Gorbachev Agrees to Summit Talks : Stops Deploying Soviet Missiles Until November

New Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev on Sunday disclosed that he has agreed to a summit with President Reagan and announced a seven-month halt in deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles aimed at Western Europe.

Gorbachev said the Soviet moratorium will last until November and that its extension after that would depend on whether the United States stopped deploying comparable missiles in Europe.

His surprise announcement came in an interview with Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper. It was broadcast on television, ahead of publication, and carried by Tass, the official news agency.

The moratorium recalled a similar move by the late Soviet President Leonid I. Brezhnev in March, 1982, in an unsuccessful attempt at that time to block the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s decision to deploy U.S.-made Pershing 2 and cruise missiles in Europe.

‘Done for Public Effect’

“It (Gorbachev’s announcement) seems to be done for public effect,” a Western diplomat said.

The announcement also revived the so-called “Euromissile” issue in a dramatic way and may have been designed to influence a Dutch decision on whether to go ahead with planned deployment of 48 cruise missiles. That decision is due by November, the month that Gorbachev said will determine whether the Soviets continue their moratorium.

His statement was issued shortly after House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. and 12 other members of a U.S. congressional delegation arrived for a five-day visit to the Soviet Union. O’Neill said that he hopes to meet with the new Kremlin leader, possibly on Wednesday.

Gorbachev’s interview with Pravda was the most extensive statement that he has has made since he succeeded the late Konstantin U. Chernenko as general secretary of the Communist Party on March 11. Most of his remarks dealt with Soviet-American relations.

In other parts of his interview, Gorbachev attacked President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative--the so-called “Star Wars” research project on space-based defenses--and said that on the whole, Soviet-American relations remain “tense.”

Alluding to Reagan and other backers of space-based defenses, Gorbachev said: “They speak about defense but prepare for attack, they advertise the space shield but are forging a space sword. . . . They promise the world stability but in reality strive to wreck the military balance.”

At the same time, however, he said that the Soviet Union has a “positive attitude” toward a summit conference with Reagan, adding that a time and place will be arranged later. Gorbachev had accepted Reagan’s call for a summit in a letter delivered to the U.S. President two weeks ago, according to Washington sources.

He renewed the Soviet proposal for a joint moratorium on research, testing and deployment of space weapons and a freeze on strategic nuclear weapons “for the entire duration of the (Geneva arms) talks. . . .”

He added: “At the same time, the deployment of American intermediate-range missiles in Europe should be terminated and, correspondingly, the buildup of our reply measures.

“If one has taken one’s seat at the table to negotiate arms reduction, then one should at least refrain from increasing them further.”

However, Gorbachev did not link the moratorium on Soviet missiles to reciprocal action by the United States.

Importance of Geneva Talks

Stressing the importance of the Geneva bargaining, Gorbachev added: “The choice is as follows: either an arms race along all directions, a growth of war danger, or strengthening of universal security, a more durable peace for all.”

In a broader framework, however, Gorbachev said that his correspondence with Reagan dealt with ways of making superpower relations more stable and constructive.

“I am convinced that a serious impulse should be given to Soviet-American relations at a high political level,” he said. Gorbachev said Soviet-American confrontation is an “anomaly” and not a natural state of affairs.

“We offer to the government of the United States to conduct matters in such a way that it would be seen to all our peoples, and to other countries, that the political course of the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. are oriented not at hostility and confrontation but at the search for mutual understanding and peaceful development,” he added.

‘Our Good Will’

Concerning the moratorium on deployment of its own missiles, Gorbachev said:

“We are for an honest dialogue. We are prepared to demonstrate our good will again. Starting with (this) day, and I want to emphasize this, the Soviet Union is introducing a moratorium on the deployment of its intermediate-range missiles and suspending the implementation of other reply measures in Europe.

“The duration of the moratorium is until November of this year. The decision we will make after that depends on whether the United States follows our example: Will it stop or not the deployment of its intermediate-range missiles in Europe?”

The moratorium is related to a longstanding Soviet dispute with the United States and its NATO allies over the “Euromissiles.”

The United States and NATO believes the U.S. missiles must be deployed to offset a big buildup of Soviet SS-20 missiles aimed at Europe.

The Soviet Union denounced the Euromissiles as American “first-strike” weapons and walked out of disarmament talks in Geneva in the fall of 1983 when the first of them were deployed. Since then, the Soviet Union has continued to add to its arsenal of mobile SS-20 missiles, each containing three warheads. The Pershing 2s and cruise missiles carry one warhead each.

Soviets Dropped Demand

For most of last year, the Soviets said they would not negotiate on arms reduction unless the United States stopped deploying the missiles and removed those already in place. They dropped this demand, however, although about 110 of the missiles were in place by the end of 1984.

One Western diplomat here said that there is no way to verify precisely whether the Soviet deployment would stop during the moratorium or whether Gorbachev’s announcement applies to warheads or to numbers of missiles.

Also, the diplomat said, deployment of the Pershing 2 in West Germany and of cruise missiles in West Germany, Britain, Italy, Belgium and--if the Dutch approve--in the Netherlands is designed to offset Soviet SS-20s already in place.

Dutch Foreign Minister Hans Van den Broek is scheduled to visit Moscow this week to discuss deployment of the U.S. missiles in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands has said it will go ahead in November if the number of Soviet SS-20 missiles exceeds the 378 that were in place in European and Asian portions of the Soviet Union last June 1. NATO officials assert that the Soviet Union now has 414 such missiles in position, two-thirds of them targeted on Europe.