Gromyko in Italy, May Take Aim at ‘Star Wars’

Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko arrived Monday for meetings with Italian officials and Pope John Paul II at the outset of what diplomatic observers called a “traveling sales trip” to oppose President Reagan’s “Star Wars” defense initiative.

The Soviet Politburo member’s trip to Italy--and, later this week, to Spain--also appeared to be intended as a demonstration that there is no immediate leadership crisis in the Kremlin. Soviet President Konstantin U. Chernenko is reported to be seriously ill with emphysema.

Gromyko declined to comment on his trip when he arrived in Rome and seemed to be in no hurry to get down to business, scheduling only a 40-minute sightseeing visit with his wife to the ancient Roman port of Ostia during the afternoon and no official meetings in the evening.

Reminder on Sakharov

A light plane circled slowly overhead as he arrived, bearing a banner that proclaimed “Liberty for Sakharov,” referring to Andrei D. Sakharov, the dissident nuclear physicist and Nobel Peace Prize winner whose internal exile in the Soviet Union has generated an international campaign for his freedom.

Gromyko’s meeting with the Pope, which was not announced by the Vatican until the Soviet foreign minister arrived, will take place Wednesday and is expected to cover a broad range of issues, including space weapons and restrictions against Roman Catholics in the Soviet Union.

Papal contacts with the Kremlin, which became almost routine in the late 1960s and early 1970s, have been limited in recent years. Gromyko met John Paul II during his last visit to Rome six years ago and had met five times with Pope Paul VI.

Studying Defensive System

Although the pontiff has not taken a public position on Reagan’s plan for research into a space-based defense system, he is now studying the report of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which examined the “weaponization of space” last month.

The academy’s experts agreed that such a research program could produce useful new technologies and is technically possible, according to their chief, Brazilian biophysicist Carlos Chagas. But Chagas added that, in his opinion, Reagan’s program would have “a dubious value.”

Gromyko will hold talks today with Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi and Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti. Both Italian leaders have been firm supporters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s deployment of U.S. cruise and Pershing 2 missiles, a deployment that triggered the Soviet walkout from Geneva arms talks late in 1983. At least 16 cruise missiles have already been installed at Comiso, Sicily.

Craxi Offers Cautious Support

Although Italy has been relatively quiet concerning the “Star Wars” plan, Craxi expressed qualified support of the research program after a meeting last Friday with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, a full backer of Reagan’s concept. Still, Craxi stopped short of endorsing it.

A European diplomat suggested that Gromyko will try to exploit whatever policy differences still exist between Rome and Washington on the question.

Gromyko and other Soviet leaders have warned that the Reagan program could imperil U.S.-Soviet missile talks due to resume in Geneva on March 12.