American, Soviet Arms Experts to Meet Again, Probably in U.S.

Soviet and U.S. arms negotiators will meet again soon to follow up on talks just concluded in Moscow, which the White House on Wednesday called “serious, substantial and businesslike.” But no new ground was broken.

Despite the absence of new agreement, White House spokesman Larry Speakes expressed optimism that planning for the next summit meeting between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev is still on track.

“We remain committed to our invitation to a summit in the United States later this year,” Speakes said, although he admitted that the Administration’s optimism “falls more in the realm of hope than anything else, because we simply haven’t had a definitive answer from the Soviets.”

Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze are scheduled to meet Sept. 19 and 20 in a session that White House officials hope will produce an official announcement of a summit date.

The current round of expert-level talks is intended to lay the groundwork for the Shultz-Shevardnadze meeting. Speakes said the negotiating team that traveled to Moscow for closed-door talks will meet with Soviet negotiators “in the near future,” probably in Washington, with the exact timing to be determined through diplomatic channels.

An Administration official who briefed reporters on the grounds that he not be identified said there had been no expectation of a breakthrough in the Moscow preliminary talks. He said the format called for an exchange of ideas and did not really encourage hard bargaining.

Nevertheless, he said, the fact that the Soviets initiated the talks and were willing to follow up with a second session is “definitely a sign for some optimism.”

Reagan said last week that he had agreed to a Soviet “work plan” of preliminary meetings to pave the way for a summit. The Soviets have expressed a desire that the next superpower summit go beyond smiles and handshakes and produce concrete agreement.

The delegation dispatched to Moscow was headed by special arms adviser Paul H. Nitze and stacked with top Administration figures such as Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard N. Perle. The concentration of high-level officials sparked speculation that the meeting would produce substantive results.

The Administration official insisted that was never in the cards, that “you’re looking more toward atmospherics than you are to serious movement” in such a meeting. He said the high officials were chosen to reflect the priority the Administration places on continued momentum toward a summit.

Nitze is expected to brief Reagan at the White House this week on his impressions of the Moscow meeting, which focused on the recent exchange of letters between Reagan and Gorbachev setting forth their arms control proposals .

In separate talks that Speakes called “complementary,” a Soviet delegation headed by Vitaly A. Mikolchak, deputy director of the U.S.A. Department of the Soviet Foreign Ministry, arrived at the State Department on Wednesday for discussions on such issues as human rights, cultural exchanges and a new consular agreement.

The intense diplomatic activity is a dramatic change from Reagan’s first term, when U.S.-Soviet relations were at a virtual standstill. The State Department talks are expected to touch on regional issues as well, including the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.