Analysis : Prospects Brightening for Success at Summit

The White House for a week has been insisting that President Reagan would make no new proposals at the summit meeting that begins here today. But senior officials maintained, nonetheless, that both sides hoped for “new impulses” from the meeting to spur U.S.-Soviet arms talks at Geneva and to advance preparations for the full-blown Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Washington that was promised for sometime this year.

The suspicion was that the apparent contradiction could be explained only if the outcome of the Iceland summit had been largely agreed upon in advance, with only a few key matters to be resolved by the two men personally.

But, on Friday, the Administration managed to square the circle another way: by making a concession to Congress on nuclear testing that was also a concession to Moscow’s position on the issue.

As a result, prospects for a successful Reykjavik summit brightened strikingly, in contrast to the sleety gale that lashed the island through the evening. Almost admitting this, the White House announced that Reagan intends to address the American people Monday night, after his return to the United States, on the results of the summit.

Since it seems highly doubtful that the Administration would give such advance publicity to a speech that might have to announce failure, the announcement reinforced suspicions that a successful outcome here is assured.

While the precise results are probably not yet nailed down, the broad outlines of the summit’s outcome were being discussed in hotel corridors where U.S. and Soviet officials are staying. They included:

--A summit in Washington in early spring, with March or April being specifically mentioned by a Soviet official.

--A conceptual compromise on intermediate-range missiles that would lead to a formal agreement to be signed at the Washington summit.

--Acknowledgement of movement on the nuclear test issue toward some compromise on the core dispute over verification.

The Soviets have said, privately and publicly, that Gorbachev needed progress on two substantive issues--intermediate-range missiles and a total nuclear test ban--to set a date for the Washington summit meeting.

Progress on Missiles

Without assurances of such movement, Gorbachev and the Kremlin feared another “handshake” summit like that at Geneva last year, which, it appears, embarrassed the Soviet leader because of the paucity of tangible results.

Administration officials last week said they believed that Gorbachev had settled for progress on only one issue, the missiles, when he proposed the Iceland meeting.

Whether or not he had been quietly told through diplomatic channels of the Administration’s plan for dealing with the nuclear test issue--White House spokesman Larry Speakes maintained that Reagan will inform Gorbachev of the move today, implying that it will be for the first time--the effect is the same.

Gorbachev has invested a great deal of political capital in his campaign for a curb on nuclear testing, both in speeches at home and abroad and in the unilateral Soviet moratorium on testing that he imposed 14 months ago and that, after two extensions, will continue until the end of this year. He can claim the Administration’s announcement that it will submit the two unratified nuclear test ban treaties as a concession to his position.

There is a considerable distance to go on both the intermediate-range missile issue and the nuclear test ban before they produce concrete agreements, despite the advances that have occurred.

The two sides have agreed to reduce the warheads on their medium-range missiles to 100 each in Europe (from the 810 that the Soviets now maintain and the 220 deployed by the United States).

Hints of Compromise

The United States wants the Soviets to observe the same 100-warhead ceiling in Asia, where the Soviets have 513 warheads but the United States has none. The United States would keep 100 warheads deployed in the continental United States to maintain its insistence on global equality, at least technically, of 200 warheads total for both nations.

There are hints that Moscow is willing to compromise in some way on this so-called Asian issue. Even so, other important subsidiary issues remain:

--Verification provisions to ensure against cheating, a difficult task with these intermediate-range missiles, which are mobile, short-range nuclear missiles that the Soviets have moved forward in Eastern Europe since 1983.

--The length of time any agreement would run.

--The mix of U.S. ballistic and cruise missiles that would be carriers of the 100 permitted warheads there.

Significant problems also exist before Reagan’s move toward ratification of the two nuclear test agreements can produce substantive effects. The Administration conditioned final ratification of the two agreements upon Soviet acceptance of satisfactory verification provisions for nuclear tests, including use of a U.S. monitoring system placed near or even in the tunnel in which the detonation would occur.

The Administration has accused the Soviets of “likely” violations of the limit of 150 kilotons (equal to 150,000 tons of TNT) established by both the threshold test ban treaty and the peaceful nuclear explosions treaty. The treaties prohibit nuclear tests with yields above 150 kilotons.

With adequate safeguards against cheating, the Administration said, it would negotiate the limitation and eventual elimination of nuclear testing, in parallel with disarmament measures to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons themselves.