ANALYSIS : Each Side Wins Major Points in Two-Day Talks

The Reagan Administration won most of its initial objectives in two days of talks in Geneva--bringing the Soviets back to the negotiating table on offensive nuclear missiles while not curtailing its own research on space-based missile defenses.

The Soviets, for their part, extracted a U.S. pledge not to actually test any space defense weapons for several years. And by insisting on the term “space arms” in the communique issued at the end of the talks, Moscow has included anti-satellite weapons--which are not necessarily defensive--in the bargaining pot as well.

However, now the Administration faces an even bigger test in deciding how much to give and to demand in the three sets of interrelated negotiations ahead--on long-range offensive missiles, intermediate-range offensive missiles and space weapons.

The two sides in Geneva, represented by Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko, reached agreement on how to proceed, but they did not narrow their wide substantive differences on any of the three arms issues.

Both Washington and Moscow must find new opening positions for at least the two sets of offensive missile talks if there is to be any hope of breaking the impasse that existed in late 1983, when the Soviets walked out of those talks.

The Administration also must recognize that in agreeing to discuss space-based defenses as part of “space arms,” it risks giving Moscow an issue that could divide the United States from its European allies if Washington is perceived as not bargaining seriously. The Administration has vowed not to bargain away research on space-based defenses.

“The Soviets are well aware of the controversy” surrounding the Strategic Defense Initiative--the Administration term for space-based defenses, popularly known as “Star Wars”--according to Helmut Sonnenfeldt, former senior national security official in the Gerald R. Ford and Richard M. Nixon administrations. The Soviets know “the doubts and fears in the U.S. public and the Congress, as well as among Europeans,” Sonnenfeldt said. “They will exploit it if they see the Administration waver in the negotiations.”

Shultz stressed that the research program on space-based weapons would be discussed--but not abandoned--by the United States. “The President believes very deeply” in the program, Shultz reiterated.

The communique issued in Geneva contained what Sonnenfeldt said was some “mushy compromise language” whose meaning is unclear. For example, the statement said that “the complex of questions” on the various types of arms must be “considered and resolved in their interrelationship.” However, Shultz later declined to elaborate on whether progress in one set of talks would be dependent on progress in the others.

“Interrelationship” not only connects offensive and defensive arms, but the two sets of offensive missile talks. The intermediate-range negotiations deeply involve the Europeans, who have long expressed fears of being “de-coupled” from the U.S. nuclear shield in any deals that would benefit Washington and Moscow but strip Western Europe of its protection.

In a news conference in Geneva, Shultz said the two sides “should reverse the erosion in the ABM (anti-ballistic missile) treaty that has occurred in the last decade”--presumably referring to U.S. allegations that Moscow has cheated on some terms of that treaty.

However, the Administration has yet to decide how big an obstacle to a new agreement those older allegations will be, and how fully verifiable any new agreements must be before they can be signed.

Edward L. Rowny, one member of the U.S. delegation in Geneva this week, said “the hardest part” of the negotiations between Shultz and Gromyko was in finding common language to describe the objectives of the “space arms” talks.

Moscow wanted the topic to be “preventing the militarization of space,” Rowny said, while the United States wanted it labeled “defensive arms,” presumably to exclude anti-satellite weapons. The compromise was to call the subject “space arms” but specifically to include weapons that could be based on Earth as well as those in space, he said.

The Soviets had hoped to head off the next U.S. test of a ground-based anti-satellite weapon--its first test against a real target in space and thus an important milestone in proving the weapon’s value. A U.S. official in Geneva said that the United States promised to show restraint in testing such weapons as long as talks go on.

The Soviets already have an operating, if rudimentary, anti-satellite weapon system, and the United States began developing its own after the Soviets refused to negotiate a ban on such weapons that was proposed in 1977. However, Congress has directed that the next anti-satellite test cannot be made until after March 1.

The Administration also faces the difficult task of choosing a new set of negotiators for the three sets of talks. Rowny, who has strong conservative support, had headed the previous long-range missile talks and would be natural to lead it in its reconstituted form. However, picking the other negotiators will require balancing congressional interests--conservative suspicions of the Soviets against liberal eagerness for an agreement--as well as the policy differences between the State and Defense departments.

In the end, most experts--such as Sonnenfeldt, former U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Malcolm C. Toon and the Rand Corp.’s Edward Warner--concluded that the reasonable expectations of the Administration as it went to the Geneva meeting had been satisfied.

And with that success, however limited, new openings for improving U.S.-Soviet relations more broadly are boosted. These openings might include increased trade and the possibility of a joint space venture, officials said, and might lead inevitably toward a summit meeting between Reagan and Soviet President Konstantin U. Chernenko.