‘Stop Charade’ About Missile Shield, Reagan Tells Kremlin : Says Soviets’ Work on SDI Projects Is Widely Known

President Reagan called on the Kremlin today to “stop the charade” about Soviet work on a missile defense system and declared anew that America must research, develop and build a system to shield itself.

“We will not bargain it away to get strategic arms reductions,” Reagan told a convention of the American Council on Life Insurance as he previewed the coming summit with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

The President said that “if all goes well,” he and Gorbachev will sign a treaty eliminating the superpowers’ arsenals of short- and medium-range missiles in the intermediate-range missile class.

“Some details remain to be worked out,” Reagan said in a reference to negotiations under way in Geneva between U.S. and Soviet representatives seeking to tie together the loose ends of an intermediate nuclear forces treaty before the summit, scheduled to start here Dec. 8.

Soviets Spending ‘Billions’

But Reagan complained that the Soviets must stop attempting to hold reductions in offensive strategic weapons hostage “to measures that would cripple” the “Star Wars” program, known formally as the Strategic Defense Initiative.

At the same time, the President charged that “the Soviet Union’s own SDI projects have become big news throughout the world. The Soviets have put billions into their program. They have more than 10,000 scientists working on military lasers alone.”

“From the Krasnoyarsk radar facility, whose very construction violated the 1972 ABM treaty that the Soviets so vocally claim they want to preserve, to their modernized deployments around Moscow of the world’s only ABM system,” he said, “the Soviet Union’s own SDI projects have become big news throughout the world in recent months.”

“We know this. They know that we know. We know that they know that we know,” Reagan said, bringing laughter from his audience.

“It’s time for them to stop the charade and admit their own deep involvement in the strategic defense work,” the President said.

U.S. Accepts Soviet Offer

The President’s speech came as a Reagan Administration official, speaking on grounds of anonymity, revealed that the United States has accepted a Soviet offer to inspect two radar installations that conservative Republican senators charged may be in violation of the 1972 treaty.

The U.S. official, speaking privately today, said of the agreement to inspect Soviet facilities: “We challenged what they were doing. They came back and said, ‘We are not doing anything, and you are welcome to come and see it.”’

The radar installations, known as Pawn Shop and Flat Twin, are north of Kiev. Some conservative Republican senators said they violate the restrictions the 1972 treaty placed on missile defenses.

The Administration official said the Soviets are likely to insist on reciprocal inspection of U.S. facilities. “Every time we ask to do something and they agree, we have set a precedent for their asking for the same thing here,” the official said.

Meanwhile, another Administration official said today that unless several major arms control issues are resolved within the next two weeks, the United States may suggest to the Soviet Union delaying their summit meeting until a treaty to ban intermediate-range nuclear missiles is ready for signing.