Gorbachev Seen Testing Reagan : Wants to Judge Chances for Later Accords

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev wants a quick meeting with President Reagan to judge for himself the chances for an agreement on reducing medium-range missiles and to bolster his domestic standing, Soviet and Western diplomatic sources believe.

The conference in Reykjavik, Iceland, next weekend will also provide the Kremlin with a good reason to postpone a summit meeting in the United States until spring of next year, some analysts say.

Gorbachev has been uneasy about setting a date for his expected visit to the United States without ironclad assurance that one or more arms agreements can be signed. Putting off such a trip to early 1987, the analysts say, would give negotiators at the bogged-down arms control talks in Geneva time to work out the details in the next few months--if Reagan and Gorbachev agree on the general principles.

Soviet Strategic Edge

Few Soviet officials expect any progress on the Kremlin’s demand for a halt in Reagan’s space-based missile defense system--the Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars,” program. Nor is there much hope for agreement on reducing the level of strategic arms, including the largest land-based intercontinental missiles, an area in which the Soviet Union holds an advantage.

As Moscow sees it, Soviet-American relations are at a decisive crossroads and only a top-level push can ensure that they go down the right path.

Yuri Zhukov, senior commentator for Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper, put it this way:

“We are having a critical moment, when only super-powerful impulses are capable of bringing the dangerously procrastinated negotiations on nuclear and space arms out of deadlock, and to find ways for improving the international situation.”

Mid-Range Chance

Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze have met for more than 25 hours and they presumably roughed out a mutual approach to arms control.

Both sides said after the series of meetings that the best chance for success lies in reducing the number of intermediate-range Soviet SS-20 missiles targeted on Western Europe from sites in the Soviet Union and East European nations and the American Pershing 2 and cruise missiles now based in Western Europe, aimed at the Soviet Bloc.

According to Soviet sources, Gorbachev, rather than place all his hopes on Reagan endorsing the work of Shultz and Shevardnadze at a summit meeting in the United States, would prefer to nail down the outlines of a deal with the President himself.

The open split between Shultz and Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, who takes a more hard-line approach to arms control, adds to Gorbachev’s concern about future U.S. policy, these sources said.

Test-Ban Effort

Gorbachev for months has been trying to get Reagan to a meeting on the sole issue of suspending nuclear tests, as the Soviet Union has done for the last 14 months. But the President has brushed these suggestions aside, and the United States has continued to test nuclear weapons.

Significantly, human rights issues, regional conflicts--including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan--and bilateral relations will also be on the agenda at Reykjavik, at Reagan’s insistence.

No doubt, however, Gorbachev will raise the test ban issue that he has been championing for a year or more, even though there seems little hope of an accord in this area. It may get him off the hook with an increasingly restive Soviet public that sees little reason why Moscow should refrain from nuclear tests while explosions continue at the U.S. proving grounds in Nevada.

“You can’t fight a sword with an olive branch,” a Pravda reader said in a letter, referring to the unilateral Soviet moratorium.

Readers Questions

The newspaper said in a commentary that many of its readers have questioned the most recent extension of the moratorium, now scheduled to expire Jan. 1. But it said the decision to suspend testing was in the best interests of peace, without sacrificing Soviet ability to preserve military parity with the United States.

Red Star, the newspaper of the Soviet armed forces, has raised more questions about the moratorium than other government publications. A recent article, under the headline “Paying a High Price for Moratoria,” said that the United States had taken a series of actions to bolster its military forces after the Soviet test ban was announced.

It mentioned the modernization of the American B-52 bomber, testing of the MX missile and an anti-satellite weapon, and a series of other nuclear weapons tests.

Pravda, in an article on the same theme, said the decision last August to extend the moratorium was a “hard” judgment. It said that many Soviet citizens, undeniably patriots, were asking if Soviet military security was at risk.

Critics Preempted?

Gorbachev, by scheduling an early meeting with Reagan where this issue will be on the table, may have preempted his critics and given himself more freedom of action in the future.

Moreover, by moving dramatically into the world spotlight at Reykjavik, he can enhance his carefully polished reputation for innovative diplomacy, analysts say. Clearly, he does not want to have an image as “Mr. Nyet,” as former Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko was known.

Gorbachev has run into heavy resistance to his attempt to revolutionize the sluggish economy and modernize backward industrial plants. He has asked the Soviet people for years of hard work and sacrifice and, so far, he has acknowledged, progress is “slow, perhaps very slow,” in many areas.

With little cost to himself, Gorbachev can buy some time to work out an arms control agreement that would release more funds for domestic purposes and at the same time increase his political standing--at home and abroad.

Options Open

Even if the meeting in Iceland is less than a success, Gorbachev will not be in a bad position. He can say that he tried his best in a face-to-face meeting with the American leader but failed to reach agreement because of Reagan’s obstinacy.

One Western diplomat here credits Gorbachev with sincerity in his oft-expressed wish for a return to detente and better Soviet-American relations.

“I think he wants the summit to succeed, and the way to do that is to make sure there is an arms control agreement within reach,” the diplomat said.

“If he went to the United States and came back empty-handed, he would come under heavy criticism at home. Since expectations are low for Reykjavik, there is little or no risk in going there to test the waters.”

Without an improvement in Soviet-American relations, another diplomat said, it will be more difficult for Gorbachev to make rebuilding the Soviet economy his main effort.

Finessing Human Rights

A Soviet source, with connections to Kremlin policy-making institutions, said that one Gorbachev objective at Reykjavik is to try to dispose of longstanding American complaints in the human rights field.

The aim is to prevent such emotional and controversial issues from arising at a summit conference in the United States, the source said. But Western diplomats doubt that the Kremlin will be able to defuse this issue entirely with pre-summit concessions.

Shultz has described as “abysmal” the Soviet record on human rights, and as “terrible” its attitude toward emigration. Jewish emigration is running below 1,000 a year, compared to the peak level of 51,000 in 1979, and Jewish groups in the United States have complained of a severe crackdown on the teaching of Hebrew in Moscow and Leningrad.

The expected release from internal exile in Siberia of Yuri Orlov, the founder of a group formed to monitor Soviet compliance with the human rights provisions of the 1975 Helsinki accords, is not likely to satisfy critics of the Soviet regime’s repression of dissent.

But any response toward meeting Western protests on this subject would be a change from the standard Soviet reply that such matters are “internal affairs” and not suitable for international discussion.