U.S., SOVIETS STILL MAKING CULTURAL EXCHANGE PLANS

Despite increased tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union in the wake of the U.S. air raid over Libya earlier this week, talks are continuing as part of the recently re-established cultural exchange program between the two countries.

One of the fruits of the agreepment signed by President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in Geneva in November is an appearance by the Kirov Ballet in Los Angeles in May.

“Usually, any change in Moscow policy takes about two or three days to filter down, so it remains to be seen. But it is our hope that the plans will go forward,” Stephen H. Rhinesmith of the U.S. Information Agency said Thursday.

“There have been statements of concern from (the Soviets), but the U.S.-Soviet relationship is of paramount importance to them--they want to keep it on track.”

Rhinesmith, who is coordinator of the President’s U.S.-Soviet Exchange Initiative, acknowledged the Soviets’ cancellation on Tuesday of a scheduled meeting next month between Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze. But, in a telephone interview from his Washington office, he said talks in Moscow are continuing “regarding the program we are planning for this year involving youth and citizen exchange.” As of Thursday, he said, “discussions are on track.”

“We’ve both been waiting a long time (to resume exchanges),” Rhinesmith said. “It’s been six years,” a reference to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980 that served to close the door on cultural exchange.

The Libyan crisis has been a cause of concern in the Soviet Union, he said. The Soviet government considers the Libyan situation to be “important in our bilateral relationship. They canceled the (Shultz-Shevardnadze) meeting because they saw it (the raid) as something that affected our relationship. We don’t. Yet, exchanges are made based on a political relationship.”

Rhinesmith said the United States is “committed to continuing the dialogue. It is our hope that all our plans will go forward.”

Those plans include--in addition to the Kirov visit at the Shrine Auditorium May 21-26--the resumption of flights by Aeroflot between Moscow and Washington. Flights are scheduled to resume April 29 with the arrival of Deputy Minister of Culture Georgiy Ivanov and a delegation of Soviet arts and museum officials who will make arrangements for an exhibition of Soviet Impressionist art, which will make a cross-country tour this summer.

Also on the exchange agenda are plans to bring a contingent of 10 Soviet teen-agers, to be joined by 10 American teen-agers, in a summer tour of U.S. space facilities as part of the Young Astronaut Program. This unprecedented tour is, according to Rhinesmith, “a major objective of the President within the context of the Geneva Initiative.”

Further cultural exchanges are in the planning stages, though Rhinesmith declined to give any details.