Rollins Expects No Progress at Summit

The Reagan Administration expects no progress on arms control at next month’s Geneva summit but will consider it a major success if the President and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev “get along well” and agree to meet again, Edward J. Rollins, a longtime Reagan political adviser, said Monday.

From the Administration’s perspective, that would be a home run, said Rollins, who considers “nothing more important” than the summit to President Reagan in the first year of his second term.

Although the Soviets repeatedly have stressed arms control as a major topic to be discussed at the Nov. 19-20 meeting, the Reagan Administration has discouraged the notion that serious arms control negotiations could be conducted at the summit.

Supports Bush

Rollins, who recently resigned as the President’s chief political adviser to join a California-based political consulting firm, was interviewed at a lunch with reporters during which he also spoke of Vice President George Bush’s chances for the 1988 GOP presidential nomination. Although Rollins actively supports Bush, he said he has discussed television evangelist Pat Robertson’s plans with him and expects Robertson to seek the nomination too.

The fate of Reagan’s second term, Rollins suggested, could ride on his performance at the summit.

“The President has to be significantly prepared,” Rollins said. “The downside of not being prepared is that . . . there would be a series of lame-duck stories, and the public would perceive Reagan as not a significant player in the next three years.”

However, Rollins said any chance that Reagan could be damaged by a poor performance at the summit has been reduced by renewed political strength the President gained from the U.S. capture of the Achille Lauro terrorists and by his success at defusing such explosive political issues as trade, the national debt and South Africa.

High Popularity Rating

Even without the Achille Lauro incident, Reagan has enjoyed a popularity rating in public opinion polls in the 60% to 65% range--unusually high for a President in the first year of his second term. And Rollins said that Reagan’s handling of that incident could boost his rating as high as 10 points.

Reagan long had been frustrated over his inability to deal with a series of other terrorist acts against Americans, including the hijacking of a TWA airliner and the killing of more than 200 U.S. servicemen in Beirut. But Rollins said that the President had “reinforced his image as a leader who is willing to take action” with his order for Navy F-14s to intercept the Egyptian plane carrying the Achille Lauro terrorists and force it to land in Sicily, where the terrorists have been charged and will be tried.

Bush Plans Committee

On the subject of Bush’s so-far-unannounced candidacy for the 1988 GOP nomination, Rollins said the vice president is the clear front-runner and within two weeks will announce an “all-star steering committee” for his campaign that will include many Reagan supporters.

Rollins said that regardless of whether Robertson, the TV host of the “700 Club” and son of former Sen. A. Willis Robertson (D-Va.), runs for President, he “wants to be a major player in the Republican Party.”

“I think it’s important for him to be a part of it,” he continued. “He’s got a large constituency.”

Rollins described Robertson as more pragmatic and political than another famous evangelist, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who already has declared his support for Bush in 1988. Robertson, Rollins said, could become the principal spokesman for “the 10 million fundamentalists who supported Reagan in ’80 and ’84.”