Be Flexible, U.S. Arms Aide Told : Reagan Sees Kampelman Before Geneva Return

President Reagan, while agreeing with the Kremlin that the initial round in the Geneva arms talks was fruitless, sent chief U.S. negotiator Max M. Kampelman back to the talks Tuesday with instructions to be flexible but with no change in U.S. bargaining positions.

The United States hopes for progress in the new set of talks, which opens Thursday, if the Soviets will bargain seriously, White House spokesman Larry Speakes said.

Speakes blamed what he called Moscow’s recalcitrance for the lack of movement so far, contending that the Soviets have “backtracked from positions they took in previous negotiations” and displayed a “lack of imagination.”

Officials here said the United States has not changed its positions because the flexibility available to U.S. negotiators in all three sets of talks--on offensive long-range (strategic) weapons, offensive intermediate-range weapons and space arms--had not been exhausted during the first round.

Kenneth L. Adelman, director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, noted in a recent interview that “the Soviets had hardened their position on 10 points” during the six-week session in Geneva that ended April 25.

For example, Adelman said, the Soviets initially admitted that their anti-ballistic missile system around Moscow is a “space attack weapon”--but they now refuse to discuss those weapons in the part of the Geneva talks dealing with space arms.

In addition, he said, the Soviets now want to include in talks on intermediate-range weapons the intermediate-range bombers on all U.S. aircraft carriers, instead of counting only those in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic, which had been their previous position.

Apparently Unacceptable

Although some officials expect the Soviets to come forward in the new round with formal proposals in two areas--thereby making good on public offers by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev--the offers so far appear unacceptable to the United States.

Gorbachev said last month: “We have already suggested that both sides reduce strategic offensive arms by one quarter by way of an opening move. But we have no objections to making deeper mutual cuts.” He also announced a freeze in Soviet deployments of intermediate-range missiles in Europe until November and invited the United States to do likewise.

Under the strategic arms offer, the Soviets could retain all of their most threatening land-based intercontinental missiles--weapons the United States wants reduced. And the intermediate-range weapon freeze would halt U.S. missile deployments when the Soviets, with most of their deployments completed, have an 8-to-1 warhead advantage.

U.S. officials said the Soviets initially broached these concepts in talks in 1983 but have not officially put them on the bargaining table at Geneva. Moscow’s practice is to introduce proposals formally at the next session of the talks after they have been aired publicly.

Could Increase Pressure

The Soviet offers--particularly if accompanied by a new propaganda offensive--could increase pressure on the Administration from Congress and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to give up its “Star Wars” space defense research program in exchange for cuts in offensive weapons.

But Richard R. Burt, U.S. assistant secretary of state for European affairs, called for patience Tuesday in the face of any Soviet attempt to hold the Geneva talks hostage to a ban on U.S. space research. In an address to the World Affairs Council in Washington, Burt said the only way to force the Soviets to bargain seriously is to show them that their tactics will not work.

Speakes, in his remarks, noted that Gorbachev on Monday described the first round of talks as fruitless, adding: “Unfortunately, we find ourselves in agreement with this characterization.”

He pledged that the United States will continue to be flexible, “without rewarding the Soviets for backtracking.” But he stressed that there has been “no shift” in the U.S. negotiating position.

Speakes also hinted that the President, although due to report to Congress by Saturday on the status of the unratified second strategic arms limitation treaty, may choose to delay a decision on whether to continue the Administration’s policy of abiding by provisions of the agreement.

Speakes said that the President will “not necessarily” decide the issue this week in time for the report to Congress. He may lay out the options as he sees them, Speakes said, but “he may not want to make these decisions until the fall.”

In September, a new U.S. submarine carrying 24 missiles will begin sea trials, and an older submarine with 16 missiles should to be taken out of service if the United States is to remain under the SALT II limit on multiple-warhead missiles.