Soviet Politburo OKs Geneva Summit Work

The Communist Party Politburo on Monday approved the work of the Geneva summit, calling it the start of a new Soviet-American dialogue, but reiterated Soviet demands that the Reagan Administration drop its “Star Wars” project.

The 12-man ruling body, according to a statement distributed by the Tass news agency, did not comment on Reagan’s refusal to abandon the missile-defense research program, formally known as the Space Defense Initiative. But it referred to “the problem of prevention of the militarization of space” as the core of the security issues confronting U.S.-Soviet relations.

“The proposals of both sides have points of contact and make it possible to seek mutually acceptable decisions along the lines of drastically cutting nuclear arms on the condition of a ban on the deployment of space strike weapons,” the statement said.

It said that continuing U.S.-Soviet negotiations “should not serve as a justification on a cover-up of the arms race.”

But, despite its declared opposition to the U.S. space defense project, the Politburo said there are “no contradictions that would inevitably doom the Soviet Union and the United States to confrontation, let alone war.”

First Post-Summit Meeting

The statement came at the first meeting of the Kremlin inner circle since Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev returned from his meetings with President Reagan in Geneva.

Understandings reached in Geneva to continue and deepen the Soviet-American dialogue, including summit talks, are expected to play a “substantial role” in normalizing relations, the Politburo said.

It appeared to give its blessings, only slightly qualified, to the summit accords and a Gorbachev-Reagan statement declaring their willingness to meet again in 1986 and 1987.

In Soviet commentary on the meeting, however, there has been an undercurrent of disappointment with the lack of any progress on arms control issues.

Pravda, the official Communist Party daily, said the Geneva summit has opened the way for improved relations because both Reagan and Gorbachev have renounced nuclear warfare and quests for military superiority.

Commentator Disappointed

“Of course, it would be far better if the Geneva meeting came up with an agreement on cardinal problems of ending the arms race,” political news analyst Vsevolod Ovchinnikov wrote in Pravda. “This, regrettably, did not happen.”

The Politburo said it “fully approved” the work done by Gorbachev at Geneva and the joint statement he signed with Reagan pledging that neither the United States nor the Soviet Union will ever fight a nuclear war.

“In this respect, the results of the talks in Geneva can have a positive effect on changing the political and psychological climate in present-day international relations and lessen the risk of an outbreak of a nuclear war,” the statement said.

“The meeting has marked the beginning of a dialogue with a view to achieving changes for the better in Soviet-American relations and in the world as a whole,” the statement concluded.