Reagan to Raise Rights at Summit

President Reagan will raise the issue of human rights at his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in Geneva despite Secretary of State George P. Shultz’s failure to have the issue included in the summit agenda, a senior Administration official said Friday.

Citing “broad linkage” between Soviet human rights violations and U.S.-Soviet accords, particularly in the area of trade, the official indicated that Washington’s willingness to step up commerce and scientific exchanges with Moscow is tied to Moscow’s easing of restrictions on Jewish emigration.

“It’s an issue that can block a lot of things,” the official said. “That’s a political fact of life and it doesn’t hurt to have them understand that.”

The strong talk comes amid hints that the Soviets may be ready to allow more Jewish “refuseniks” to leave and could take action in the celebrated dissident cases of Anatoly Shcharansky and Andrei D. Sakharov. Last week, in a surprise move, Soviet authorities gave Yelena Bonner, Sakharov’s wife, permission to leave the country for medical treatment. She plans to go to Italy for treatment of an eye ailment and to Boston for treatment of a heart ailment.

In Washington, meanwhile, the National Conference on Soviet Jewry called a press conference Friday to announce plans for rallies and vigils in American cities during summit week to keep the spotlight on human rights.

Soviets Must Prove Trust

“If the Soviet Union is to be trusted on vital issues like arms control, they’re going to have to prove they can be trusted as a signatory to human rights accords,” said B’nai B’rith President Gerald Kraft.

A rally also is planned for Los Angeles on Nov. 18, the eve of the two-day Geneva summit. Yitzak Rabin, the former prime minister of Israel, will be the featured speaker.

Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union has declined dramatically since 1979, when a record 51,320 Jews were allowed to leave. The emigration rate is now at its lowest in two decades, with an average of fewer than 100 departures per month.

“You can’t attribute it to any one Administration,” said Billy Keyserling, director of the Washington office of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. “It started falling off after Afghanistan.”

The flow of Jewish emigration appears to be directly tied to the overall relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. During the 1970s, when detente prevailed, Jews were allowed to leave the Soviet Union by the tens of thousands.

By contrast, only 896 were granted permission to leave in 1984. This year’s total so far is 889, the Jewish organization said.

15,000 Refuseniks

The National Conference on Soviet Jewry estimates that 350,000 of the 2 million Jews who live in the Soviet Union have asked for exit visas. About 15,000 of them have been refused so often that they now call themselves refuseniks.

White House officials believe that the Soviets may make some concessions as a gesture of good will connected to the Geneva summit. And to encourage movement on the issue, Reagan has toned down his public condemnation of Soviet human rights abuses and will confine his tough talk to the negotiating table in Geneva.

“I don’t think that it is profitable to put things of this kind out in public where any change in policy would be viewed as a succumbing to another power,” the President told wire service reporters in an interview this week.

Jewish leaders generally endorse Reagan’s approach, citing former President Nixon’s low-key meeting with Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev in 1972, which led to a flood of Jewish emigration.

“President Reagan apparently has decided to try for headway instead of headlines, a tactic that we understand and that we approve of and that we have seen work in the past,” said Kraft, adding that the rallies planned for summit week are “a demonstration of our solidarity with his intentions.”

Congressional Support

Reagan will arrive in Geneva armed with tangible evidence of congressional support as he makes his case to Gorbachev that Soviet behavior on human rights is inextricably tied to U.S.-Soviet relations.

A Sept. 24, bipartisan letter to Reagan from Senate Majority leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and Senate Minority leader Robert C. Byrd (D.-W.Va.) contains the blunt warning that “concerns about Soviet human rights abuses will be a factor in Senate consideration of future agreements affecting relations with the Soviet Union.”

Moreover, a senior Administration official said, the U.S. delegation will remind Gorbachev about the fate of the second strategic arms limitation treaty. Former President Jimmy Carter withdrew the treaty from the Senate after it became clear that there was no chance for ratification because of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December, 1979.