Nixon Talks to Gorbachev, Plans to Report to Reagan : Discussion ‘Detailed and Frank’

Richard M. Nixon and Mikhail S. Gorbachev had a long talk about U.S.-Soviet relations today near the end of a private visit by the former President that coincides with diplomatic efforts to schedule a new summit.

The official Tass press agency, in a three-sentence report also read on state television, said the one-hour, 40-minute meeting was at Nixon’s request and called the discussions “detailed and frank”--phrasing that usually indicates differences.

Nixon aide John Taylor declined to divulge details of the conversation but said Nixon will leave Moscow on Saturday and brief President Reagan when he returns to the United States.

A senior diplomatic source said the two nations were “looking toward” a September meeting of high-ranking ministers to prepare for the second summit between Soviet leader Gorbachev and President Reagan. They agreed in Geneva last November to meet this year in the United States.

Nixon Admired in Kremlin

Nixon, who is admired here for his role in forging East-West detente, met with Gorbachev in the Kremlin.

Taylor said Nixon, who has declined all requests for interviews, would not meet with reporters before leaving Saturday.

“We told President Reagan and the White House before we left there would be no news conference while we were in Moscow,” Taylor said. Instead, he said there would be a “private discussion” between Nixon and Reagan on his return.

The former President arrived Saturday for his first visit to the Soviet Union since 1974, when he met with the late Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev shortly before being forced out of office by the Watergate scandal.

Taylor called the current trip a private, fact-finding mission. He said Nixon spoke with Reagan by telephone before coming here, but was not carrying a message.

No Message From Reagan

The diplomatic source, who spoke on condition that his name and nationality not be revealed, also said Reagan had not sent a message with Nixon.

Earlier in the week, Taylor said Nixon was not seeking to meet with Gorbachev. Today’s session was not announced in advance.

There had been speculation that Nixon would see the Soviet leader, perhaps acting as an informal agent in the summit arrangements. His forced resignation in 1974 has not lessened his stature in the Kremlin.

Nixon also has met with President Andrei A. Gromyko, the Soviet foreign minister during his tenure in the White House, and Anatoly F. Dobrynin, who was ambassador to Washington for nearly 25 years and was brought home this spring to serve as the top foreign policy adviser.

Both Tass and Taylor said Dobrynin sat in on the meeting today.

Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze and Secretary of State George P. Shultz were to have met in May to arrange the second summit, but the Soviets canceled after the U.S. bombing of Libya on April 15.

Diplomatic Contacts

Soviet officials have said diplomatic contacts were under way to reschedule the meeting, and the diplomatic source said the two nations “are looking now toward sometime around the U.N. session” in September.

The Soviet foreign minister and American secretary of state normally meet during the General Assembly, but the source said both sides want “a meeting that would be more than just the general meetings they have around that time . . . one that would be preparation for a summit.”

He said his understanding was that “the only reason a date (for the ministers’ meeting) hasn’t been set up until now is that they (the Soviets) have some scheduling problems.”