Regan’s Remarks Touch Gorbachev, Too : President Tries to Calm Storm Over Women, Issues

President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev were drawn into the controversy Wednesday over a remark by White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan that the weighty issues of summitry are beyond the understanding of most women.

Regan had told a Washington Post reporter that he thought women would be more interested in the activities of the U.S. and Soviet first ladies than in the meetings between Reagan and Gorbachev.

“They’re not . . . going to understand (missile) throw-weights or what is happening in Afghanistan or what is happening in human rights,” Regan said. “Some women will, but most women--believe me, your readers for the most part if you took a poll--would rather read the human interest stuff of what happened.”

Regan also said he expected that Nancy Reagan and Raisa Gorbachev would not discuss substantive issues addressed during the summit. The two women would “build bridges, talking as the wives of two leaders as to how things could be done mutually.” They might talk about “drugs and other common problems that affect people in both countries,” he said. “(Nancy Reagan) doesn’t get into throw-weights or warheads or methods of transporting these warheads,” Regan said.

Regan made the remark, published last Monday, during an interview on the subject of Nancy Reagan’s schedule during the summit. The interview was conducted in Washington several weeks ago.

The issue has aroused a storm of protest in the United States. And with Regan taking part in some of the summit sessions, it was natural that journalists would confront President Reagan with the quotes of his chief of staff.

The President, standing next to Gorbachev as the second day of summit talks began Wednesday at the Soviet Mission, was asked about the furor over Regan’s remarks.

“I don’t think that he meant for it to be interpreted in that way at all,” the President said. “He was simply adding to that interest (substantive issues) that they also had an interest in children and a human touch. I think that I know his views on the entire subject better than most.”

The Soviet leader, posing with the President for photographers outside the mission building, seemed taken aback by the same question and asked his interpreter to translate it into Russian a second time.

After thinking a bit, Gorbachev replied, “My view is that both men and women in the United States and the Soviet Union, all over the world, are interested in having peace for themselves and being sure that peace would be kept stable and lasting for the future, and for that they are interested in the reduction of countless weapons that we have.”

Regan, through an aide, declined to amplify on or clarify his remarks.

Earlier, journalists had pressed White House spokesman Larry Speakes on the subject, demanding to know whether Reagan shared the views of his chief of staff.

“I’ve not talked to the President about it,” Speakes replied, adding, “If you were a sharper questioner, you would ask me, does the First Lady share those views?”

Sarcastic Response

But, when this question was posed, Speakes said sarcastically, “Summits rise or fall in the press corps on peripheral issues, as has been noted before.” When the questions about Nancy Reagan persisted, he said, “I haven’t asked her.”

Later, reporters caught up with Nancy Reagan and asked her twice if she agreed with Regan’s remarks. She replied twice, “I didn’t see the statement.” A reporter then posed the question in an indirect way: “Do women understand substantial, substantive issues?” Mrs. Reagan looked at the reporter very seriously and said, “I’m sure they do.”

The controversy intensified the prolonged feud between the Reagan Administration and American feminists and women’s organizations. Many of these groups have demanded that Regan apologize to women.

“It’s that kind of insulting tone that’s typical of this Administration,” said Irene Natividad, president of the National Women’s Political Caucus in Washington. “If they’d have looked at the general polls, they’d find peace was the No. 1 issue among women, not just in 1984, but today.”

Natividad also tossed a barb at the press, however, noting that her group and other women’s organizations are generally ignored until reporters seek foils for comments such as Regan’s.

“There is a delegation of women at Geneva, and they’re not getting very much press attention, either,” she said.

Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.) said it was “absolutely unbelievable” that Regan would intimate that women would be interested in little more than what Mrs. Reagan and Mrs. Gorbachev were wearing or saying at tea.

“I think it’s a real insult and women deserve an apology,” said Schroeder, a 13-year veteran of the House Armed Services Committee, who added, “I bet I know more about those things (military affairs) than Mr. Regan.”

Rep. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) was equally biting. “I’m not appalled, I’m insulted,” she said. “I’m insulted that the President would tolerate that in his chief of staff. I do not believe the ability to pursue peace is a hormonal characteristic.”

Eleanor Smeal, president of the National Organization for Women, said she “was glad to learn the President took Bonzo to Geneva with him.”

Feminist Bella Abzug, a former New York congresswoman, said Regan’s remark was an insult to all women and was based on men’s fear of sharing power with women. “It’s not true that women don’t care and don’t know. Women know a lot more than men want to concede,” she said in an interview with Cable News Network.

A spokesman for the Republican National Women’s Committee said the group would not comment on Regan’s views. But a former chairperson of the Republican National Committee, Mary Louise Smith, called Regan’s words “disastrous” and “most unfortunate.”

“It simply reemphasizes what a lot of people think about a lot of people in this Administration--that there’s a lack of sensitivity and a total misunderstanding of a full partnership for women,” she said. “Even if it was not meant that way, I deplore the carelessness.”

Smith, who headed the Republican National Committee, the party’s organizational body, from 1974 to 1977, now lives in Des Moines, Iowa.

Persons who deal daily with more traditional women’s interests also expressed dismay at the chief of staff’s remarks.

“They do surprise me,” Barbara Coffey, managing editor of New York-based Glamour Magazine, said of the remarks. “I’d think at this point that somebody in that position ought to know better than that. It strikes me as a very bad foot in the mouth.”

Women’s hunger for political and government news spurred Coffey’s health-and-fashion magazine to begin a column on Washington issues. “We know very well that women are interested. Believe me, we wouldn’t waste ink and paper on it if they weren’t,” she said.

Times staff writer Michael Wines in Washington contributed to this article.