The Impasse Ends: The Summit : Each Side Looking for Sincerity, Reassurances in Iceland

The surprise meeting between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev will take place in Iceland in mid-October because each wants reassurance that the other is serious about overcoming the obstacles to new agreements on arms control and other major issues, a senior Administration official said Tuesday.

“The issues on which we are separated are very complex,” the official said, speaking to reporters on condition that he not be named. “The President’s objective is to make progress toward closing (the gap) on the issues. . . . We’ve had serious discussions, without polemics (in the past month), but not movement toward each other.”

Since Gorbachev unexpectedly proposed the meeting in a letter to Reagan on Sept. 19, the Soviets would appear to need reassurance more than the United States, the official said.

Progress Sought

Gorbachev repeatedly has declared that he should make his long-awaited summit visit to the United States only when prospects are good for substantive agreements and has suggested that he would not settle for a repetition of the rather barren outcome of his first meeting with Reagan in Geneva last year.

In Moscow, Anatoly F. Dobrynin, Gorbachev’s chief foreign policy adviser, told a recent American visitor that the Kremlin leadership is in something of a dilemma: It fears looking too weak in the face of Reagan’s hard-line policies but it also fears that momentum toward a full-blown summit would be irretrievably lost without some strong forward push.

The Reykjavik meeting, with its promise of opening the way to significant new agreements at a Washington summit later, would go at least part way toward satisfying the Kremlin’s concerns.

Reagan, for his part, will consider the Iceland meeting a success if two goals are met, the senior U.S. official said:

--If the two leaders set a date for Gorbachev’s summit visit to the United States.

--And if they narrow the list of issues now outstanding to “two, three or four issues that hold the greatest promise for progress” toward formal agreement at the Washington summit.

At the top of Reagan’s agenda will be reducing long-range offensive nuclear weapons, the official said, but the Soviets have resisted such cuts until the President agrees to curbs on his Strategic Defense Initiative, the so-called “Star Wars” program that is intended to perfect missile defenses.

Gorbachev’s recent letter objected to Reagan’s proposal to forgo deployment of a space-based defense system for at least seven years, during which intensified research, development and testing would be conducted.

The Soviets, for their part, probably will focus first on a total nuclear test ban, which the United States has rejected on the grounds that reliability tests of weapons will be required as long as the weapons are vital for deterrence.

Progress on these issues could be made at Reykjavik, but it is highly unlikely that they can be settled in a day and a half of meetings 10 days from now, the official indicated.

Differences Narrow

Instead, greater progress is likely on efforts to cut intermediate-range missiles based in Europe and Asia, he suggested. This issue is just below the top on both agendas. Important differences between the two sides remain but they are narrow enough to offer hope for some agreement in principle emerging from the Iceland meeting, according to arms control experts.

In particular, the two sides now seem prepared to reduce their intermediate-range missiles in Europe to 100 warheads on each side.

The United States wants the same 100-warhead limit on Soviet weapons in Asia, while retaining an equal number of intermediate range weapons in the continental United States. Moscow has offered only to freeze its Asian arsenal at the present level of 513 warheads (on 171 SS-20 missiles).

The two other sticking points are verification measures and shorter range nuclear missiles. The United States will insist on far more intrusive methods to monitor any agreement on these missiles--since they are mobile--than for monitoring the currently operational long-range missiles that are based in fixed silos. Washington also wants the additional short-range missiles moved into Eastern Europe by the Soviets in 1983 to be withdrawn.

Regional Issues on Agenda

Beyond arms issues, regional disputes in Third World areas such as Southern Africa, Afghanistan and the Middle East, will be discussed, as will be human rights concerns and bilateral U.S.-Soviet issues.

“Both sides have doubts about the sincerity of the other side,” the official said. “There’s nothing sinister in this . . . “ He predicted that the two leaders will “review what the (U.S. and Soviet) experts have been talking about, and out of the mix, see if they can’t agree on those subjects likely to yield the greatest progress at the (subsequent, longer) summit meeting.”

“We also need to discuss the Gorbachev trip (to the United States),” he added, “set the dates and make plans” for the discussions and travel by the Soviet leader. Setting dates will require officials on both sides to work harder to meet specific deadlines and force compromises both within each government and between the two governments, he suggested.

‘Operating in Good Faith’

Reagan believes he is “a good communicator,” the official said, “and he sees (in the meeting) the possibility of sitting down with Gorbachev and getting across the point that he is serious (about reaching new agreements) and operating in good faith.”

The President responded with notable alacrity to Gorbachev’s suggestion for the “preparatory” meeting. Gorbachev’s proposal came in the last paragraph of a letter to the President, which Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze delivered personally to the White House on Sept. 19.

Gorbachev proposed getting together in a different North Atlantic Treaty Organization nation, but quickly acceded to Reagan’s preference of Iceland as a less distant alternative. Reagan gave his approval the next day, conditioned on the release of U.S. correspondent Nicholas Daniloff from detention in Moscow.

Daniloff Link Denied

The senior official denied that the Iceland summit was part of the price Reagan paid for Daniloff’s release but he acknowledged that the President in the past has refused to meet with Gorbachev in a third country (neither the United States or the Soviet Union) and has said that a summit was not possible before the congressional elections Nov. 4.

The difference, he said, was that Gorbachev earlier had proposed such a meeting to consider a single issue--stopping all nuclear tests--which the President previously rejected, and that the proposal came before a series of U.S.-Soviet diplomatic meetings on various arms and regional issues.

Moreover, he said, the President refused to permit a summit meeting in the United States before the election because it would require too much of his time at a crucial period. When Gorbachev comes to this country, the President wants to hold substantive talks with him in Washington and “show him some of the country,” the official said.

The official denied reports that Reagan and his aides feared Gorbachev would inject foreign policy issues into the election to the detriment of Republican candidates.

The Iceland talks will take up only two days, the official said, including a 5- to 6-hour flight and a day and a half of meetings. He ignored, in his argument, the briefings and other preparations that the President undoubtedly will receive before the trip.

“We’ve always been flexible about the negotiation process,” he said. “Our tactics allow for adjustments here and there when there is a chance to make progress.”

At last November’s summit meeting in Geneva, Gorbachev accepted Reagan’s invitation to visit the United States in 1986, and Reagan agreed to visit the Soviet Union in 1987. It now appears highly unlikely that, following the Iceland meeting in October, Gorbachev will come to this country before the end of this year, but the official refused to rule it out.