

But at the start of the afternoon meeting, both men seemed to be in a jolly mood. Both laughed and joked, obviously aware that their mood was being recorded.

The snatches of conversation overheard by reporters centered on techniques of taking notes during meetings. Gromyko held up a sheet from his writing pad for Shultz to see and the secretary of state responded with a hearty laugh.

Shultz told a long anecdote about a labor arbitrator he once knew who divided his note paper in half, recording the points of the two sides on either half. Gromyko seemed to find it amusing.

Despite the carefully displayed good will, however, the sides remained far apart. The Soviets have not changed their demand for talks on the demilitarization of space, and the United States remains committed to continuing its research program aimed at discovering a defensive system that would stop incoming ballistic missiles.

However, there were reports that Shultz has been authorized to offer concessions on the related but far less emotional--issue of anti-satellite weapons if enough progress is made on other topics to warrant it.

The U.S. side was reported to be ready to postpone its scheduled test of anti-satellite weapons for the duration of arms control talks if the two countries can agree to resume them. There was no indication of whether Gromyko would accept that basis for restoring full-scale negotiations, which were broken off 13 months ago when the Soviets walked out of separate talks on the limitation of strategic and of intermediate-range nuclear weapons.