‘We Feel Good,’ Reagan Says as Long Trip Ends

President Reagan returned from his symbol-laden, four-nation trek through Europe Friday, declaring, “We feel good about what has been done” and welcoming the Senate’s narrow passage of a compromise budget he approved.

“You may have heard that because there were a few demonstrations some things might have been going wrong,” the President said in a brief statement on the White House lawn after flying from Europe on Air Force One and from Andrews Air Force Base, Md., by helicopter.

“You know, every time I noticed who was demonstrating, I felt reassured that we were saying and doing the right things.”

Lauds Budget Action

“We feel good about what’s been done,” he said, “and after every summit leader agreed that steady economic growth means each government getting spending under control, how sweet it is to return with a 50-49 Senate victory for spending restraint and no tax increase.”

Reagan was greeted by Vice President George Bush, who cut short a speaking tour to cast the tie-breaking budget vote in the Senate, and by a crowd of supporters waving American flags.

“We have had a fine trip, a full and challenging trip and as I said this morning, a successful trip. We are returing home, mission accomplished,” Reagan said.

Before leaving Lisbon, Portugal, the last stop on his European tour, Reagan declared his “mission accomplished” and said the United States must consider whether to continue observing a nuclear arms agreement with the Soviet Union.

Reagan, questioned about continued compliance with the unratified SALT agreement with the Soviet Union, said: “There’s considerable evidence now that that has been rather one-sided. If it has been, then there’s no need for us to continue.”

“We have tried on what seemed to be a verbal agreement between ourselves and the Soviet Union for some time that even though we have not ratified that treaty . . . that we would both seek to abide by the terms,” he said.

Speaking to reporters before leaving Lisbon, Reagan said the United States will make a decision “down the road” on whether to continue observing the strategic arms limitation agreement.

When a decision is made, he said, “we’ll do it openly and . . . with full knowledge of the Soviet Union.”

Reagan held a departure news conference in front of Lisbon’s Queluz Palace. He stood outside on a bright, cloudless day with the palace’s manicured gardens behind him.

The President viewed some of the palace’s horses before boarding his plane for the trip back to Washington.

“We’re leaving today with our Atlantic ties strengthened and we’re returning home mission accomplished,” he said.

“It’s been a long, historic and thoroughly worthwhile trip,” Reagan said.

Still Willing to Meet

Answering questions, Reagan noted his invitation to meet with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and said Gorbachev’s recent tough talk has not changed his mind about a meeting.

“I think there would be a lot to talk about and I just happen to believe it’s time we started talking to each other and not about each other,” he said. As for Gorbachev’s harsh talk, he said, “What’s new about that?”

Reagan said, “We have no confirmation yet that Mr. Gorbachev is coming” to the United Nations later this year but added, “The word probable is about the best way to describe it.”

He said his invitation for a meeting “still goes, so the ball is in his court.”

Meanwhile, White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan said in an interview with The New York Times that despite the tough talk there “probably” would be a summit meeting between the two.

“These leaders are positioning themselves with their own people,” Regan said. “Gorbachev recognizes that he has to have the Eastern bloc behind him. He is not known as the leader of the Eastern bloc yet. He’s getting there.”

On Thursday, Reagan said his journey had been a long one “but one fruitful in results and rich in memory.”

Aides, acknowledging that there were problems on the trip, accentuated the positive and declared the 10-day trip to Germany, Spain, France and Portugal a success.

“There have been a few glitches here and there,” Regan said. “But overall, this has been an excellent trip.”

Secretary of State George P. Shultz, who flew from Lisbon to Tel Aviv Thursday night and is planning a meeting with his Soviet counterpart this week in Vienna, called it “a very hard-working trip and I’m a little on the tired side now. But, I think it’s all been really worthwhile. . . .”

Ends on Upbeat Note

President Reagan ended the trip on an upbeat note with a state visit to Portugal, a nation that was a founding member of the NATO alliance and is a staunch U.S. ally.

It was a welcome rest from a string of difficult situations--a seven-nation summit that failed to agree on a U.S. proposal for setting a date on starting international trade talks; a state visit to West Germany that included a controversial wreath-laying ceremony at a cemetery containing graves of Nazi SS troops; a state visit to Spain, whose leaders expressed opposition to U.S. economic sanctions against Nicaragua, and a major speech in Strasbourg, France, that was marred by hecklers.

Through it all, Reagan hammered at a theme of economic and political freedom and democracy.

Summing up, Shultz said the President sought to make the point, “freedom is right, freedom works.”

Reagan also used the trip to reaffirm his intention to deal with the Soviet Union on the basis of military strength, but coupled with a search for ways to reduce tensions between the two nations.

The formula was evident again Thursday when Reagan hit at Soviet and Nicaraguan leaders and expressed hope for a time when totalitarian rule “is only a sad and distant memory.”

Reagan rejected charges by Gorbachev that the United States is “the forward edge of the war menace to mankind.”

Asked by reporters what he thought about Gorbachev’s statement, Reagan replied, “What I usually think of him. . . . Who is he to talk?”

Turning to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Reagan said the leftist Sandinista government was “interfering with democracy in the Americas.”

Reagan said he was not surprised that Ortega visited Moscow. “That’s his patron saint,” Reagan declared.

Presidential spokesman Larry Speakes said the White House was “surprised by the tone” of Gorbachev’s speech Wednesday on the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe.

“We think it’s a hard-line speech from a Soviet leader,” Speakes said. “A statement like that from the Soviet leader is not helpful.”

In the last speech of the tour Thursday before the Portuguese National Assembly, Reagan declared that the free West learned after World War II it is not enough “only to wish for peace.”

“Instead, we accepted reality. We took seriously those who threatened to end the independence of our nations and our peoples, and we did what peoples who value their freedom must do--we joined together in a great alliance,” he said.

No ‘Resort to Violence’

“And we rearmed,” he added. “But we did so only so that never again would we be forced, under the weight of our betrayed illusions, to resort to violence.”

Repeating his pitch for democracy and freedom, Reagan said, “Throughout the world the old cries of ‘power to the state’ are being replaced by cries of ‘power to the people.”’

“Throughout the world, we can see movement toward a time when totalitarian rule and the terrible suffering that it causes is only a sad and distant memory,” Reagan said.