White House Scales Back Expectations for Superpower Talks in Iceland

White House officials, concerned that expectations for the scheduled superpower meeting in Iceland next weekend may be too high, said Friday that President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev may not conclude their two-day session with a joint statement, as they did at the Geneva summit last year.

In addition, the officials say, there is only “an outside possibility” that the two leaders will set a firm date for a full-scale summit in Washington later this year or early next.

“If you’re working toward a joint statement, you spend your time drafting a joint statement instead of (in) discussions,” White House spokesman Larry Speakes said. “We want this to be businesslike, personal, face-to-face discussions.”

Early Talk of Agreement

When the meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, was announced earlier in the week, some Administration officials told reporters that they would not consider it a success unless it produced an agreement in principle on some aspect of arms control and arrived at a date for a follow-up summit in Washington.

Their change in thinking reflects concern that the two leaders may not be able to live up to the euphoria sparked by the surprise announcement of their second meeting in less than a year.

“The President believes that this is not the time for public rhetoric but instead is the time for private talk,” Speakes told reporters, confirming that the Administration is asking the Soviets to join a news blackout during the talks to promote candor and limit media speculation about what they may be accomplishing.

Stress on Personal Diplomacy

Under such an arrangement, top officials would brief reporters only on such peripheral matters as the length of a meeting or the pleasantries that have been exchanged. In Geneva, U.S. officials outlined such a formula, which was designed to stress the personal diplomacy between Reagan and Gorbachev and withhold substantive information until the conclusion of the session.

That, however, was not the way things worked last November. The Soviets moved quickly into the media spotlight, holding a wide array of public briefings and initiating individual contacts with American and other reporters. As a result, U.S. officials found themselves being outmaneuvered on the public relations front and began to hold substantive briefings of their own.

By the time the two leaders had signed a cultural accord and disclosed an “agreement in principle” that set a framework and goals for their arms control negotiators, at least some of the information had already been reported in the press.

‘Narrow the Differences’

In Iceland, Speakes said, the Administration’s goal will be to “narrow the differences that separate the United States and the Soviet Union” on arms control and other issues, including human rights and regional conflicts in Afghanistan, Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

“We will be satisfied with the Iceland meetings if we accomplish better understanding,” Speakes said.

Meanwhile, in Moscow, Gorbachev on Friday said he had proposed the meeting in Iceland because of concern about the arms race, particularly President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, the research program for a space-based missile defense.

‘A Step to War’

Making his first public comments on the meeting, Gorbachev said: “The militarization of outer space is a step to war. The arms race makes the partition between peace and war ever thinner. . . . Our proposal to Ronald Reagan to hold a working meeting . . . was prompted precisely by these considerations.”

Gorbachev, in a brief ceremonial speech at the unveiling of a monument to the late German Communist Party leader Ernst Thaelmann, repeated Moscow’s call for large-scale reductions in nuclear weapons and a halt to nuclear testing.

“We have one and the same objective here (in Iceland),” he added, “the realization of our accords reached in Geneva with the President of the United States.” At their summit in Geneva, the two leaders agreed to give new impetus to the arms control negotiations now under way in Geneva.

Could Lead to Agreement

At a press briefing Friday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Boris Pyadyshev said the Reykjavik meeting could lead to an agreement on a joint moratorium on nuclear testing.

“As we see it, it is fully possible for the leaders at Reykjavik to give directions to work out an agreement on a complete cessation of nuclear testing,” Pyadyshev said.

At briefings earlier this week, Pyadyshev and other Soviet officials had identified the reduction of intermediate-range missiles and a ban on nuclear tests as areas where progress could be made at Reykjavik. At the very least, the officials said, Reagan and Gorbachev could give new instructions to arms negotiators to speed up final agreement.

In Washington, an official who spoke on the condition that he not be identified said the Soviets “know there’s no chance of an arms control agreement” resulting from the Oct. 11-12 talks in Reykjavik. However, he said, the talks could end with “a handshake and an agreement in principle” that could lead to an accord that would be signed at a follow-up summit in Washington.

Same Impression

“Gorbachev has the same impression we do,” this official said, “that maybe the two of them personally can hammer out some of the differences and make the road smoother toward an eventual agreement.”

The two days of talks will concentrate on private, one-on-one sessions between Reagan and Gorbachev, a feature that helped make their meeting in Geneva--dubbed the “fireside summit” because they met privately before a roaring fire--a success.

Gorbachev proposed the October meeting in a private letter to Reagan that was delivered to the White House by Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze on Sept. 19. Speakes said that Gorbachev asked for “a private, small, quick meeting with the President.” It was in that spirit, Speakes said, that the Administration was proposing a news blackout.

‘Hold Down the Rhetoric’

“What we want to do is hold down the rhetoric,” another official said. “This is a private meeting between the President and General Secretary Gorbachev. . . . People are just hyping this up too much.”

But dampening down the inevitable expectations that surround a superpower summit meeting may well prove an impossible task for White House planners. By Friday, 355 journalists wishing to cover the meeting had signed up for a chartered press flight that can accommodate 195 people--an indication of the intense interest in the meeting.