U.S. Sending Experts to Moscow to Discuss Arms Control Issues

President Reagan will send a special delegation of arms control experts to Moscow on Monday to discuss issues at the center of the U.S.-Soviet negotiations in Geneva, the White House said Wednesday.

The delegation, which will include the leaders of the U.S. Geneva team, will meet with the Soviets “to discuss issues related to the negotiations on nuclear and space arms,” a White House statement said. The group is also expected to lay the groundwork for the Sept. 19-20 meeting of Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze.

Reagan said last week that the United States and Soviet Union would conduct a series of “working” meetings among middle-level officials to discuss arms control and other summit issues before Shultz and Shevardnadze meet. However, the Administration did not indicate 1952997748of its Geneva delegation, as well as other prominent arms control experts.

The delegation to Moscow will be led by Reagan’s top arms adviser, Ambassador Paul H. Nitze, and will include arms negotiators Max M. Kampelman, Edward L. Rowny, Ronald F. Lehman and Maynard W. Glitman. Also in the group are Assistant Defense Secretary Richard N. Perle and Col. Robert B. Linhard, special assistant to the President for national security affairs.

The inclusion of Perle in the group is particularly surprising because the assistant defense secretary, considered the Pentagon’s chief arms control expert, has taken one of the hardest lines in the Administration toward Soviet affairs in general and has been one of the most vociferous in his criticism.

“Basically, the arms controllers are going to try to grease the skids as much as they can” before Shultz and Shevardnadze meet and before the next round of arms negotiations in Geneva, said a well-placed State Department official who asked not to be identified. The two-year-old Geneva talks are scheduled to resume Sept. 18.

The official acknowledged the uniqueness of the group, which will include representatives from all facets of the Administration that are involved in arms control issues--and often in disagreement.

He said that Nitze and Kampelman could take part in low-key meetings in which they would sit down with Soviet officials to discuss arms control issues related to the summit.

However, the official added, such work could also be accomplished by Shultz and Shevardnadze, whose meeting will take place in Washington in anticipation of an expected summit conference later this year by Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.