Arms Talks Should Adhere to Summit, Gorbachev Tells Hart

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev told Colorado’s Sen. Gary Hart on Monday that future Soviet-American arms negotiations must begin with the principles discussed at the Iceland summit with President Reagan.

Gorbachev met for more than three hours with Hart, a potential contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988, in an unusual gesture of Kremlin respect for an American political figure.

The Soviet leader said he would “push as hard as he could” to get an arms control agreement with Reagan in the final two years of his presidency, Hart told reporters.

“I wholeheartedly endorse that approach,” the senator said. “It is in our interest and theirs that progress has to be made. . . . Arms control transcends partisan politics and we ought to get on with it.”

‘Very Deferential’

The official Tass news agency said Gorbachev and Hart discussed future arms control talks in “an informal and well-wishing atmosphere.” Earlier, Hart described his reception as “very cordial, very deferential.”

The Kremlin chief, according to Tass, told Hart that “talks with any (American) administration on problems of ending the arms race have a future only if there is further advance from Reykjavik.”

“It was possible to reach an accord there, and today, too, it is possible to come to terms if what has already been achieved is not dismantled,” the news agency quoted Gorbachev as saying. “Rejection of Reykjavik means rejection of the line of disarmament.”

Agreement at Reykjavik

Reagan and Gorbachev generally agreed on the need for a 50% reduction in nuclear weapons in the next five years. While Moscow has said that Reagan agreed to eliminate all nuclear weapons at the end of 10 years, Washington said that he was speaking only of strategic missiles and not bombers carrying cruise missiles.

There also were tentative agreements at Reykjavik on reducing nuclear missiles in Europe and on steps that could lead to a ban on nuclear testing.

Hart, speaking after his talk with Gorbachev, said: “He strongly believes the principles discussed at Reykjavik should form the basis for future negotiations. He said both sides should start from there and not go back to a sublimits, incremental approach.”

The American visitor said he also pressed Gorbachev on a dozen human rights cases, especially the plea of Naum Meiman and his wife, Inna, to be reunited with their daughter, now living in Colorado.

Meiman, once a scientist, was an original member of the Moscow committee to monitor Soviet compliance with human rights agreements signed at Helsinki in 1975. His wife is suffering from neck cancer that her doctors say will kill her unless she has an operation that is performed mainly in the West.

Asked about Gorbachev’s response to his plea, Hart replied: “He said they (the Soviets) were trying their very best to work out their family reunification cases, and he thought the reduction of propaganda or political propaganda from the U.S. side would be very helpful in this regard.”