Reagan Offers 7-Yr. Delay in Star Wars Deployment : But Says Daniloff Casts Pall

President Reagan said today he is ready to sign an agreement with the Soviet Union delaying deployment of his “Star Wars” missile defense system for seven years and offered to consider interim cuts in superpower arsenals.

But he said Moscow’s continued detention of American reporter Nicholas Daniloff on alleged spying charges has cast a pall over U.S.-Soviet relations.

He told the U.N. General Assembly that the world expected better and called Daniloff “an innocent hostage.”

“He was arrested and jailed in a callous disregard of due process and numerous human rights conventions,” Reagan said as he opened his fourth consecutive address to the assembly’s fall session.

During the President’s reference to the case, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze and the Soviet delegation sat stony-faced. Shevardnadze will speak to the assembly Tuesday.

Soviet Response

After stressing that Daniloff must be released, Reagan discussed publicly for the first time U.S. arms proposals contained in a letter he sent to Gorbachev on July 25.

He acknowledged that Shevardnadze had delivered a reply last Friday but said only that his Administration is giving it serious and careful consideration.

Turning to “Star Wars,” or the strategic defense initiative, Reagan said he is ready to sign an agreement immediately if the superpowers can reach common ground on reducing strategic offensive weapons.

He noted that he had sought a 50% reduction in superpower arsenals but said, “If the Soviet Union wants only a lesser reduction, however, we are prepared to consider it, but as an interim measure.”

Gorbachev wrote to Reagan last June suggesting a 15-year commitment to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in return for a 30% reduction in nuclear missiles.

The treaty as it stands would limit America’s “Star Wars” plan for a space- and land-based missile defense system that is bitterly opposed by the Kremlin.

Share Technology

But Reagan today offered a seven-year U.S. commitment to the ABM treaty by offering to sign a new agreement limiting the strategic defense initiative to research, development and testing through 1991.

After that date, the two sides would be required to share the resulting technology and further negotiate the elimination of offensive weapons.

If there were no agreement after two years, either side would be free to deploy an advanced strategic defensive system after giving six months’ notice.

U.S. scientists have said that SDI could not be deployed within seven years.

Reagan credited the Soviet Union with embracing the U.S. idea of radical reductions in offensive systems and said there had been movement in arms control.

He also repeated his goal of elimination of intermediate-range nuclear forces but said that if Moscow is interested in pursuing this in stages, “we are prepared to conclude an interim agreement without delay.”