‘Constructive’ Steps Toward Peace Taken, President Says : ‘Understand Each Other Better’ Now

President Reagan concluded three days of extraordinary personal diplomacy with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in Geneva on Thursday and returned home to tell Congress and the nation that they had taken “constructive” steps toward world peace.

“I can’t claim we had a meeting of the minds on such fundamentals as ideology or national purposes--but we understand each other better,” he told the cheering Congress. “That’s key to peace. I gained a better perspective; I feel he did, too.”

His nationally broadcast speech came only hours after the closing ceremony of what Reagan called a “fireside summit”--a remarkable series of one-on-one talks between the two most powerful men on Earth. Their private meetings, conducted with only their interpreters present, used up more than half of the time allotted for the formal summit sessions.

First Talks Since 1979

The meetings, Reagan’s first with a Soviet leader after almost five years in the White House, broke a six-year gap in face-to-face contacts between a U.S. President and his Soviet counterpart. But they produced no substantive new accords, and the two leaders made only what Reagan called “a measure of progress” on the core issue of nuclear arms control.

Officials on both sides said that Reagan and Gorbachev clashed bitterly on the President’s “Star Wars” program, a proposed space-based defense against nuclear missiles. Gorbachev said he warned Reagan bluntly that if the United States deploys such a system, “our response will be effective, less costly and in place more rapidly”--an apparent threat to deploy enough offensive missiles to overwhelm a defense.

Nevertheless, Reagan said he felt the summit had moved the superpowers closer to new arms controls by reaffirming each side’s interest in a 50% reduction in offensive weapons and a separate agreement on medium-range missiles in Europe. Another U.S. official said Gorbachev’s willingness to cite those goals in a joint statement issued in Geneva without also mentioning his objections to “Star Wars” was a step forward.

And the two leaders--one a fervent Communist, the other a dedicated anti-Communist--both said they had established a new and important personal relationship.

‘There’s Always Room’

“We remain far apart on a number of issues, as had to be expected,” Reagan told Congress. “However, we reached agreement on a number of (other) issues. . . . There’s always room for movement, action and progress when people are talking to each other instead of about each other.”

Amid declarations of optimism and good will that seemed to open a path toward progress in the future, the two leaders agreed in their joint statement to meet again--in Washington next year, Moscow in 1987--and resolved to “accelerate” the arms reduction talks that began in Geneva last March.

“This has given a new start in the right direction to our relationship,” Gorbachev told Reagan in a final champagne toast Thursday morning.

“We found that we do seem to share a certain initial premise on the improvement of our relations,” the Soviet leader said later in a lengthy news conference. “That is the understanding that a nuclear war cannot occur--that there can be no winners in a nuclear war.

“I’m very optimistic when I look ahead to the future,” Gorbachev said. “I would be so bold as to say that, although the number of weapons remains as high as it was before the meetings, the world has become a safer place.”

Whirlwind Agenda

In a whirlwind, 20-hour day of pomp and salesmanship, Reagan appeared together with Gorbachev to present the results of their talks and to watch their aides sign several bilateral accords; held a sixth and final private meeting with the Soviet leader; flew to Brussels aboard Air Force One to brief U.S. allies, and returned to Washington in the evening, flying by helicopter from Andrews Air Force Base to the Capitol to report to the nation.

Despite his long working day, the 74-year-old Reagan appeared vigorous and rested as he delivered his speech. He faltered only once, when he apparently lost his place while switching from a Teleprompter to a written text to read a quotation from the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

During their meetings in Geneva, which began Tuesday morning, Reagan and Gorbachev spent more than five hours privately explaining their positions to each other.

Reagan reported to Congress that the United States “cannot afford illusions about the nature of the U.S.S.R. We cannot assume that their ideology and purpose will change. This implies enduring competition. Our task is to assure that this competition remains peaceful.”

No New Proposals

The Soviet leader presented no new arms proposals in Geneva, and Reagan did not budge from his commitment to seek development of his Strategic Defense Initiative, the project commonly known as “Star Wars” that the Soviets call a major obstacle to arms reduction.

Beyond arms control, the talks covered a broad range of U.S.-Soviet disagreements--from Afghanistan, where the Soviet army is fighting U.S.-backed Muslim rebels, to the rights of Soviet Jews and dissidents.

One senior U.S. official said Reagan brought up human rights in a low-key fashion in the private sessions but avoided attacking Gorbachev publicly on the issue--a piece of advice he received from former President Richard M. Nixon, who held three summit meetings with Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev.

Reagan aides said the wide focus of the talks represented something of a victory for the American side, which had sought to impress the Soviet leadership that the U.S. military buildup under Reagan stems from concerns over a host of issues.

‘Serious Differences Remain’

But it was clearly a disappointment for Gorbachev, who had said before the meeting that he had hoped Reagan could be persuaded to rethink his commitment to missile defenses.

The Soviet leader said he had warned Reagan: “The ‘Star Wars’ program will not only lead to a further arms race but it will mean that all restraint will be blown to the winds.”

In the joint statement issued during an ebullient ceremony before huge U.S. and Soviet flags in Geneva’s International Conference Center, the two leaders claimed their talks had produced “some greater understanding of each side’s view” but acknowledged that “serious differences remain on a number of critical issues.”

They then watched Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze sign five agreements on increased cultural and technical cooperation--accords that U.S. officials acknowledged had essentially been concluded well before the summit.

U.S. officials who accompanied Reagan to Geneva stressed not the formal accords but the personal rapport they said the two leaders achieved during the one-on-one talks--that totaled far more than the 30 minutes originally scheduled.

Asked how Reagan viewed Gorbachev, White House spokesman Larry Speakes said: “I think he liked him. The two got along well. They communicated. I think each understood where the other stood.”

Personal Stake in Ties

A senior Administration official said he believes both leaders felt a personal stake in finding a way to stabilize the chilly superpower relationship.

“They both wanted to prove they could better manage U.S.-Soviet relations--Reagan better than in his first term and Gorbachev better than the old guys” who preceded him in the Kremlin, the official said.

The private talks began on Tuesday, when a scheduled 15-minute chat before a crackling fire in the library of a 19th-Century mansion stretched into an hour. That was followed by more one-on-one sessions, with the two leaders accompanied only by two interpreters, until a final conversation shortly after the closing ceremony.

The two leaders also held morning and afternoon meetings both days with other members of their delegations, and lower-level U.S and Soviet officials met separately to pursue more specialized discussions.

Some aides worked late into the night; the teams working on the joint statement did not finish until 5 a.m. Thursday.

But the private meetings were the key.

“That was the best part--our fireside summit,” Reagan said.

“(The) length of time and the intensity and the frankness and the scope of what was talked about between the two by the fireside really went beyond anything I could have expected,” Shultz told reporters Thursday.

Gorbachev Comments

Gorbachev, calling the private sessions “frank (and) long,” added, “Sometimes we had sharp discussions, sometimes we had very sharp discussions.”

He said he told Reagan that if the United States went ahead with “Star Wars,” the Soviet Union would have no choice but to develop countermeasures. “Mr. President, we are not naive. We are not simpletons,” Gorbachev recalled saying. “Our response will be effective, less costly and in place more rapidly. . . . The scope of military rivalry would be considerably greater and the arms race could assume an irreversible direction.”

A senior U.S. official confirmed the Soviet leader’s account and described the exchange as one of the tensest moments of the summit.

Another senior U.S. official said the private talks covered not only arms control and other concrete issues such as human rights but also “where the United States is, what our international interests are (and) how we see the Soviet Union.”

The U.S. officials’ emphasis on Reagan’s new relationship with Gorbachev was particularly noteworthy because it came from an Administration that had long insisted that summit meetings were not essential to a stable world.

Shultz, who repeatedly rejected the idea last year of a “get-acquainted” summit as an insufficient reason to bring the world’s two most powerful men together, said Thursday, “It was just the kind of get-acquainted (meeting) we wanted.”

Remarkable Rhetoric

Equally remarkable was the chorus of conciliatory rhetoric from a President who, during his first term in office, called the Soviet Union an “evil empire . . . the focus of evil in the modern world,” led by men who “reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat.”

The summit thus marked Reagan’s evolution from a dogged foe of the policy of detente toward Moscow to a cautious proponent of negotiations “aimed at eliminating the distrust.”

Before leaving for Geneva, Reagan explained that he believed the time was right for negotiations now because of the success of his military buildup and the health of the U.S. economy.

“We do have a strength that we haven’t had in times before this, both military and economic,” he said.

Officials said a second important factor in the summit’s success was the rise to power of Gorbachev, a vigorous young leader who pursues global diplomacy and public relations with a surer touch than his ailing predecessors, Brezhnev, Yuri V. Andropov and Konstantin U. Chernenko.

“I found Mr. Gorbachev to be an energetic defender of Soviet policy,” Reagan told Congress. “He was an eloquent speaker and a good listener.”

‘Worthwhile’ Meeting

Reagan, calling the meeting “worthwhile for both sides,” said: “A new realism spawned the summit; the summit itself was a good start; and now our byword must be: Steady as we go. I am, as you are, impatient for results. But good will and good hopes do not always yield lasting results. Quick fixes don’t fix big problems.

“Just as we must avoid illusions on our side, so we must dispel them on the Soviet side. I have made it clear to Mr. Gorbachev that we must reduce the mistrust and suspicions between us if we are to do such things as reduce arms, and this will take deeds, not words alone. I believe he is in agreement.”

“We know the limits as well as the promise of summit meetings,” Reagan said. “This is, after all, the 11th summit of the postwar era--and still the differences endure. But we believe continued meetings between the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union can help bridge those differences.”

Arms Control Progress

Reagan reported that he and Gorbachev made “a measure of progress” in arms reduction talks. “We moved arms control forward from where we were last January, when the Soviets returned to the table. We are both instructing our negotiators to hasten their vital work. The world is waiting for results.

“Specifically, we agreed in Geneva that each side should move to cut offensive nuclear arms by 50% in appropriate categories . . . (and) we called for an interim accord on intermediate-range nuclear forces, leading, I hope, to the complete elimination of this class of missiles--all this with tough verification.”

Both countries had already put forth formal arms control proposals that included those measures, but the summit was the first time the two leaders had done so together.

Reagan again defended his “Star Wars” project and said Gorbachev had told him he feared it was a way for the United States “to put offensive weapons into space and establish nuclear superiority.”

The President said he had welcomed the chance to tell Gorbachev “we are a nation that defends rather than attacks, that our alliances are defensive not offensive. We don’t seek nuclear superiority. We do not seek a first-strike advantage over the Soviet Union. Indeed, one of my fundamental arms control objectives is to get rid of first strike weapons altogether.”

Reagan, after the morning ceremony in Geneva, flew first to Brussels, where he briefed leaders of allied nations at the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization before immediately reboarding his blue-and-white jet for the United States.

He landed at Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland and boarded an olive green helicopter for the short hop into central Washington. Although his helicopter touched down within a few feet of the marble steps of the east front of the Capitol, the President’s personal safety dictated that he duck into an armor-plated black limousine for a very short ride to a covered entrance.

The plaza in front of the Capitol, normally a parking lot, was cleared of cars to make room for the President’s helicopter.

It was only the second time a helicopter has landed at the Capitol. The first was in 1972 when President Richard M. Nixon returned from China to make a similar speech to Congress.

Inside the House chamber, members of Congress, the President’s Cabinet, members of the Supreme Court and a large contingent from the diplomatic corps were on their feet cheering.

Times staff writer Doyle McManus in Washington contributed to this story.