Reagan Sees Rare Chance With Soviets, Shultz Says

President Reagan, mindful that a rare “moment of opportunity” is at hand, is prepared to work with the new leadership in the Soviet Union toward a more constructive relationship “across the board,” Secretary of State George P. Shultz said Friday.

Shultz, continuing the Administration’s conciliatory tone toward Moscow since the installation of Mikhail S. Gorbachev as the new Soviet leader, said Reagan is ready to deal with specific Soviet-American problems and “to achieve concrete results.”

Based on an 85-minute meeting Wednesday, in which Vice President George Bush and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko also participated, Shultz said he found Gorbachev a “very capable, energetic person who is businesslike.

“When you go to a meeting he seems to be well-informed, well-prepared. He gets right at the issues in a conversational kind of form.”

While it appears that Gorbachev is prepared to work at improving relations in a “constructive vein,” Shultz said, it remains to be seen whether anything specific can be accomplished.

He said the “good faith and hope” of the Administration is tempered by a “healthy measure of realism” about the Soviet Union, “a realism based on a history which has not always fulfilled our expectations.”

At another point, he said that the Soviets are pursuing a “business as usual” policy toward deployment of strategic and intermediate-range missiles, adding that the purpose of the arms control talks in Geneva is aimed at stopping deployment.

In another cautionary note, Shultz recalled that Gorbachev has said the keynote of his leadership will be continuity. Shultz said he does not expect to see Soviet policy “change sharply.”

The secretary spoke at his first formal State Department news conference in almost a year, after giving Reagan his personal assessment of his meeting with Gorbachev and the prospects for improved ties.

He summed up his views in an opening statement that he first cleared with the president.

Shultz said he and Bush were sent by Reagan to Moscow “with a clear, constructive message.

“He believes that this is a potentially important moment for U.S.-Soviet relations. He has begun a new term and his policies are firmly in place, and the Soviets are back at the negotiating table in Geneva, and now there is a new leader in Moscow,” Shultz said.

He continued that the U.S.-Soviet agenda involves arms reduction, regional issues on which there are disagreements, concerns between the two superpowers and human rights. Shultz refrained from direct criticism of Soviet policy in Afghanistan, Central America and other areas where the superpowers are in conflict.

Silence on Human Rights

He also declined to criticize Soviet performance in human rights, asserting that progress in that area could yield benefits in the overall relationship between Washington and Moscow.

On bilateral relations, he said Reagan is prepared to seek expanded people-to-people contacts, cultural exchanges, airline safety accords, non-strategic trade improvements, as well as advances in other areas of mutual interest.

Shultz shed no new light on the possibility of a Soviet-American summit meeting, saying only there is “no doubt that Gorbachev has this under consideration.” That issue was discussed during the Wednesday meeting in Moscow.

Discussing the Middle East, Shultz said the evacuation of some U.S. personnel from the American Embassy in Lebanon on Thursday does not foreshadow the eventual closing of that installation.

“We do not intend to be pushed out of the region by terrorist threats,” he said.

He also was asked about the visit here last week of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who criticized the United States for what he said was a policy of inaction in the Mideast.

Shultz praised Mubarak for the recent movement in the peace process and noted that Assistant Secretary of State Richard W. Murphy expects to tour the region shortly.

“We will be doing everything we can to keep the momentum toward peace going,” Shultz said.