Concessions to Stay on Table, Gorbachev Says : Blames Reagan for Failure of Talks but Still Offers Hope of Future Nuclear Arms Agreement

A somber Mikhail S. Gorbachev blamed President Reagan on Sunday for failure of their Iceland negotiations but held out hope for a future agreement on nuclear arms control.

Despite the setback and the danger of a new arms race, the Soviet leader said, major Soviet concessions on nuclear weapons will remain on the bargaining table. And while he accused Reagan of being a virtual prisoner of an American “military-industrial complex,” he also said: “We can continue dealing with President Reagan. We can work together.”

Gorbachev’s tone at a 90-minute news conference was remarkably conciliatory despite his charge that the President’s refusal to compromise on the Strategic Defense Initiative, a space-based missile defense program, showed that he is seeking military superiority over the Soviet Union.

“A great deal has been done,” the Kremlin leader insisted, claiming credit for an innovative approach to arms control that he said would break the stalemate at Geneva talks on the issue. “I think that the need for a dialogue has become even greater,” he added.

Gorbachev appeared to be trying to put the best face on failure at the meeting that he had proposed to spur progress toward an arms reduction accord. Yet he acknowledged that even major concessions in the Soviet bargaining position failed to nail down an agreement.

‘Historic Opportunity’

“I said to the President: ‘We are missing a historic opportunity.’ Never had our positions been so close together,” Gorbachev told reporters.

The prospect of returning empty-handed to Moscow from Reykjavik cannot have been appealing to the Soviet leader or his top aides, who had bubbled with optimism during the opening of the conference. At home, where Gorbachev’s one-sided extension of the nuclear testing moratorium to Jan. 1 has already come under criticism, the failure to reach agreement is bound to stir more controversy.

Still, Gorbachev seemed to be counting on an improved reception in Western Europe for Soviet arms proposals to offset any grumbling at home about the outcome in Iceland.

Early in his news conference, Gorbachev sounded a sober warning: “All of us are now approaching a point of no return at which a new stage of the arms race might begin with unpredictable military and political consequences,” he said.

But as he talked on, he became more animated and even added some humor to his presentation. Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze and other top advisers at his side, however, wore long, gloomy faces.

For the time being at least, the agreement at last year’s Geneva summit that Gorbachev should visit the United States this year for a full-scale summit has been shelved indefinitely and the Soviet leader’s new proposals are in diplomatic limbo.

Explaining his decision not to go to Washington for another summit this year, Gorbachev said he wanted to avoid a failure there.

“If we had a third meeting in Washington that would not produce any results, it would be a scandal,” he said.

He said it was Reagan’s insistence on testing the SDI system, known colloquially as “Star Wars,” that led to the impasse after two days of meetings. He added, “It would take a madman to accept that, and madmen are mainly in hospitals. I don’t see them in leading positions in government.”

Appeals to Americans

He appealed to Americans and those of other nations to try and persuade Reagan to drop his insistence on testing the SDI system.

For his part, Reagan accused Gorbachev of being “intransigent” as they parted, the Kremlin leader added.

Gorbachev’s account of the negotiations generally coincided with the points cited by Secretary of State George P. Shultz at a news conference immediately preceding Gorbachev’s appearance in a movie theater.

But Gorbachev was more dramatic in showing, with a chopping motion of his right arm, how he had proposed to eliminate half of the land-based and sea-based missiles, as well as half of the nuclear bombers on both sides. “The U.S. delegation agreed to that,” he said, matter-of-factly.

He also reported that agreement was reached on abolition of medium-range missiles based in or aimed at Europe, a cutback to 100 Soviet missiles in the Far East and retention of 100 such weapons in the United States as well.

Under the agreement being discussed, short-range missiles with a range of 600 miles or less in Eastern Europe would have been frozen and then negotiations started on their removal, he added.

In Shultz’s version, the two sides had verbally agreed to slash long-range missile and bomber arsenals in half in five years and completely by 1996. In addition, they were prepared to eliminate all but 100 medium-range missiles on each side, including all those deployed in Europe, during the first five-year phase and the balance of those in 1996 as well.

Gorbachev said that agreement was also nearly achieved on a way to reduce and then possibly eliminate nuclear testing, a major Kremlin goal. In addition, he said, the Soviet Union had been prepared to drop its long-held position that French and British missiles have to be counted in any agreement on missiles in Europe. “We should begin moving, really,” he said. “All these accords were frustrated.”

As Gorbachev explained it, it was the Soviet proposal to restrict research on SDI to the laboratory, thus forbidding tests in space of the system’s components, that caused Reagan to balk. “This is where the real fight began,” he said, with the Soviet Union insisting that it could not agree to 50% reductions of its missile force if SDI were tested outside research labs. If there are to be deep cuts in nuclear arsenals, he explained, each side needs a guarantee that its adversary will not develop a new weapon that would give it military superiority.

Sees Political Motive Gorbachev insisted that the main danger of SDI is “a political danger that it will lead to lack of trust and suspicion.”

But there also is a danger that new types of weapons could be developed by SDI researchers, and this could trigger a new, dangerous round in the arms race, he added.

Despite Reagan’s adamant refusal to give any ground on the SDI restrictions, Gorbachev said, the arms control talks will continue at Geneva.

“Let us not despair,” he said. “This is a step in a difficult dialogue. . . . What happened in Reykjavik should be a powerful incentive to work together. So I am optimistic. . . .

“This meeting has brought us to a very important stage--understanding that accords are possible,” he concluded.