Gorbachev Says a Second Summit Is Not Guaranteed

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev said today there is no guarantee that he will meet President Reagan in a second superpower summit later this year, claiming that the United States has not moved toward an arms control agreement since the November Geneva summit.

In a series of written answers to questions posed by the Czechoslovak newspaper Rude Pravo and carried by the official Tass press agency, Gorbachev said: “We are for holding a Soviet-American summit, a summit that would be marked by a notable headway in solving only one or two of the substantial problems of international security.

“The all-or-nothing approach is alien to us. There is no sense in holding a meeting for the sake of nothing,” Gorbachev said in the remarks carried on Soviet television.

“If one pieces the U.S. Adminsitration’s post-Geneva policies together, the resulting picture is alarming,” he said.

Gorbachev said the Reagan Administration is trying to make the world believe that holding a summit has already been agreed on and that if one does not occur, the Soviet Union should be blamed.

“Nothing would be easier than to use the meeting for misleading people, lulling the public with pretenses that everything is all right while continuing a dangerous policy, and actually this is already sought to be done in presenting the matters in such a way as if the preparations for the meeting are in full swing,” he said.

“By feigning a lot of optimism to create the impression that everything is almost ready for the meeting, it is, possibly, sought to blame on the Soviet Union the results of one’s destructive policy,” Gorbachev said.

He said that the Soviet Union has gone far in trying to create a positive atmosphere with the view for a possible second summit and that now it is up to Reagan to reciprocate.

“This is why we believe that the ball is not in the Russian’s court, as the glib White House heralds claim, but in Ronald Reagan’s court,” Gorbachev said.