Soviets Upbeat in Iceland, Drop ‘Imperialist’ Charges : Dignitaries, Cold Rain Greet Reagan on Arrival

President Reagan arrived in a cold, pounding rain in Iceland on Thursday night for his hastily scheduled and widely questioned summit conference with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

The President, his overcoat buttoned to the neck, was greeted at the Keflavik airport 30 miles from here by Vigdis Finnbogadottir, the 56-year-old former theater director and professor of French who is president of Iceland.

Gorbachev is scheduled to arrive in Reykjavik today for the weekend round of talks that have aroused both controversy and intense speculation. They were suddenly proposed by Gorbachev and accepted by Reagan less than two weeks ago.

While many analysts and critics expect little out of the talks save the setting of a formal date for another summit conference in the United States later this year or next, a recent change of atmosphere has led some to wonder or perhaps hope for something a bit more substantial.

Soviet officials, in a series of news conferences in advance of the summit, have shown themselves in an unusually conciliatory mood. And a hint from White House spokesman Larry Speakes aboard the presidential plane indicated a certain amount of flexibility in the American position.

Before leaving for Iceland, Reagan, in a statement on the White House lawn, said that his sessions with Gorbachev “will be essentially a private meeting between the two of us. We will not have large staffs with us, nor is it planned that we sign substantive agreements.

“We have serious problems with the Soviet positions on a great many issues, and success is not guaranteed,” Reagan added. “But, if Mr. Gorbachev comes to Iceland in a truly cooperative spirit, I think we can make some progress.”

Reagan made no statement when he landed at Keflavik, the international airport that is part of the American-run North Atlantic Treaty Organization base on Iceland. But he chatted with President Finnbogadottir, one of the world’s few elected woman chiefs of state, and with Prime Minister Steingrimur Hermannsson and his Cabinet. Reagan was then driven to the U.S. ambassador’s residence and embassy in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik.

May Stay on Liner

Gorbachev is scheduled to arrive at the same base--the only Icelandic air field on which large jet planes can land. Unlike Reagan, who flew to Iceland without his wife, Nancy, Gorbachev will be accompanied by his wife, Raisa.

Soviet officials have said it is still not certain whether the Gorbachevs will stay in the Soviet Embassy or aboard a Soviet cruise liner in the Reykjavik harbor.

Reagan plans only one public appearance today while preparing for his sessions with Gorbachev. Reagan will pay an official call on Finnbogadottir, who, like most educated Icelanders, speaks English well. She spent years, in fact, as a tourist guide taking foreign journalists around Iceland.

For Iceland, a North Atlantic island suddenly caught in a world spotlight that Icelanders now seem to thoroughly enjoy, the arrival of Reagan marked the opening of an event that many suspect may turn into a great moment in the more than 1,000 years of Icelandic history. No happening has ever attracted so much international attention to Iceland before.

Reagan and Gorbachev met for the first time in Geneva last November. The Soviets have taken the position that, although a conciliatory spirit was established at Geneva, the American government has failed so far to follow through with concrete steps that could lead to some kind of disarmament agreement.

Check on ‘Homework’

At one of the news briefings in Reykjavik this week, for example, Valentin M. Falin, the head of the Novosti press agency, told journalists that the Iceland summit will “check how well the Americans have done their homework since November. And, by homework, I do not mean just written composition but arithmetic as well.”

Despite a comment like this, however, the Soviets were generally unaggressive in their comments in Iceland this week.

In a similar vein, Speakes, in the presidential flight from Washington to Iceland, appeared to suggest that the outcome of this weekend’s summit could reverse Reagan’s decision last May to break out of the limits of the SALT II arms agreement, a decision that has caused consternation among U.S. allies and American congressman.

Speakes told reporters traveling with Reagan that the President has not yet decided whether to breach the SALT II limit of 1,320 ballistic missiles permitted on both sides.

Speakes was commenting on reports that the Administration was still not certain about when to convert a 131st B-52 bomber so that it can carry cruise missiles and, if so, whether to retire other weapons so that the United States would still remain within the ceiling of 1,320 ballistic missiles.

According to a pool report filed by reporters aboard Air Force One, Speakes insisted that a final decision has not yet been made. That decision, Speaks said, will be based on “Soviet behavior, Soviet armament and Soviet violations.”

With this language, Speakes was recalling that the President, when he first announced that he would not abide by the limits of SALT II, said the hand of the United States had been forced by the continuing Soviet military buildup, by Soviet violations of existing arms agreements and by Soviet failure to bargain seriously on arms control.

The hint of Speakes made it conceivable that Reagan, as a result of the Iceland summit, could decide to reinstate some form of “interim restraint”--the situation that existed during the six years in which the U.S. complied with SALT II while not ratifying it.