Reagan’s Star Wars Offer Rejected by Shevardnadze : End ‘Deadly Gambling,’ He Urges

Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, responding to President Reagan’s U.N. address, today categorically rejected Reagan’s proposal to trade concessions on his “Star Wars” missile defense plan for deep cuts in U.S. and Soviet offensive arsenals.

At the same time, Shevardnadze urged the United States to “stop playing for insane stakes” and to halt its “deadly nuclear gambling.”

Speaking to the General Assembly one day after Reagan, Shevardnadze said a superpower summit remains a “realistic possibility” despite U.S.-Soviet differences over arms control.

Accusing Reagan of circumventing the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty with his plans for “Star Wars,” Shevardnadze said of the Strategic Defense Initiative, as it is formally known, “It serves to conceal an attack against the main pillar of stability--the ABM treaty.

“The intention is to get the treaty out of the way within the time frame of seven years. Everything is carefully calculated here, for it is precisely in seven years that they plan to prepare space weapons for deployment.”

In his U.N. speech Monday, Reagan, responding to a Soviet proposal to agree not to deploy such weapons for 15 years, offered a conditional pledge not to deploy any space-based missile systems for at least seven years.

1st Strike ‘May Be Last’

Shevardnadze said: “The answer is simple: Whatever is done to conceal it, the so-called defensive space shield is being developed for a first strike. The first strike may become the last one and not just for the country which is attacked.”

He also said: “Evil designs are being passed for good intentions and a sword for a shield. Let no one be misled by such talk.

“There is only one way out: While there is still time, before it is too late, to stop playing for insane stakes with no prospect of winning for anybody, to end once and for all this fateful deadly nuclear gambling,” Shevardnadze said.

The foreign minister also sharply criticized Reagan’s address to the Assembly as propaganda full of “misconceptions and prejudices.”

He said the Soviet Union is ready to sign “at any time and in any place” a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons tests.

Before addressing the Assembly, Shevardnadze met with Secretary of State George P. Shultz for 40 minutes in the office of the present U.N. Security Council president, Soviet envoy Alexander Belonogov.

Daniloff Discussed

Shultz refused any comment on the meeting afterward, but Shevardnadze told reporters that the case of Nicholas Daniloff, the U.S. News & World Report correspondent detained in Moscow since Aug. 30 on espionage charges, was discussed.

“Yes, we discussed it. There are good chances for solving this problem. I would stress good chances,” Shevardnadze told reporters. “Everything depends on the U.S. side.”

During his 60-minute speech at the United Nations, which was interrupted once by applause when Shevardnadze said nuclear powers should follow up words with deeds, the Soviet official did not mention the Daniloff case.

But he did say that despite U.S.-Soviet differences over arms control, a superpower summit is a “realistic possibility” if the Reagan Administration really wants one.

Shevardnadze criticized some of Reagan’s remarks Monday as “regrettable” but said the Soviet government is “far from regarding our relations with the United States as holding no promise.”

“Lately, encouraging outlines of meaningful agreements have been emerging,” Shevardnadze said. “A summit meeting is also a realistic possibility. We could move forward rather smoothly, if that is what the U.S. side wants.”