U.S. May Focus on Verification : Question Vital to Arms Agreement, Shultz Says

With both sides indicating they are nearing an agreement on reduction of intermediate-range missiles in Europe, Secretary of State George P. Shultz said Sunday that President Reagan is prepared to raise the crucial issue of verification with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev at the summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, next weekend.

A system of verifying any reductions agreed upon by the two superpowers has always been a major stumbling block to success in arms control negotiations. And Shultz emphasized Sunday that “a good verification agreement” would have to be part of any arms reduction pact.

“And precisely what things are absolutely essential, we’ll have to work out,” said Shultz, appearing on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley.” Shultz added: “And I think these are the kind of testing things that perhaps the President might want to put to Mr. Gorbachev.”

The United States, with Defense Department officials taking the lead, has insisted on tough inspection provisions that could verify that missiles have actually been destroyed and not just stored.

The stationing of observation teams at missile factories to verify that additional missiles are not being produced also has been urged by Defense Department officials. Although the State Department has not been as insistent on that provision, Shultz said when asked about it Sunday, “It’s an important element in the picture.”

Shultz and other American officials say that while no arms reduction agreement can be expected to emerge from the Reykjavik summit, Reagan and Gorbachev can reach an understanding on some issues and transmit instructions to their arms negotiators in Geneva.

Gennady I. Gerasimov, a Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman, also appearing on the Brinkley show, agreed that the best opportunity for the superpowers to reach an arms reduction accord lies with the intermediate-range missiles in Europe. “Everybody says so,” he said.

Gerasimov said the Soviets’ No. 1 priority at the summit will be “to agree to stop nuclear tests and to talk about a test ban treaty.”

U.S. Tests ‘Necessary’

However, Shultz declared that nuclear testing by the United States is “necessary under current conditions.” He said the testing will continue “as long as we rely, as we do, on nuclear weapons as our primary deterrent against war.”

The Soviets also have insisted that the United States halt its Strategic Defense Initiative program to develop a space defense against nuclear missiles, but Shultz said he could not “conceive of any circumstances where the President would agree” to a moratorium on SDI (“Star Wars”) development.

“The President believes, and I certainly agree completely--and I think all his advisers do--that if we can get into the strategic balance a greater element of defense, it will be more stable, and therefore more desirable,” Shultz said. “And of course the more far-reaching your defense can be, the better off we would be. Since we think that is important and very significant, obviously we’re not going to agree to things that would inhibit it.”

At the summit, where Reagan and Gorbachev are scheduled to hold at least three, two-hour meetings, arms reduction is expected to dominate the agenda, although the President has insisted that their talks also include human rights, bilateral relations and regional conflicts, such as the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

For the most part Administration officials have tried to lower expectations about what the Reykjavik summit might produce, emphasizing that it is being held mainly to lay the groundwork for a full-scale summit to be held in the United States later this year or early next year.

Guarded Optimism

However, Shultz and Under Secretary of State Michael H. Armacost, who appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” were guardedly optimistic about the outcome of the Reykjavik summit. Shultz even suggested that it might produce some “constructive statements” by Reagan and Gorbachev on some of the issues that divide the two countries.

In answer to a question, Shultz said the climate is good for the summit to produce some movement on the issue of human rights.

Armacost said that in U.S.-Soviet exchanges leading up to the Reykjavik summit, there has been a lot of movement toward identifying areas in which progress is being made. The two sides have moved “pretty far,” he said, on such issues as chemical weapons proliferation and intermediate-range missiles.

“The chief issue for us,” he said, “is START (strategic arms reduction talks). We would like to see that issue pushed along. We’re not going to negotiate things in detail, we don’t expect negotiated agreements to emerge from Iceland. But the purpose would be to give instructions to negotiators to pursue in the form in which they are being discussed in detail.”