Congressmen Meet Gorbachev : Soviet Leader Seems Sincere on Arms, O’Neill Says

Four U.S. congressmen led by House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) met with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev for nearly four hours today and said Gorbachev seems sincere in his first arms control statement.

House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.) said he saw a “good omen” for chances of a U.S.-Soviet summit.

The congressmen said they delivered a personal letter to Gorbachev from President Reagan, but declined to discuss its contents.

The unusually long meeting marked the first time Gorbachev received a U.S. delegation since the funeral of his predecessor, Konstantin U. Chernenko, on March 13.

Twice as Long as Usual

O’Neill, Michel and Reps. Silvio O. Conte (R-Mass.) and Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) met Gorbachev in the general secretary’s Kremlin offices, in a secluded building behind the wall that flanks Red Square.

O’Neill said at a news conference afterward that the talk lasted 3 hours and 43 minutes, more than twice the usual length of such conversations in the past.

Reading a prepared statement, O’Neill said the talks ranged over arms control, trade, human rights and regional issues, and “highlighted many significant differences between our members and their officials on these issues.

“We did not hear any major changes in Soviet policy with respect to these issues,” he said. “Yet we were able to present our concern and reservations about Soviet policies in detail. The Soviets in turn expressed their concerns about our policy.”

O’Neill and Michel declined to describe the conversation with Gorbachev in detail.

‘Fully and Frequently’

But O’Neill said it touched on arms control “fully and frequently,” including Gorbachev’s first comments on the issue--made this week in an interview with the Communist Party daily Pravda.

Asked whether he thinks Gorbachev was sincere in announcing a freeze on Soviet deployment of medium-range missiles in Europe through November and his call for substantial cuts in nuclear weapons, O’Neill said:

“I like to believe that the secretary general (of the Communist Party) was speaking his mind, his heart and his feeling for world peace. I don’t want to look at it as propaganda.”

Michel said the two sides disagreed on specific arms control issues, including the numbers of weapons now deployed by the Soviet Union. But he said they also expressed hopes for an agreement at the Geneva arms talks on nuclear and space weapons.

‘Modified in Private’

“Publicly, things are said that are somewhat modified in private eventually,” he said.

Michel said Gorbachev told the congressmen that he is “looking forward to a full response” from Reagan to the letter Gorbachev wrote in response to Reagan’s invitation to a summit in the United States.

He said Gorbachev added that he hopes that “eventually the two would get together.”

“And that in itself, if I might paraphrase what he said, would be a good omen,” Michel said.

A pool of American reporters was admitted to Gorbachev’s Kremlin office a few minutes before the meeting began and allowed to photograph the Soviet leader, O’Neill, Michel and other U.S. and Soviet officials.

Gorbachev arrived ahead of the U.S. delegation and joked briefly with the journalists. “Can Soviet and American journalists really work together?” he said.