Reagan Welcomes Counterproposal From Kremlin

President Reagan on Saturday welcomed the Soviet Union’s counterproposal on nuclear arms reduction and said he hopes that it addresses U.S. concerns and is “free of preconditions and other obstacles to progress.”

Administration officials said the counterproposal, to be put forward this week in arms negotiations at Geneva, includes a 50% cutback in offensive nuclear weapons. The officials, who asked not to be identified, said the proposal was sketched briefly in a long letter from Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev that was delivered to Reagan on Friday by Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze.

Reagan gave no details of the Gorbachev letter as he discussed negotiations with Moscow in his weekly radio broadcast. Indeed, he never specifically mentioned it during the talk in which he blueprinted his approach to the current talks in Geneva and to his planned November summit meeting there with Gorbachev.

The President appeared to be positioning himself for the pre-Geneva maneuvering, as he welcomed the Soviet proposal with a talk that was conciliatory in tone but general in its comments and guarded in its commitments.

On the one hand, he signaled his Administration’s gratification at a sign that Moscow was ready to break the deadlock in the arms negotiations. On the other, he pointedly referred to the Soviet offer as a “counterproposal,” making clear that it came as a response to a proposal already advanced by the United States.

‘Forthright and Firm’

While he avoided new specifics of the U.S. position, the President pledged that “the United States must and will be forthright and firm in defending our interests and those of our allies”--an apparent attempt to reassure his conservative supporters that they can count on him to make no ill-advised concessions at Geneva.

Describing the Soviet offer, Reagan said: “Mr. Shevardnadze indicated that the Soviet negotiators will present a counterproposal in Geneva to the initiatives we have taken there. We welcome this. It is important that the counterproposal address our concerns about reductions and stability, just as we have sought to address Soviet concerns.”

Reagan made clear his Administration’s interest in Moscow’s first detailed affirmative response to the substantial cutbacks sought by Washington in nuclear warheads carried on missiles and bombers. But he indicated no softening of his opposition to Soviet efforts to curb his Strategic Defense Initiative space defense research program, nicknamed “Star Wars.”

The President said that he and Shevardnadze had agreed to set up “a series of senior level discussions between our experts” to prepare for the Geneva summit meeting.

Reagan said that he and Secretary of State George P. Shultz, in talks with Shevardnadze over the past week, had covered “a broad global agenda,” including the four major issues blocked out for the summit talks: human rights, security and arms control matters, regional issues and bilateral concerns.

The President indicated that he and Shevardnadze discussed the Strategic Defense Initiative concept, which entails research and development work on a space-based defense against nuclear attacks.

“I emphasized the need for a more productive Soviet response to our efforts in Geneva to begin a U.S.-Soviet dialogue now, on how to fashion a more stable future for all humanity, if the research in strategic defense technologies, which both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. are conducting, bears fruit,” Reagan said.

Reagan counseled his radio audience to “distinguish diplomatic progress from mere propaganda,” which he said has too often in the past warped public opinion to produce “extreme views of the U.S.-Soviet relationship.”

“We have witnessed sometimes a near euphoria over a supposed coming together, and at other times a feeling that the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. may somehow be at the brink of conflict,” Reagan said. He maintained that his Administration’s “firm and steady course” has “shown that there is no longer any reason for such abrupt swings in assessing this relationship.”