Soviets Assail New Ousters, Hint Retaliation but Seek End to Tit-for-Tat Tactics

The Soviet Union charged Tuesday that the U.S. decision to expel 55 Soviet diplomats was “aimed at worsening Soviet-American relations,” and an official spokesman had indicated earlier that Moscow would retaliate against a U.S. move.

The accusation was made by Tass, the official news agency, within an hour of the State Department announcement of the latest escalation in the war of diplomatic departures.

Word of the Soviet response could come as early as today when the Foreign Ministry and the U.S. Embassy open for business, one Western diplomat predicted.

But even before the announcement from Washington, Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov said that the ousters and counterousters during the past month should be halted.

“This could go on to infinity,” he told a news conference, when asked what the Soviet Union would do if the United States retaliated for the Soviet expulsion order Sunday on five American diplomats.

“Our (expulsion) figures could have been higher,” he said. “We could have forced 20 more American diplomats out--we do have reserves here, you know.”

‘Very Thick Line’

But Gerasimov said that Moscow wants to stop the tit-for-tat expulsions, adding, “We should draw a very thick line under this.”

Since Mikhail S. Gorbachev became Soviet leader in March, 1985, he has insisted on strict reciprocity in such cases.

Western diplomats here said they were stunned by the scope of the latest U.S. expulsion order, which comes hard on the heels of the ouster of 25 Soviet diplomats assigned to the U.N. Mission in New York City.

After the Soviet Union ordered the expulsion of five American diplomats in obvious retaliation, some Soviet sources described the move as a moderate one that they hoped would put the dispute to rest.

They recalled that only a year ago, the Soviet Union and Britain each expelled a total of 31 diplomats, journalists and other representatives from Moscow and London, respectively, in a bruising diplomatic encounter. It took nearly a year for the British Embassy here and the Soviet Embassy in London to return to their previous numbers.

There are about 250 Americans with diplomatic standing in the U.S. Embassy here, so a reduction of 50 diplomats would be keenly felt, Western analysts said.

Efforts in Geneva

The U.S. announcement came at a time when U.S. and Soviet officials were making efforts to reach some arms control agreements at negotiations that have resumed in Geneva following the failure to achieve an accord at the Reykjavik summit 10 days ago.

It remained unclear what effect the expulsion of 55 more Soviet diplomats from the United States would have on the negotiations, but as one Soviet source said, “It’s not exactly a plus.”

U.S. Ambassador Arthur A. Hartman met Monday with Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze on arms control and other issues left unsettled when President Reagan and Gorbachev met in Iceland on Oct. 11-12.

Their meeting, only a day after the Soviet expulsion order, indicated that an effort is being made to continue discussions along the lines begun in Reykjavik by the Soviet and American leaders.

Shevardnadze and Secretary of State George P. Shultz are expected to meet in Vienna in early November to pursue the arms control dialogue. The two foreign ministers met in Washington in late September for more than 30 hours despite a loud uproar in the United States over the imprisonment of American journalist Nicholas Daniloff.

Later, Daniloff was released and Soviet citizen Gennady F. Zakharov, accused of spying, was allowed to leave the country after entering a no-contest plea in federal court in New York. Soviet dissident Yuri Orlov was freed from Siberian exile and permitted to fly to the United States as part of the deal.