Can’t Rule Out Soviet Ploy in Yurchenko Case: Reagan : Two Other Turnabouts ‘Suspect’

President Reagan said today that defection controversies over three Soviets, including a top KGB official who has returned to the Kremlin fold, “might have been a deliberate ploy” in pre-summit maneuvering.

Nonetheless, Reagan said he is eager to get down to business with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev later this month, declaring, “It’s time we stop this futzing around.”

In an interview with four wire service reporters, Reagan also said he has not changed his commitment to deploy an anti-missile defense system, and that while arms control will be a key concern at the summit, he does not expect to get into a detailed review of superpower arsenals.

With official Washington still reeling from the allegations of Vitaly Yurchenko--the No. 5 KGB official who claims he was kidnaped by the CIA--Reagan indicated that he is as perplexed as anyone, especially since Yurchenko’s startling appearance at a Soviet Embassy news conference closely followed two other incidents involving Soviet citizens.

Just last week, Soviet seaman Miroslav Medvid twice jumped ship in U.S. waters but then later said he wanted to returned to the Soviet Union. In Kabul, Afghanistan, a young Red Army private holed up in the U.S. Embassy until Soviet officials said he would be allowed to go home.

“I have to say that the coming together of the three incidents--you can’t rule out that this might have been a deliberate ploy,” Reagan said.

In a Bright Mood

“I think anyone is perplexed by it,” he said in response to a question about the the three recent developments, and--with a smile on his lips--he wondered aloud why anyone would want to go to the Soviet Union when they could stay in the United States.

Reagan was in a bright mood for the interview, in part because he had just celebrated the first anniversary of his reelection landslide with a speech to Republican stalwarts.

After the speech, he responded, “Hell, no!” to questions whether he would give the Soviets a veto over the deployment of a “Star Wars” system growing out of his Strategic Defense Initiative.

In less vivid language, he said during the interview that the question arose from a “misunderstanding” and that he believes that “someone jumped to a false conclusion.”

Reagan, in an interview last week with four Soviet journalists, had said, “We would not deploy . . . until we sit down with other nations of the world . . . and see if we could not come to an agreement on which there will be deployment only if there is elimination of the nuclear weapons.”

Today, Reagan said suggesting that the Soviets could block “Stars Wars” by refusing to eliminate nuclear arms “was an erroneous interpretation.”

‘We’d Go Ahead’

“If we had a defense system, we could not” wait to put it into use, he said. “We’d go ahead with deployment.”

The President also reiterated his main summit goal: “We’re going to try and basically eliminate, or certainly reduce, the distrust between our two countries.”

He displayed irritation over reports that his two recent medical checkups were to check for recurrence of cancer. During major surgery July 13, a two-foot section of the President’s large intestine was removed, including a cancerous polyp.

“Oh, for heaven’s sakes!” Reagan responded with exasperation when asked why he will not make public the results of tests done at Bethesda Naval Hospital. He said he welcomed the chance to explain that the tests were done to find more polyps--not to discover further signs of cancer.

He said he is grateful for the letters that he has received but that he chafes under the idea that he was a victim of cancer.

“The whole thing was portrayed that I was a sufferer of cancer,” the President complained.

“I had a polyp removed. It is true, it had begun to develop a few cancer cells.” But he added that “the only real illness I suffered was the incision” from his operation.