Soviets Can Agree or ‘Face an Arms Race,’ Reagan Says : No Summit Expected in Near Future

President Reagan expressed optimism today on the nuclear arms negotiations with the Soviets, who he said have a choice--either to reach an agreement or “face an arms race.”

In a wide-ranging Oval Office interview with United Press International, Reagan also repeated that a summit meeting with Soviet President Konstantin U. Chernenko is not in the immediate future. The President noted that Chernenko is ill and that he himself is not interested in a get-acquainted meeting unless there is a set agenda.

Reagan confirmed that the Administration has proposed talks with the Soviets beginning in early March in Geneva, but Moscow has not yet replied.

Job for Kirkpatrick Reagan disclosed that he intends to offer retiring U.N. Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick a high-level position in the foreign policy field. “It’s not physically in the White House,” he said. “It is a department of the executive branch that I’m not free to talk about yet that I think she would be very good at.”

On the subject of arms, he also confirmed that he had said he would like to see the Soviets develop their own space weapons system, or “Star Wars” concept, because “I think it could hasten the day when we would eliminate nuclear weapons.”

Asked whether he is optimistic that an arms accord will be reached, Reagan said: “I don’t think anyone looking back over history should be euphoric. But I just have to claim some optimism when you look at the situation and realize that this is the first time that they have ever publicly stated a desire to reduce the number of weapons. And always it seemed we sat down to negotiations to see how fast we were going to increase them.

“And now we’re coming with both sides having said their ultimate goal would be that we’d all like to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely.”

Agreement on Reduction Explaining why he thought the Soviets had agreed to negotiate, Reagan said, “I think the reason we’re coming to the table is that they know, as we know, that the choice now is to have some legitimate agreement on reduction of arms or face an arms race.”

Reagan, wearing a brown plaid suit, appeared relaxed as he sat in an armchair. At one point, stressing that he is the boss, he invoked Harry S. Truman’s phrase, “The buck stops here.”

He also broke into a broad smile when Deputy Press Secretary Larry Speakes interrupted to tell him that chief of staff James A. Baker III had been unanimously approved by the Senate Finance Committee to be secretary of the Treasury. (Story on Page 2.)

Reagan said he knew of no further immediate departures from his Cabinet, which is fast changing its first-term face.

But he added, “I wouldn’t be surprised, because I think when you go outside of government as completely as we did to bring people from the private sector . . . you recognize there is going to come a time for most of them to say, ‘Well, that’s all the time I can give.’ ”

Reagan said the United States will continue to abide by previous arms pacts with the Soviets during the Geneva negotiations.

“We have been more or less doing that,” he said. “I think we’ve been doing more of it than they have in SALT 2.”