Geneva Talks Resume, Focus on Soviet Offer

Against a backdrop of cautious optimism and expressions of good will, the United States and the Soviet Union resumed their elusive search for a nuclear arms agreement here Thursday, meeting for over two hours in a session dominated by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s proposal to eliminate nuclear weapons by the end of the century.

Thursday’s session was the first meeting of U.S. and Soviet negotiators since Gorbachev and President Reagan agreed at their summit meeting here last November to accelerate the pace of negotiations.

The Gorbachev plan, announced Wednesday in Moscow, provided a basis of discussion that U.S. officials have said they had not anticipated. Gorbachev also said the Soviet Union would extend for three months a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing that had been in force since last August.

‘Spirit of Geneva’

The mood was noticeably upbeat inside the Soviet Mission where the first meeting was held, with both sides apparently eager to build on the so-called “Spirit of Geneva,” created by the friendly Reagan-Gorbachev summit.

Moscow’s chief negotiator, Viktor P. Karpov, with a broad smile, greeted the leader of the American delegation, Max M. Kampelman, at the door to the mission.

Ushering the Americans into a larger room than had been used in previous sessions, he told Kampelman, “I hope this room will prove not only to be more spacious but will also assure more space for a creative search for a solution.”

Kampelman told Karpov that the U.S. delegation is in a constructive mood and is anxious to reach agreements that would remove the threat of nuclear war.

Speaking to reporters minutes before the session began, Karpov predicted that the Gorbachev plan, which proposes a three-step timetable for elimination of all nuclear weapons by the year 2000, would be central to the current round of negotiations.

“We will introduce these proposals today because we feel (they) are the key points for our discussions here,” he said.

He said a 50% reduction in both the Soviet and American strategic weapons arsenal is the most important initial task of the talks. At the summit, Reagan and Gorbachev agreed in principle to such a reduction and it is included in the first phase of Gorbachev’s new plan.

In the Gorbachev proposal, however, it is linked to the United States’ stopping short of “development, testing and deployment” of its Strategic Defense Initiative program involving space-based weapons that could destroy enemy missiles in flight.

Nevertheless, U.S. officials noted Wednesday that the Gorbachev outline omits the previous Soviet demand that research on the so-called “Star Wars” program must also be prohibited.

The first phase would also include a nuclear test ban and elimination of U.S. and Soviet intermediate-range weapons based in or aimed at Europe.

The second phase would involve a freeze on the nuclear arsenals of other nations and the scrapping of all tactical nuclear weapons with a range of up to 600 miles. In the final phase, all remaining nuclear weapons would be eliminated.

Members of the U.S. delegation here declined to comment publicly on the talks or the Gorbachev proposal. But in Washington, President Reagan added to his comments Wednesday that some parts of the proposal “may be constructive.”

In a brief exchange with reporters during a photo session Thursday, the President said he is encouraged by the Soviet proposal.

“It’s different than things we’ve heard in the past from leaders in the Soviet Union,” he said. “It is just about the first time that anyone has ever proposed actually eliminating nuclear weapons.”

‘Grateful for the Offer’

He added, “We’re very grateful for the offer. We’re studying it with great care and it is going to depend now on what takes place in Geneva.”

Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, speaking at a Pentagon news conference, appeared less enthusiastic.

“There are some . . . things in it that we find very worrisome,” he said. Among these are “the continued linking of any arms reduction agreements to a ban, effectively speaking, on any kind of our proceeding with the Strategic Defense Initiative program.”

Weinberger said: “There are elements in it that you could say--if you want to understate it--give people some concern. A great deal of it is not in any way new. A great deal of it is a restatement of what they have said many times. We have proposals on the table at Geneva that would enable a lot of these points to be reached.”

The Administration has previously made clear its lack of enthusiasm for the Soviet proposal that both nations declare a moratorium on nuclear testing, and Weinberger said that “we think testing is important if the weapons are still possessed by anybody.”

Besides, he added in reference to the Soviets’ unilateral testing moratorium, “They’ve made all their preparations to resume testing at a day’s notice.”

‘Increasingly Positive’

At the White House, presidential spokesman Larry Speakes repeated the Administration’s hopes that Gorbachev’s latest offer will continue “an increasingly positive process of give and take” in the arms negotiations. But he, too, mentioned the U.S. objections to the “Star Wars” linkage.

In Moscow, Gorbachev re-emphasized that theme Thursday, insisting that Washington must scrap its program.

“Peaceful cooperation of states and peoples, and not preparation for ‘Star Wars’--such is the way we understand mankind’s approach to the question of space,” he said in a message delivered to a peace conference in Warsaw.

“Peaceful space is an important precondition for banishing the war danger from the life of people,” he said.

But in a commentary, the official Novosti news agency said that Reagan’s initial response to Gorbachev’s proposal indicated that there are “points of contact in the Soviet and American positions in arms control.”

“The resuming Soviet-American nuclear and space arms talks in Geneva will show whether these points of contact can be translated into agreements and practical measures,” Novosti said.

On-Site Inspection

Speakes, too, singled out some aspects of the plan as “constructive.” One that he mentioned was the offer of on-site inspection of underground nuclear test sites, although such inspection was associated with the moratorium on testing in the Soviet offer.

The Administration also welcomed the Soviet call for a separate agreement to eliminate U.S. and Soviet intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe, excluding the British and French missiles from the U.S.-Soviet negotiations. But Speakes noted that the Administration wants to reduce and eliminate “globally” all intermediate-range missiles, including those Soviet SS-20 missiles in Siberia that could quickly be moved across the Ural Mountains into Europe.

Finally, the Soviets “mentioned ideas,” Speakes said, for accelerating talks in other arms control fields such as chemical weapons, confidence-building measures in Europe and mutual force reductions of conventional troops and arms across Central Europe.

“We hope they will explain their ideas fully in those negotiations as well,” he said.

The reservations about the Gorbachev plan being expressed by Administration figures are some of the issues being negotiated in Geneva. Despite U.S.-Soviet agreement on the need for the deep cuts in strategic weapons, important differences of definition and detail that have divided the two countries in the past are likely to remain substantial stumbling blocks at the negotiating table.

Differences on Bombers

For example, the Soviets consider U.S. short-range bombers and attack missiles based in Western Europe strategic weapons, while the United States says they are not.

Timing is another problem area. Gorbachev’s plan calls for the elimination of all nuclear missiles in Europe within a 10-12 year period, a pace that the United States may consider unrealistic without an accompanying reduction of the Soviet Bloc conventional forces there.

The Western allies consider their nuclear forces in Europe to be a balance for the greater strength of Warsaw Pact conventional forces.

In his remarks before Thursday’s session, Karpov highlighted the apparent change in the Soviet position on the French and British nuclear arsenals.

“We, as part of the first stage of delivering the world from nuclear weapons, agree that we can get rid of American and Soviet missiles in Europe,” Karpov said. “That’s a part of that (Gorbachev’s) statement.”

However, the Gorbachev initiative calls for a freeze of British and French weapons at a time when both countries are engaged in expanding their nuclear arsenals.

While Moscow’s chief arms negotiator had some tough words for the President’s Strategic Defensive Initiative, calling it “very dangerous” and stating that banning such systems was an important part of arms reduction, he reaffirmed Moscow’s position that SDI research would not block an interim agreement on intermediate-range missiles.

The latest Soviet proposal is almost certain to alter the pace and tone of the current round of arms talks. Those familiar with the negotiating process had expected the early weeks of the current round to be exploratory, a time for filling in gaps and clarifying many of the statements made by the leaders of the two countries since the talks recessed last November.

Since the arms talks began last March, the Soviets and the United States have each presented two major plans, but little progress has been made on any of them. But on Thursday, both sides appeared eager to get to work.

Times staff writers Robert C. Toth and James Gerstenzang, in Washington, contributed to this article.