Reagan Eases Opposition to Defense Cuts

President Reagan on Monday abandoned his adamant opposition to reducing the defense budget and declared that he would accept a cut if it could be done without endangering national security.

The President, in a breakfast interview at the White House, also pressed his campaign for an early summit with new Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and said he would be ready for one by September, when the United Nations reconvenes, if that is convenient for Gorbachev.

Reagan, who for months has insisted that he would not compromise on his defense spending requests, said he agrees with a comment made Sunday by Donald T. Regan, the White House chief of staff, that a cut would be acceptable if ways could be found to achieve savings through elimination of waste or by delaying procurement of items “that are not necessary to our strategic or conventional weapons system.”

Regan first signaled a softening of the President’s hard-line position on defense spending on March 5 when he told The Times that Reagan “would have to” consider any defense cuts approved by Congress. But, as recently as Thursday, Reagan warned that any cuts in the defense budget “are actually going to run the risk of lowering our capability at preserving national security.”

However, when asked Monday whether he would be willing to compromise with Congress on defense spending to achieve his goal of reducing the budget deficit by $50 billion, the President said: “I think I’m completely in line with what Don Regan said yesterday, and that is if this can be done without endangering national security--without reducing our ability to take care of ourselves in that way--yes.”

Word that Reagan was backing away from his no-compromise stand was greeted with a measure of skepticism in some quarters on Capitol Hill, where he has been lobbying heavily to win House support for the MX missile. A source in the House Republican leader’s office said some House members believe it is a ploy by the President to win support for the missile by indicating that he would be willing to accept cuts in other areas of the defense budget.

Breakfast With Journalists

The President made his remarks while hosting about 50 journalists at a breakfast in the State Dining Room. With Vice President George Bush and most of the White House senior staff sitting around the table, Reagan fielded a wide variety of questions, including whether he was considering endorsing Bush for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988.

As Bush joined in the laughter and leaned toward the President in mock anticipation of a positive reply, Reagan said he had “too much on the plate of great importance right now for us to join in speculation about 1988.” But he called Bush “the best” of all vice presidents and said none other “has been as much involved at the highest level in our policy-making and our decisions.”

Reagan said that whether a U.S.-Soviet summit occurs in September depends on Gorbachev and that--with the Soviet leader having just taken office--”it’s only proper that we allow him to set the schedule as to when it could be convenient for him.”

In the past, the President noted, Soviet leaders have come to New York for the opening of the United Nations in September. “If that is convenient for him, I certainly wouldn’t see any reason why that wouldn’t be for us,” he said.

Subjects of Summit

Subjects that should be discussed at a summit, Reagan said, include Soviet violations of existing arms control treaties and agreements and unwarranted Soviet domination of Eastern European countries.

The President indicated that, if the Soviets continue to violate arms control agreements despite U.S. protests, he will follow a policy of also violating them.

Language problems between the United States and the Soviet Union frequently contribute to problems of treaty violations, he said, with the Soviets claiming that they are only following their interpretation of the treaties.

Confront the Soviets

Reagan said his attitude is to confront the Soviets with the violations and try to convince them that their interpretation is wrong. If that fails, he said, the United States should tell the Soviets: “All right, if that’s the way you interpret it, then that’s the way we’re going to.”

When asked about the possibility that Eastern Europe might move closer diplomatically to Western Europe and thereby diminish Soviet domination, Reagan said: “I don’t think that any of us can, in our own hearts and minds, believe that, forever after, those countries should be subjected as they are to dominance by the Soviet Union.

“It was never a part of the Yalta Agreement (signed by the Soviet Union, Britain and the United States at the end of World War II). They were supposed to have the right of self-determination and so forth. I think that . . . this would be one of the things to talk to the Soviets about.”

Reagan, relaxed and in a buoyant mood, chuckled when asked whether he regretted having joked--at a weekend dinner party--that, in addressing the farm problem, “We should keep the grain and export the farmers.”

“Yes,” the President replied, “because it didn’t get a laugh.”

The joke fell flat during an otherwise well-received speech that kept about 600 journalists and top political figures laughing during Saturday night’s 100th anniversary dinner of the Gridiron Club, a journalists’ organization that lampoons politicians and the press.

Afterward, several politicians said Reagan would regret delivering such a joke when almost 100,000 farmers face bankruptcy. “I didn’t think it was funny, and I didn’t laugh,” Sen. Larry Pressler (D-S.D.) said.