2 Ex-Pentagon Experts Decry Reagan’s Arms Control Efforts

Two former Pentagon experts criticized President Reagan’s arms control efforts Friday.

Frank Gaffney Jr., a hard-liner who was ousted two weeks ago in a policy dispute with new Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci, said that he was “horrified” that the Reagan Administration appeared to be easing its demand for a ceiling on Soviet land-based intercontinental ballistic missile warheads.

Meanwhile, Richard N. Perle, the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs until he resigned in April, warned Reagan to go slow in his negotiations with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and give up his hope of a world free of nuclear weapons.

The United States has demanded a limit on Soviet land-based ICBMs for five years and proposed it be set at 3,300 after Reagan and Gorbachev agreed at their October, 1986, summit meeting to aim for a 50% reduction in strategic arms.

On Thursday, Kenneth L. Adelman, the director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, said that a limit on warheads on land-based missiles would be “beneficial although not essential.”

Gaffney said that expressing flexibility on negotiations in public “is dead wrong, a serious mistake, and it’s unprofessional.”

Sees Negotiating Error

“I am horrified to read that in the papers, even if it is true that we are prepared to give up something that is part of our negotiating position in exchange for something,” Gaffney said at a news conference Friday.

“One of the oldest tricks in the books is to pocket the concession that has been made publicly and not get anything for it at all, and the Soviets understand it,” he said.

A senior Administration official, however, said that the proposed ceiling on ICBMs had not been dropped.

Meanwhile, Perle said that Reagan’s goal of a nuclear free world “is hopelessly--even dangerously--unrealistic.”

Perle, known as “the prince of darkness” for his dour outlook on alleged Soviet cheating on past arms agreements, made his comments in a “Memorandum to President Reagan” published in the current issue of U.S. News & World Report and made public Friday. Perle is a contributing editor.