Soviets Held Eager for Weapons Pact : Kremlin Fears Arms Race Would Harm Economy, U.S. Planners Say

With the reopening of the Geneva arms control talks less than a month away, U.S. strategists have concluded that the Kremlin wants to reach an agreement to prevent a costly arms race that could frustrate Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s plans for economic reform, according to Reagan Administration officials.

“It appears that Gorbachev has made the domestic economy his top priority,” one official said. “Economic reform will make such demands on resources that they can ill afford a renewed arms race.”

If that analysis is correct, U.S. policy-makers reason, Soviet negotiators can be expected to bargain in good faith when the Geneva talks resume Sept. 18 and when parallel talks between Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze get under way in Washington the next day.

Tough Negotiations Expected

Nevertheless, U.S. officials expect the negotiations to be tough. The Soviets can be counted on to press even harder than before for restrictions on the U.S. missile defense plan officially designated as the Stategic Defense Initiative (SDI) but popularly known as “Star Wars.” President Reagan has said the United States will not yield on that point, although he may ultimately change his mind if Moscow offers enough concessions in exchange.

Ever since the Geneva talks started last year, the Soviets’ chief objective has been to block or at least slow down “Star Wars.” Soviet officials maintain that the program--if successful--would give Washington an overwhelming strategic advantage.

If the Soviets approach the new round of talks with domestic economic considerations foremost, they can be expected to place even greater stress on preventing a race to develop missile defenses because the “Star Wars” program will cost far more than a new generation of offensive missiles.

An Administration official who asked not to be identified said the Soviets must realize that the United States has a long lead in the technology required for a missile defense program.

“Our potential to do it really does concern them,” the official said. “Key elements in the Soviet Union realize that they could not do it as fast as we could.”

The official noted that for the last three years--ever since Reagan first proposed the SDI program--the U.S. government has insisted that “Star Wars” will never be used simply as a bargaining chip.

‘Ultimate Bargaining Chip’

“If you ask us now if SDI will be a bargaining chip, we will insist that it will not,” the official said. But he quoted with apparent agreement a recent comment by former President Richard M. Nixon that SDI will be the “ultimate bargaining chip.”

The U.S. assessment of Moscow’s preoccupation with economic matters is based primarily on the prominence given the subject at a recent Communist Party congress. But the Soviet Union’s announcement Friday that it has applied for observer status, possibly a step toward full membership, in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and is considering joint industrial ventures with capitalist countries provides additional evidence of Moscow’s deepening economic concerns.

U.S. officials say that either step would be a sharp break with previous Soviet economic practice, possibly indicating how desperate Moscow has become in searching for solutions to pressing economic problems.

The United States opposes Soviet participation in GATT. But some officials in Washington are intrigued with the suggestion by Ivan D. Ivanov, head of the Soviet Foreign Ministry’s international economic section, that the Soviets might take the unprecedented step of allowing Western business management into the Soviet Union.

“We will have to see it to believe it that the Soviets really would let in significant Western management,” one official said. “A full joint venture does imply just that.”

Letter to Gorbachev

Reagan outlined the basic U.S. arms control position in a letter to Gorbachev on July 25. In it, according to informed sources, the President offered to share missile defense technology with Moscow as part of an overall agreement intended to rid the world of nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. The President also reportedly proposed an outright ban on offensive ballistic missiles.

The Soviet Union has not yet responded to the letter, but U.S. officials have no illusions that Moscow will accept it without proposing substantial changes.

There is strong evidence that the Soviets would prefer to ban “Star Wars” rather than rely on the United States to turn over technological secrets after the system is developed. And, while the idea of a prohibition on ballistic missiles--by far the most dangerous weapons in the inventory of each superpower--has a superficial appeal, Moscow is unlikely to jump at it because it would leave heavy long-range bombers, cruise missiles and forward-based tactical bombers as the only systems for delivering nuclear weapons. The United States has a substantial lead in those areas.

Arms control negotiations are taking place on at least three levels. First is a conference of experts which met first in Moscow earlier this month and will resume talks in Washington on Sept. 5. The purpose of these talks is to prepare the ground for the second level, the formal Geneva meetings, which reopen Sept. 18. The third level is a meeting scheduled for Sept. 19 and 20 in Washington between Shultz and Shevardnadze.

Arm Control Top Issue

The whole process could culminate in a Reagan-Gorbachev summit meeting in Washington later this year, probably late November or early December. The Soviets have said they want to see “solid” progress on arms control before they will agree to set a date for the summit. Although U.S. officials say they will resist Soviet calls for a “one-issue” summit confined to arms control, there is general agreement that arms control is more important than the other subjects on the proposed U.S. agenda--regional conflicts, bilateral issues and human rights.

Meanwhile, Administration officials sought to rebut published reports of conflict within the Administration on the U.S. approach to the arms control talks. One official said most differences were compromised before Reagan completed the draft of his July 25 letter to Gorbachev.

“When one takes out of context a single statement by Richard N. Perle (an assistant secretary of defense and a hard-liner on arms control), it looks impossible to reconcile with the State Department,” the official said. “But there is a continuous winnowing out process which leads ultimately to an agreed Administration position.”

The official said that in terms of settling internal conflicts, the Administration is “a month or a month and a half” ahead of the pace set last year in preparing for the first Reagan-Gorbachev summit, which took place in November in Geneva.