Shultz Sees Gorbachev; Deep Divisions Remain : U.S. Reports Some Positive Results but No Narrowing of Differences on Weapons Issues

Secretary of State George P. Shultz met with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev for four hours Tuesday and later reported some positive results but no narrowing of the “deep differences” between the superpowers on the crucial issues of nuclear and space-based weapons.

Nothing occurred during his talks with Gorbachev to suggest that the Soviet leader and President Reagan will be able to bridge their differences and achieve an agreement in principle on arms negotiations at their summit meeting later this month in Geneva, Shultz said before departing for home via Iceland.

Yurchenko Is Discussed

Shultz also said he had a “very brief discussion” with Gorbachev about Vitaly Yurchenko, the Soviet KGB agent who said he was kidnaped and drugged by U.S. agents. Shultz called Yurchenko’s claims “totally false” and reiterated the State Department’s position that the Soviet spy voluntarily defected at the U.S. Embassy in Rome last summer.

Shultz was also asked whether the Yurchenko incident and the publicity over the Soviet sailor who jumped ship in Louisiana and the Soviet soldier who temporarily sought asylum at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, had set back his talks here. “I don’t think they particularly impinged on our talks,” he declared.

At the end of his two-day visit here, Shultz offered a somewhat bleak appraisal of the prospects for the Nov. 19-20 summit. His comments seemed to indicate that the Kremlin high command may have spurned Reagan’s latest offer to join Gorbachev in a 50% reduction in strategic missiles.

If so, this would point toward a standoff at the coming summit, the first meeting between a U.S. President and the top Soviet leader in six years.

A senior U.S. official, who flew from Moscow to Geneva to join the continuing arms control talks there, told reporters that Gorbachev and Shevardnadze “did not back away” from any of their arms control positions and were particularly insistent on banning all space-based weapons.

During the meeting Monday between Shultz and the Soviet foreign minister, they exchanged drafts of a communique that they hoped could be released at the summit, another U.S. official said. “They had a communique, and we had a communique, and it was very clear that there was nothing in between,” the official said.

So far apart were the U.S. and Soviet positions that Shultz and Shevardnadze named a middle-level working group charged with drawing up a communique agreeable to both sides.

Shultz said he and Gorbachev had “vigorous discussions” and “frank arguments” about a wide variety of issues. While they each interrupted each other freely, he said, the conversation was quite cordial and far from a shouting match.

“The (Communist Party) general secretary is accustomed to interrupting and expressing a view,” Shultz told reporters.

“When in Moscow, do as those in Moscow do, so we interrupted, too,” Shultz said. “So we had a very vigorous exchange.”

Tass, the official news agency, said the conversation between Gorbachev and Shultz was carried out “in a frank and businesslike manner,” diplomatic code words that usually mean there were strong disagreements.

High Importance

Gorbachev, according to Tass, said that the Soviet leadership attaches high importance to the summit and declared that it could help stabilize the world if the talks are held in a constructive and businesslike spirit.

The rather pessimistic tone adopted both by Tass and by Shultz may reflect Soviet and U.S. negotiating tactics, rather than realistic appraisals of the talks.

A U.S. official aboard Shultz’s plane declared, “We’re in good shape, and we can wait” until long after the summit to work out an arms agreement. Noting that Reagan continues to receive record-high approval ratings in the polls for his handling of U.S.-Soviet relations and that the U.S. economy remains strong, the official implied that Gorbachev is under much greater pressure than Reagan to produce results at the summit because of the lagging Soviet economy.

The same official said that some progress had been made Tuesday toward a new consular agreement that would allow the Soviets to open a consulate in Chicago and the Americans to establish a consulate in Kiev. U.S. officials had hoped that Reagan and Gorbachev might be able to sign the consular agreement, as well as aviation and cultural exchange agreements, at the summit.

The U.S. official who flew to Geneva said that despite the differences that remain, he is optimistic that the summit will prove successful. He said he could not point to any substantive achievement in Moscow but had come away with “the feeling that the Soviets don’t want a failure.”

Shultz was accompanied at the Gorbachev meeting by national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane and Arthur A. Hartman, U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union.

A Different Reality

Shultz implied criticism in describing the tone of his talks with Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze:

“The view here of the United States is very different from what we think the reality is. . . . It really isn’t surprising that someone who’s never been in the United States and is not subject to the flow of information, news and analysis that we are, would have misinformation.”

While Shultz termed his talks “thorough, systematic and painstaking,” he said they contained no surprises.

Asked to describe the positive developments he mentioned, he replied, “The deep exchange of views in itself is a positive development.”

Not a Single Achievement

He did not point to a single achievement during his 10 hours of talks with Shevardnadze or the four hours of discussions with Gorbachev in the Kremlin.

“I can’t say anything definitive was settled as such, but I think we did narrow our differences on some issues,” Shultz said in summarizing his talks. “There are still deep differences remaining.”

On the new U.S. arms control offer, unveiled with fanfare by the President only last week, Shultz said Gorbachev made a preliminary comment but it was not analyzed in detail.

“Neither side believed this was the proper place to negotiate on this subject,” he added.

Although Reagan recently said at the United Nations that regional issues would be his top priority at the summit, Shultz seemed to place a different emphasis after his conversations in Moscow.

“Both sides agree that this (arms control) is a subject of central importance,” he said, adding that regional issues were “of great importance” and bilateral issues and human rights were “important” as well.

But he said he saw no reason to believe that there would be an agreement in principle on arms issues coming out of Geneva.

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Shultz told a reporter.

Then, as if to offer some consolation after his downbeat remarks, Shultz added: “Life doesn’t end in the middle of November.”

Will ‘Keep Pushing’

But he said both sides agreed to “keep pushing” for accords before the summit and exchanged wishes for success of the arms controls negotiations now continuing in Geneva. The third round of talks there are scheduled to end Thursday.

In small talk before their meeting began, Gorbachev apparently referred to satellite photography when he told Shultz: “Thank God, we have communications and opportunities for observation and surveillance. That makes things calmer.”

Shultz seemed to agree, noting that new technology helps to build confidence.