Shultz, Soviets in Intensive Talks : Quick Accord Not Expected, Baker Says

White House Chief of Staff Howard H. Baker Jr. held out little chance Monday that Secretary of State George P. Shultz’s meetings in Moscow will quickly result in an arms control agreement but said he is optimistic that progress will be made.

He said Shultz is likely to discuss with the Soviet foreign minister the prospects for another summit meeting between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Baker, speaking with reporters while Reagan spent the day at his ranch 30 miles northwest of here, portrayed the Reagan Administration as united in its support for the negotiating instructions that Shultz took with him to Moscow, despite reports of differences between the State Department and the Pentagon.

Hopes for Progress

And, while offering no details to support the optimistic stance that the President and his senior assistants have taken in recent weeks regarding arms control, he said:

“Barring unforeseen difficulties, there’s a better-than-even chance that we can get some sort of progress in this field.

“I think the atmosphere is right; I think the leadership is right; I think the issues are right; I think that the progress that’s been made so far at Reykjavik and in other contacts and conversations has been favorable,” he said. His mention of Reykjavik was a reference to the Reagan-Gorbachev summit meeting in the Icelandic capital last October.

Baker took issue with the suggestion, made Sunday by Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), that Shultz’s trip represented a last-ditch opportunity for the Reagan Administration, with less than two years to go in its term, to achieve an arms control agreement with the Soviet Union.

“I think there’s an opportunity for the next several months, and I think that, at some point, obviously, it will be too late to get an agreement and get a ratification (by the Senate), but we’re far from that point right now,” the White House chief of staff said.

Letter From Reagan

Baker spoke to reporters in a news briefing as Shultz returned to an evening session with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze that had been added to his earlier schedule.

Shultz carried with him to Moscow a letter from Reagan to be delivered to Gorbachev, “if and when he meets, as we expect him to meet, with the general secretary in Moscow,” Baker said.

The White House official said that Shultz’s instructions “can lead to the construction of a framework for meaningful negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union.”

Reagan was presented with a number of options last week that were developed by the State Department and the Defense Department in preparation for the Shultz journey, with the two agencies disagreeing on such matters as the length of an extension of restrictions placed on the Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars” space-based missile defense program. The Pentagon, pressing for development of the weapons system, is said to have argued for a shorter period of restrictions to allow it to move more quickly toward possible deployment.

Baker denied that the debate within the Administration was “fractious” and said that once Reagan’s decisions were made, “there was simply no dissent.”

“There was no acrimony, there was no dissent, there was no appeal,” he declared.

Frank C. Carlucci, the President’s assistant for national security affairs who also took part in the news briefing, added, “There were no winners or losers.”

But, hinting at disagreements, he characterized the debates as “stimulating,” and stated, “This would be a very peculiar Administration indeed if everybody agreed on issues of major import.”

Baker said that Reagan would speak “from time to time” with Shultz in Moscow and that it was likely, but not certain, that the secretary of state will confer with Reagan later this week in California after the Moscow meetings.

Stating that it is up to Reagan and Gorbachev to make the final agreements on limiting the superpowers’ nuclear arms, Baker said, “I would be greatly surprised if you did get an agreement” during the current round of meetings.

As for the prospects of a meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev, who has been invited to this country, Baker said:

“I would not be surprised to see that subject discussed by the secretary of state and the Soviet foreign minister. I would not be surprised to see some sort of decision result from those conversations. But this is not the last opportunity for that sort of conversation nor that sort of arrangement.”