Kremlin Says U.S. Is Preparing Strike at Libya

The Kremlin accused the United States on Monday of preparing a blow at Libya as part of an aggressive doctrine of “new globalism” that could cool off relations that have warmed up since the Geneva summit meeting.

Vladimir B. Lomeiko, a spokesman for the Soviet Foreign Ministry, spared President Reagan and put the blame on unidentified “ruling circles” in Washington in an apparent effort to limit any damage to Soviet-American relations.

Pravda, the organ of the Soviet Communist Party, mounted a separate attack in an editorial that will appear in today’s issue.

Right-Wingers Denounced

Lomeiko said the Soviet Union is still satisfied with the results of the Geneva conference that brought Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev together with President Reagan in November. He said it is right-wing forces in the United States that are trying to block an improvement in relations between Washington and Moscow.

“Scared by the positive results of the summit, they have mounted an attack on its effects,” he said at a briefing for Soviet and foreign correspondents.

Lomeiko declined to say what the Soviet Union would do in the event of an American attack on Libya in retaliation for the terrorist attacks last month at airports in Rome and Vienna, in which five Americans and 10 other travelers were killed. He said he will not speculate on possible scenarios involving military action and added, “All our thoughts and all our actions are aimed at preventing conflicts.”

‘Imperialist Ambitions’

He charged that the United States has openly threatened Syria in recent days, and Nicaragua as well, either directly or through Israel. This, he said, stems from a revival of “imperialist ambitions” in the United States and a desire to display military superiority over the Soviet Union.

“The meeting between Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan created favorable preconditions for starting constructive dialogue on regional problems as well,” Lomeiko said at his briefing, “but influential forces are growing more active in the U.S.A. in a bid to prevent an improvement in Soviet-American relations.”

Western analysts said the Kremlin apparently considers it important to challenge Washington’s hard-line approach to Libya yet wants to avoid any direct attack on the President at this time. The Kremlin, they said, wants to give the impression that Reagan is not himself issuing orders for a military buildup against Libya but is a puppet of right-wing forces.

A Policy of Conflict

The Pravda editorial made the same points that Lomeiko did and in almost the same language. But it said that Secretary of State George P. Shultz is the architect of what it perceives to be a new U.S. policy that looks for some regional conflicts to continue.

“When the man in charge of U.S. foreign policy declares that there will be no universal peace, he says in effect that there will be no peace because the United States is not interested in it,” Pravda said.