U.S., Soviets Sign Exchange Agreements

The United States and the Soviet Union today announced the signing of 13 exchange agreements that officials said could restore cultural, health and educational contacts between the two nations to the levels of the 1970s.

Under the agreements, worked out during a one-week visit by a Soviet delegation, Soviet and American art exhibits will be exchanged, more students will study in each other’s countries, and joint research and programs will be undertaken.

“This is just the beginning,” said Stephen H. Rhinesmith, coordinator of the U.S. exchange initiative.

President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev agreed at their summit meeting in Geneva last year to renew cultural exchanges, which had proliferated during the days of detente in the 1970s but had been cut drastically after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December, 1979.

Continued Development

Rhinesmith told a news conference that in addition to the 13 agreements signed during the last week, both sides identified 19 additional areas for continued development.

He said he envisioned an increase in the number of performing-arts exchanges compared to the 1970s, roughly the same level of educational exchanges and perhaps new initiatives not undertaken in that period.

“In the last six years, a lot of things have atrophied,” he said.

Among the major exchanges set by the agreement are an exhibition of Russian paintings from 1840-1910 in the United States beginning in October and a similar group of U.S. paintings in the Soviet Union during 1987 and 1988.