Free Daniloff, Reagan Tells Shevardnadze : President Demands Release in Meeting With Foreign Minister

President Reagan summoned Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze to an unannounced White House meeting Friday to demand the freedom of Nicholas Daniloff and to warn Moscow that espionage charges against the U.S. journalist have soured superpower relations.

White House spokesman Larry Speakes said that Reagan used the 45-minute meeting to “convey the strength of his feelings” about the refusal of Soviet authorities to allow Daniloff to return home.

Daniloff, the correspondent of U.S. News & World Report, was released from a Moscow prison on Sept. 12 but still faces criminal charges that carry the death penalty and has not been allowed to leave the Moscow area.

Letter from Gorbachev

Speakes added that Shevardnadze delivered to Reagan a letter from Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. U.S. officials refused to characterize the letter, but Radio Moscow, in an English-language report, said that Gorbachev wrote about arms control issues and his hopes for a summit meeting with Reagan. The letter apparently did not discuss the Daniloff case.

Shevardnadze was whisked to the White House in the midst of a daylong series of meetings with Secretary of State George P. Shultz. A senior State Department official said that Shultz and Shevardnadze met for 5 3/4 hours, about 3 hours accompanied only by interpreters and the rest of the time with senior aides.

The official said that the Daniloff issue was the primary focus of the long one-on-one meetings, but he said the matter remains unresolved.

‘What About Daniloff?’

As Shevardnadze was leaving the State Department after the afternoon session, reporters shouted: “What about Daniloff?” The Soviet official replied through an interpreter, “There is a possibility of resolving it.” When asked how, he pointed at reporters and responded cryptically, “Everything also depends on you.” He did not elaborate.

The State Department official said the two delegations began to review the overall U.S.-Soviet agenda during the session, which was attended by aides. The two sides are scheduled to meet again today to complete the first Washington-Moscow foreign ministers meeting in 10 months.

Originally, the session was expected to make arrangements for a Reagan-Gorbachev summit meeting later this year. But the corrosive effect of the Daniloff case has put that schedule--and prospects for a summit itself--in doubt.

After the talks, Shevardnadze told reporters that it was still “hard to say,” whether a summit would be held this year. “Give us time; give us a day,” he pleaded. “Tomorrow (Saturday) we will report the results.”

Radio Moscow said that Gorbachev, in his letter to Reagan, did not rule out a summit, but the broadcast charged that “the United States is implementing all its military programs and doesn’t appear to want agreement” on arms control and other issues. He accused “militarist circles making profits on the arms race” of trying to frustrate U.S.-Soviet talks, Radio Moscow said.

Gorbachev said the summit should be devoted to imposing a freeze on all nuclear weapons tests and to scrapping U.S. and Soviet intermediate-range missiles in Europe, the Soviet report said.

Although the United States has insisted on Daniloff’s release from the time he was arrested Aug. 30 by the KGB secret police, U.S. officials have been concerned that the Soviets did not realize how important the matter is to the Reagan Administration. Reagan delivered the message in person to underline its significance.

White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan told reporters that the President was “quite candid” and “frank” in telling Shevardnadze “that we view the Daniloff matter with a great deal of seriousness here.”

Regan insisted that U.S.-Soviet relations are not deadlocked but said that Shevardnadze now realizes how seriously Washington takes the Daniloff case.

Case Minimized

When he arrived Thursday in Washington, Shevardnadze minimized the importance of the case and implied that Washington should stop making such a fuss about it.

“Let me tell you this,” the Soviet foreign minister said Thursday. “Such incidents have happened before and may happen in the future in relations between states . . . . On such occasions it is important for political leaders to act wisely and with foresight that they do not impede normal relations between nations.”

Speakes said that Reagan plans to discuss the Daniloff case “with what I would call straight talk” in a speech to the U. N. General Assembly Monday. He said the speech will focus on East-West relations, including arms control, regional issues and human rights.

Although Shevardnadze said Thursday that he expected to meet Reagan, the White House meeting was not announced in advance. U.S. officials said the decision to invite the Soviet foreign minister to meet the President was not made until near the end of his first session with Shultz.

Speakes said that Shultz telephoned the White House to offer Reagan the option of meeting personally with the Soviet official.

Avoided Reporters

When Reagan approved the plan, Shultz and Shevardnadze left the State Department through an underground garage to avoid reporters huddled at the diplomatic entrance. When they reached the White House grounds, they were whisked through a back entrance to avoid reporters and photographers stationed on the driveway of the executive mansion.

Shultz then guided Shevardnadze on foot across the Rose Garden and through a break in the hedge into the Cabinet Room and on into Reagan’s private Oval Office.

The procedure seemed to be intended to minimize photographic and television coverage of the meeting, apparently because Reagan and Shultz did not wish to be shown welcoming the Soviet official. The State Department did permit photo coverage of the afternoon session when Shultz and Shevardnadze were joined by senior aides.

“I think we should meet more often,” Shevardnadze remarked to Shultz in Russian while photographers recorded the start of the afternoon round of talks.

The two foreign ministers met frequently last year to plan the November summit meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev in Geneva. But this was their first meeting this year. A meeting had been scheduled for May, but Moscow canceled it to protest the April 15 U.S. bombing of Libya.

Daniloff was arrested in Moscow after an acquaintance gave him a package that the KGB said contained secret military information. The United States maintains the arrest was a “frame-up,” apparently intended to obtain an American trade for Gennady F. Zakharov, a Soviet employee of the United Nations who was arrested by the FBI on espionage charges a week before Daniloff was seized.

Although Reagan has ruled out a spy swap of Daniloff for Zakharov on the grounds that Daniloff was framed and Zakharov was caught “red-handed,” the United States agreed to an interim solution releasing both men from jail into the custody of their nations’ ambassadors.