Reagan Task: Forging Unified Stand on Arms

President Reagan, plagued in the past by disagreements within his Administration and Congress over his arms control efforts, returns to Washington today, facing the task of bringing about a coordinated, unified response to a new Soviet weapons reduction plan.

Even as the President and Secretary of State George P. Shultz edged the United States into position for a possible agreement with the Soviet Union to sharply trim the superpowers’ intermediate nuclear forces, the Administration issued words of caution. Spokesmen warned that they see obstacles to an eventual agreement and told potential critics that the White House won’t rush into any pact with the Soviets.

Several Tests

For the Administration, these tests lie ahead:

--In Geneva, the Soviets must place specific proposals on the bargaining table that would follow the ideas they advanced last week when Shultz met in Moscow with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze.

--Congress, often skeptical about the President’s commitment to arms control, must be wooed to win bipartisan support for any ultimate agreement.

--The allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization--who decided in 1979 that U.S.-made, medium-range Pershing 2 and cruise missiles should be deployed in Europe--must be persuaded that the alliance will be able to defend itself in the face of the superior conventional forces of the Warsaw Pact nations if U.S. medium-range weapons are withdrawn.

Under the proposal at the center of the arms-control debate, the United States and the Soviet Union would remove such longer-range intermediate weapons as the Pershing 2 and Soviet SS-20s from Europe.

Missiles bearing 100 American warheads would be stored in the United States, and 100 Soviet warheads would stay in Soviet Asia. The rest of the longer-range missiles (those with ranges of 1,000 to 3,000 miles) in both nations’ arsenals would be destroyed.

Gorbachev also proposed doing away with the shorter-range intermediate weapons--those with ranges of 350 to 1,000 miles. The Soviet Union is believed to have about 800 of these, with 130 launchers. The United States has none although West Germany and France have missiles in that category.

On Sunday, two Soviet arms-control experts called the prospects for an agreement bright but said the outcome rests with the White House.

“I would say there was never such a chance given to any President of the United States as now,” Georgy A. Arbatov, director of the Kremlin’s U.S.A. and Canada Institute, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “If this will be used, it’s up to the United States.”

“Our side is ready for an agreement,” Viktor P. Karpov, director of the Soviet Foreign Ministry’s arms control office, said on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley.”

Karpov also said that Shultz and Gorbachev made strides during their talks last week toward an autumn summit in which the two sides would agree not only to remove intermediate-range missiles from Europe, but also to approve “key provisions” of a pact to reduce long-range strategic missiles by 50%.

However, Karpov mentioned a potential obstacle to an intermediate-range missile accord. He said the Kremlin would not accept a pact that allowed the United States to deploy its 100 intermediate warheads in Alaska, within range of Soviet territory.

The Soviets, he said, would put their 100 warheads beyond striking range of the United States.

‘We’ve Insisted on That’

Also appearing on the ABC program, U.S. arms-control negotiator Paul H. Nitze said the United States has not agreed to bar Alaska as a site for its warheads.

“It’s important for us not to give up the right to have them in Alaska,” he said. “And we have not. And we’ve insisted on that.”

Richard N. Perle, assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, said in a telephone interview that Soviet objections to deployment of the U.S. warheads in Alaska are “a stumbling block if they insist on it.”

The key obstacle to winning congressional support, Perle predicted, would be the issue of verification that both sides are adhering to the terms of an agreement.

Appearing earlier on “Meet the Press,” Perle said that, even though Soviet leaders indicated a general willingness to accept U.S. verification proposals, “we don’t have anything in writing yet” and “we don’t have the details.”

Perle, who is retiring from his Defense Department post after establishing a reputation as the leading Pentagon hard-liner on dealing with the Soviets, said, “Until the last detail is filled in, you can’t be sure that you’ve concluded a successful agreement.”

Such differences notwithstanding, a rare tone of optimism toward prospects of a superpower arms accord has emerged during the past week. Since Shultz returned from Moscow, Reagan and his new senior aides, led by White House Chief of Staff Howard H. Baker Jr. and Frank C. Carlucci, assistant for national security affairs, have focused on the accomplishments of the secretary’s trip.

Shultz, the President said Saturday, has “come home very optimistic, and we’re all looking forward to carrying this through to where we can make some start in eliminating these terrible ballistic missiles.”

As for Congress, Reagan will probably meet this week with Republican leaders and a bipartisan delegation to review Shultz’s trip. But he appears to face opposition from both political left and right to the arms accord now under discussion.

On the right, senior Administration officials have already begun reaching out to conservatives, who make up the core of Reagan’s support but who are also among the most skeptical about arms deals with the Soviets.

“What we’re trying to come up with is a unified position,” a White House official said.

On the left, Democrats returning to Congress from a recess this week appear to be split. They hope to attach riders to spending bills requiring the White House to toe longtime Democratic arms-control lines: An end to underground nuclear tests and continued compliance with the unratified SALT II arms treaty. Reagan opposes both policies.

However, the Democrats have no united response to the missile-reduction proposals.

House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.), appearing on “Meet the Press” after a Moscow meeting with Gorbachev, called the talks a historic chance to reverse the “insane” course of the U.S.-Soviet arms race.

“Always before, the leaders in the Kremlin were military men who believed in military spending as the be-all and end-all of their existence,” he said. “I think now we have a new group. . . . I did discern a flexibility that hasn’t been there before.”

But another key Democrat, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.), said the U.S.-Soviet talks worry him “a very, very great deal.”

Appearing on the Brinkley show, Aspin said the Reagan Administration risks leaving Europe at the mercy of a much larger Warsaw Pact army if it agrees to the removal of all intermediate nuclear forces.

James Gerstenzang reported from Santa Barbara and Michael Wines from Washington.