Pravda Assails Anti-Satellite Test by U.S.

The Communist Party newspaper Pravda said Tuesday that the first American test of an anti-satellite missile against a space target was an attempt to undermine the U.S.-Soviet summit in November.

There have been no indications, however, that the Soviet Union would use last week’s anti-satellite test as a pretext for interrupting the Geneva talks on nuclear arms limitations, which are to resume on Thursday, or for withdrawing from the summit.

In recent weeks, the state-controlled press has begun interpreting virtually every objectionable American action or statement as an effort to derail the Nov. 19-20 summit of President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in Geneva.

Pravda, the most authoritative outlet for the views of the Soviet leadership, said the missile test last Friday was “obviously an attempt by certain American circles to damage the process of preparation for the forthcoming Soviet-American summit meeting . . . and to further heat up the international atmosphere.”

Nevertheless, Pravda said, the Soviet Union “is preparing seriously for the Geneva meeting, attaches enormous significance to it and places serious hopes in it.”

Conflict With Treaty?

The unsigned article repeated familiar Soviet objections to the American anti-satellite program--a more sophisticated system than one the Soviets deployed in the late 1970s--particularly the claim that development of this technology conflicts with the 1972 treaty restricting anti-ballistic missile defenses.

Pravda also recalled for the first time since last week’s test a Soviet government statement Sept. 4 in which Moscow said it would feel free, if the test were conducted, to revoke its “unilateral obligation on the non-deployment of anti-satellite systems in space.”

“This latest American step aimed at poisoning the international atmosphere in a period of preparations for the meeting at Geneva will, naturally, be duly assessed by the Soviet Union and by the entire world,” Pravda said. But it avoided threatening any specific retaliatory action.

Politburo Sendoff

Moscow’s response came as the inner circle of the ruling Politburo formally dispatched the Soviet negotiating team for the resumption of arms talks in Geneva.

Western diplomats said the announcement, carried prominently on the front page of Pravda, broke with the traditional practice of issuing the negotiators their final instructions in the name of the entire Politburo. Instead, Pravda reported that Gorbachev had seen the team off in a meeting attended by Viktor M. Chebrikov, chairman of the KGB security agency; President Andrei A. Gromyko, Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevarnadze and Defense Minister Sergei L. Sokolov.

Some diplomats speculated that this group comprised at least part of the highly secretive Defense Council, an inner circle of the Politburo that is believed to direct the Soviet Union’s military and foreign policy.