U.S. ‘Ill-Prepared’ at Summit, Panel Says

An “ill-prepared” Reagan Administration, by barring U.S. military leaders from the proceedings, nearly blundered into an arms agreement with the Soviet Union at the Iceland summit that would have been unacceptable to U.S. allies, a congressional report asserted Sunday.

The report by the 13-member Defense Policy Panel of the House Armed Services Committee charged that White House “insiders” captured the arms control process before the meeting between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev last October.

But the senior Republican member of the policy group, California Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Coronado), defended the Administration and accused Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.), who also heads the full Armed Services Committee, of obscuring Reagan’s success in focusing future negotiations on arms reductions.

The report said: “Most aspects of arms control have been monopolized by a group that has often excluded the military, the secretary of defense (Caspar W. Weinberger) and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency from real decision making. The most critical decision taken by this group of insiders--which in this case excluded Secretary Weinberger--was the one to support the Gorbachev invitation to the mini-summit.”

‘No New Ideas’

Once the decision to go to Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital, was made, the panel said, “no new ideas were developed, no fallback positions were discussed” and only “perfunctory” consultation with allies took place because the scope of the session was to be limited.

But in a surprise move, Gorbachev, at the initial talk, produced specific proposals for a 50% cut in strategic nuclear weapons and total elimination of intermediate nuclear missiles in Europe. He also asked a 10-year extension of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with tightened restrictions on testing that would have hobbled Reagan’s cherished Strategic Defense Initiative, known as “Star Wars.”

After an all-night session by aides brought some progress, the report said, the two leaders met Sunday morning with an agreement in sight on intermediate nuclear forces in Europe. Had the summit ended here as scheduled, the report added, “Reagan would have walked away from the meeting with an outcome exceeding all dampened expectations.”

Instead, the report said, Reagan agreed to a final session Sunday afternoon before which Secretary of State George P. Shultz, in a “first time” proposal, offered to Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze the total elimination of offensive ballistic missiles within 10 years.

Reagan and Gorbachev returned and, the report said, nearly agreed on a Soviet proposal to eliminate “all nuclear weapons” in 10 years, but an accord failed because the two men differed on the extent of testing of the proposed U.S. “Star Wars” missile defense system.

‘A Disappointed Reagan’

“Thus a disappointed Reagan left the (site of the meeting) where only a few hours earlier success had seemed imminent,” the report said. “A sober George Shultz announced the ‘failure’ of the summit to the world.”

The panel acknowledged that Reagan’s attempt to seize an opportunity for progress “may in the long run be to his credit,” even if he failed.

“The more obvious conclusion is that the process moved too fast--’progress’ went too far, overshot its mark and yielded the United States nothing but the appearance of confusion and frustration,” the report ended. Hunter, who complained that he was given less than a week to draft his dissent, contended that both the absence of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff at Reykjavik and the presence of high Soviet commanders there have been traditional in arms negotiations between the superpowers, reflecting the difference between civilian leadership in the United States and military power in the Soviet Union.

But the central point, Hunter said, is “that before the Reagan Administration took office, the Soviet Union had steadfastly refused to accept, even theoretically, the concept of reducing strategic arms as opposed to only limiting them.”