Shevardnadze Talks With Reagan Called Most Useful in Years

--President Reagan’s national security adviser, Robert C. McFarlane, told members of Congress on Wednesday that Reagan’s meeting last week with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze was the most useful meeting between superpower officials that he had attended in 15 years.

Rep. Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.), Republican leader of the House, also said after a morning meeting at the White House that McFarlane had said Reagan was encouraged that the Soviets had, for the first time, put a specific arms proposal on the table at the Geneva talks.

Presidential aides confirmed that McFarlane, who has served in the White House on and off since the Nixon Administration, made a secret trip to London and Paris over the weekend to brief British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and French President Francois Mitterrand on the Soviet offer, which Shevardnadze conveyed to Reagan in a letter from Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

In other developments on arms control, the chief U.S. arms negotiator, Max M. Kampelman, returned to the United States from Geneva Wednesday on a previously scheduled trip for “personal reasons.” He is expected to consult with State Department officials on the latest Soviet arms offer and “in all probability” will confer with Reagan in the White House, Speakes said. He will return today to Switzerland.