Shultz Trip May Help Reagan on Defense Issues : Leverage Seen With Congress on Budget, With Hard-Liners on Arms Accords

President Reagan has gained some leverage on Capitol Hill on the defense budget and other arms issues as a result of the progress Secretary of State George P. Shultz appears to have made toward an arms control agreement with the Soviet Union, in the view of Administration officials and others in Washington.

In addition, hard-liners at the Pentagon who in the past have proven adept at trying to counter potential arms agreements that they thought would leave U.S. forces at a disadvantage are probably not going “to be doing any guerrilla warfare this time,” one Pentagon official said.

A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said two elements raised in the discussions between Shultz and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze are likely to sit well with both Congress and the Pentagon:

--The Soviets appeared willing to place on the negotiating table in Geneva a proposal to carry out stringent verification of adherence to any agreement reducing the U.S. and Soviet arsenals of medium-range weapons.

--The Soviets, who have been “sort of back and forth and all around” on the subject of shorter-range nuclear missiles, appeared to be speaking in more pronounced detail on the subject.

In addition, the Soviets’ willingness to speak of specific timetables for phasing out the medium-range nuclear weapons in Europe was also seen as encouraging.

‘That’s Progress’

Thus, an official said, “we know where they are, and we’ve defined their position. If that’s the case, that’s progress, because we have a concrete reference point to work on.”

On the basis of Shultz’s preliminary cables to Reagan, the President said in a written statement Wednesday that the exchanges in Moscow “hold promise for an agreement on intermediate nuclear forces at some point in the not-too-distant future.”

The trip could pay off more immediately for the Administration by relaxing, at least temporarily, tensions with Congress, where the President’s defense budget has been whittled down in committee and faces renewed attack on the House floor when Congress reconvenes after Easter. The House Armed Services Committee set a Pentagon spending ceiling of $305.7 billion, a reduction of approximately $6 billion from the President’s request for fiscal 1988.

In addition, said a senior White House official, there was concern within the Administration that Democrats would attach a set of arms control amendments to a $3-billion supplemental spending measure. The amendments would put pressure on the Administration to adhere to terms of the abandoned second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty and to a narrow interpretation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with regard to space defense research and tests.

“It may give us a little breathing room there,” the official said. “When you have some movement, there’s a tendency of some in Congress to give the President some breathing room.”

A congressional source agreed, saying:

“It’s (Shultz’s trip) going to have a very positive effect on the President’s ability to move legislation, particularly defense issues. It undermines those in Congress who want to saddle him with all sorts of arms control measures. It is certainly going to help his national security agenda on the (Capitol) Hill.”

On the other side of the coin, arms control efforts of the State Department often have been subject to harsh attacks at the Pentagon. On Thursday, however, a well-placed Pentagon official said, “there are some people in this building who think it would be a plus for us.”

But he said officials had not had an opportunity to study the “fine print” regarding timing of an agreement and the phasing out of the 108 single-warhead Pershing 2 missiles that the United States has deployed in Europe to counter the Soviets’ triple-warhead SS-20 missiles. These weapons have ranges of 1,000 to 3,000 miles.

Offer ‘Has Some Merit’

While the United States has advocated eliminating this entire class of weapons, the Soviet Union has proposed cutting the two sides back to 100 warheads each, these to be kept within the continental boundaries of the United States and in Soviet Asia.

“There seems to be a feeling the Soviets are offering something that has some merit,” the Pentagon official said.

Among those officials who have argued for the toughest approach to the Soviet Union is Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard N. Perle. Perle, who is about to leave the government, accompanied Shultz to Moscow as the Pentagon’s representative.