Soviet Moves Chill U.S. Optimism on Relations : Mood Shifts in Wake of Gorbachev’s Attack and Contradiction Over Shooting of Officer

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s sharp attack on American foreign policy and Moscow’s refusal to rule out force against U.S. military observers cast a new chill over U.S.-Soviet relations Tuesday, with previously upbeat White House officials calling those developments “a turn for the worse.”

The Kremlin’s renewed hard-line attitude could adversely affect U.S.-Soviet trade, cultural exchanges and diplomatic discussions, said one White House adviser, speaking on condition he not be identified.

At least for now, it also is clearly silencing optimistic talk within the White House about a meeting at the United Nations this fall between President Reagan and Gorbachev.

Contradicts Announcement

The Soviet Union, through its Washington embassy, Monday contradicted an earlier State Department announcement that Moscow had agreed in the future not to use force against accredited U.S. military observers. Administration officials had thought the State Department announcement would end the controversy over the fatal shooting of Maj. Arthur D. Nicholson Jr. by a Soviet sentry in East Germany on March 24.

The Soviets also denied a U.S. assertion that they had agreed to consider paying compensation to Nicholson’s family.

“Well, they are just lying, that’s all,” Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger told CBS-TV on Tuesday. “Their general, who is their authorized agent, made that pledge to our general. . . . That’s just a plain lie.”

Secretary of State George P. Shultz, talking to a group of business executives Tuesday, called the Soviet response “surprising and disappointing.” He added, “They behave in a way that we wouldn’t think of behaving.”

White House spokesman Larry Speakes, reading from a tough, lengthy statement prepared by the National Security Council, said the Soviets’ continued refusal to formally apologize and to compensate Nicholson’s family “cannot fail to have adverse consequences on future relations.”

Gorbachev’s denunciation of the Reagan Administration in a speech Tuesday to a meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee was labeled by Speakes--in another harshly worded, carefully prepared statement--as “an all-too-familiar recapitulation of Soviet distortions of the historic record and the current U.S. policies.”

U.S. Hope for Talks

Speakes, referring to the newly recessed Geneva arms negotiations, said, “We hope that the Soviet Union will take a constructive approach when the talks reconvene on May 30.” He added that U.S. representatives in Geneva “have broad authority to negotiate.”

As to a possible Reagan-Gorbachev meeting during the Soviet leader’s reported decision to attend the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York, Speakes said, “The President has not yet determined whether he will be going to the United Nations in September.”

Administration officials previously had spoken openly of their hope that Gorbachev would attend the annual convening of the General Assembly in September, as Reagan regularly has done throughout his presidency, thus offering the two leaders a handy rationale for an informal summit.

Viktor G. Afanasiyev, chief editor for the Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravda, said Monday that Gorbachev plans to attend the U.N. General Assembly opening, although the White House said Tuesday that it still has not received any official indication of Gorbachev’s visit.

The anonymous White House adviser, when pressed on the subject of a summit, said that “our invitation to Mr. Gorbachev is still good.” However, he said pessimistically of the Soviets: “They seem to be back on the same old track.”

‘Turn for the Worse’

The White House official said Administration foreign policy advisers “who have been reviewing all this see it as a turn for the worse.”

He predicted: “It’s going to impact negatively,” including having an adverse effect on a scheduled meeting between Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko on May 14-15 in Vienna.

The official, referring to increased U.S.-Soviet diplomatic discussions since Gorbachev assumed power last month, said: “It just shows you that meetings don’t always solve problems. There had appeared to be an improving relationship. But Moscow’s handling of the Nicholson case obviously was not designed to improve relations.”