Says Gorbachev ‘Is Beating Us to Death in World Public Opinion’ : Hart Charges Reagan Isn’t Serious About Arms Control

Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.) accused President Reagan on Friday of not being serious about arms control and declared that Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who proposed earlier this week that the superpowers eliminate their nuclear arsenals by the end of the century, “is beating us to death in world public opinion.”

Hart, considered the early front-runner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination, also blamed Reagan for runaway budget deficits that threaten “desperate times.” He said that the President “may have to get serious about arms control” and overhaul his notions about the nation’s priorities or remain an “irrelevant player” in efforts to reduce the deficits.

The senator’s harsh attack on Reagan, made during a breakfast session with reporters here, came two weeks after he announced that he will not seek reelection to the Senate this year, clearing the way for him to campaign full time for the presidency. He has said that he will not announce whether he is a presidential candidate until after the November congressional elections.

Response to Soviet Offer

Reagan, in response to Gorbachev’s latest arms control offer, said that many of its elements are unchanged from previous Soviet proposals and continue to cause concern. At the same time, he called the offer “a helpful further step” toward arms control and promised to give it “careful study.”

But Hart, saying that he does not believe the Reagan Administration “believes fundamentally in arms reduction,” declared that Gorbachev is not only winning the battle for world opinion but is also leading the United States on the merits of his arms control posture.

The defense build-up pressed by Reagan and Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, Hart said, has included a “dramatic shift from conventional to nuclear arms.” The United States, he said, has had to “bleed conventional sources to maintain the Reagan-Weinberger nuclear build-up” and now needs to modernize its conventional forces and make them its first line of defense.

Hart said he cannot understand how Reagan can remain so popular while making so many of what Hart called “misstatements” and “contradictory statements” on major issues. Other political figures would “get their heads taken off” by critics, he said.

Sees ‘an Orwellian Quality’

“There’s an Orwellian quality about the President that I haven’t figured out,” he said, “the standing of truth on its head and blatant contradictions of past statements and flat misunderstanding of facts, whether consciously or unconsciously.” He said that no other politician could get away with first questioning the loyalty of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and then praising him for his contributions to the country.

A reporter, suggesting that Reagan’s affability might account for his success, asked whether Hart liked the President.

“I don’t know him,” the senator replied. “I met him only once, for 30 seconds. I’ve been in the White House once in five years--to hear him read a statement supporting the MX (missile).”

Hart said that he will work in the Senate to repeal the Gramm-Rudman Act, which requires across-the-board spending cuts if federal deficits exceed annual ceilings that decline to zero by 1991.

He said he doubts that the political climate will be right for repeal until the act cuts deeper than the 4.3% reductions in non-defense programs that the Reagan Administration announced Wednesday. But he warned that those cuts will prove to be “peanuts” compared to those that are likely to be made for fiscal 1987.