Summit to Focus on a Second Pact : Gorbachev’s Mood: Elation and Anxiety

Even with an arms control treaty in hand and another almost within reach, Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev is said to be anxious as well as elated on the eve of his first visit to the United States and a third meeting with President Reagan.

Gorbachev, aware of Reagan’s unshakable adherence to his Strategic Defense Initiative, has lowered his expectations for the meeting in Washington, according to Soviet officials.

His goal, they say, is to make enough progress on reduction in strategic arms to bolster chances of agreement on a second treaty, which would be signed by the President in the course of a visit to Moscow next spring or summer. What Gorbachev fears most is a deadlock on this issue.

Cheered by Prospect

Naturally, these officials say, Gorbachev is cheered by the prospect of signing, after 10 years of difficult negotiations, an agreement to eliminate intermediate-range missiles--the first superpower pact to call for eradication of a whole class of weapons.

But he is aware that these weapons represent only a small fraction of the superpowers’ arsenals and that further progress is far from guaranteed. Moreover, he wants to be assured by leaders in the U.S. Senate that the treaty that he and Reagan are to sign this week will be ratified early in the new year.

Clearly, according to Gorbachev’s advisers, the Kremlin chief would like to project the image of a man of peace who wants to overcome decades of American mistrust of the Soviet Union, and thus lay the groundwork for better Soviet-American relations after Reagan has left office.

But the brief three-day visit, crowded with conferences and formal dinners, will limit Gorbachev’s ability to communicate his views to a wider audience outside Washington. He is expected to hold a news conference his last day in Washington, but congressional resistance thwarted the Reagan Administration’s hopes for having him address a joint meeting of Congress--which would have given him a far loftier platform.

Gorbachev’s on-again-off-again attitude in mid-October toward setting a date for his meeting with Reagan suggested that the Soviet leader had misgivings about the American trip, and these, Soviet sources say, may not be altogether resolved.

Armand Hammer, the American industrialist who has seen Gorbachev privately and has close contacts in both the Kremlin and the White House, recently summed up the problem as follows:

“Russia thinks America wants to make war, and America thinks Russia wants to make war, and neither country wants to make war. They don’t understand each other. They don’t trust each other. They don’t know each other.”

Reagan Seen as Weakened

Soviet newspapers have reported that Reagan’s standing with Congress and the American people has been weakened considerably in recent months by such things as the Iran-Contra scandal, polls reflecting declining popularity and fallout from the Wall Street crash.

Gorbachev has said publicly that there is time to deal with Reagan during his last year in office, yet he is aware that Reagan’s effectiveness will be reduced as the 1988 election campaign intensifies.

And there is still widespread uneasiness in Moscow about whether the U.S. leadership wants to move away from confrontation and toward cooperation.

Moscow’s concern about anti-Soviet demonstrations in Washington, as well as continued sniping by Republican conservatives at the agreement to eliminate Soviet and American intermediate nuclear forces, have produced an unusually subdued mood here on the eve of the meeting.

Divided Opinion

“The negotiations on the INF (intermediate nuclear forces) treaty have been a great success, but the atmosphere somehow is not as good as the agreement,” Roy Medvedev, an independent Soviet historian, said recently.

The controversy in Washington over whether Gorbachev should address a joint meeting of Congress underscored the divided nature of American opinion on future superpower relations and contributed to Soviet unease over the visit.

Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper, charged recently that anti-Soviet critics had “solid support from the ruling forces in America.”

There is increasing Soviet concern, too, over whether the INF treaty will be ratified by the Senate.

Kremlin Proposal Rebuffed

“Naturally,” a U.S. diplomat here said, “the Soviet side would be happier with universal applause for the (INF) agreement and Gorbachev’s appearance, but that’s simply not the way our system works.”

Gorbachev has voiced optimism about the prospects for reaching agreement in Washington on a second treaty that would reduce long-range nuclear weapons by 50% on both sides and extend the 1972 treaty on anti-ballistic missiles, or ABMs.

But U.S. officials have rebuffed a Kremlin proposal to extend the ABM treaty for 10 years as a condition for halving the arsenals of long-range missiles, because extending the ABM treaty would hamper development of Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, the so-called Star Wars missile defense system.

“If the Soviets want to cripple SDI, no sale,” a senior U.S. official said. “If not, we might get some accord without unacceptable constraints on SDI.”

Limited Objectives

From Gorbachev’s point of view, the Soviet Union has gone more than halfway to achieve the global “double-zero” on medium-range and shorter-range missiles that was proposed by the United States. Yet he has found no comparable flexibility by the Reagan Administration to alleviate Soviet concern over SDI, Soviet officials say. Accordingly, Gorbachev has carefully limited his objectives in Washington in an effort to make the meeting almost fail-safe.

According to a spokesman for the Soviet Foreign Ministry, Gorbachev will regard the meeting as a success if nothing is accomplished beyond signing the INF treaty and agreeing on instructions for Soviet and U.S. negotiators on strategic weapons cuts. Still, Gorbachev wants to foster a better climate for future talks--an intangible goal that now seems elusive.

On the other hand, U.S. officials have expressed hope for progress on resolving regional conflicts, human rights issues and a number of bilateral disputes. But on the strength of statements by Gorbachev and other Soviet officials, there seems to be little chance for significant progress in these areas.

Separate Ceilings

Since Reagan has already agreed in principle to a 50% reduction in long-range missiles--and the Kremlin has agreed to seek separate ceilings for land-based, sea-based and air-launched missiles, as the United States wants--an accord in this field seems to be within reach.

But Gorbachev insists that such reductions be accompanied by retention of the ABM treaty for up to 10 years, presumably to halt testing in space of SDI elements.

Gorbachev acknowledged recently that the Soviet Union is carrying out research on a similar system, but he said it will never be deployed or even built. Gorbachev also said that SDI is not a subject for negotiation at the summit conference, but he indicated that it is still a bone in the throats of Soviet leaders and military commanders.

Marshal Sergei F. Akhromeyev, chief of the armed forces general staff, has argued that large reductions in strategic weapons would be unacceptable without firm assurances that the United States would not develop a space-based shield against missile attack. Akhromeyev, an expert on missiles, will accompany Gorbachev to Washington.

Flexibility Seen

Even though such a shield might not work perfectly, Akhromeyev has said, it could encourage a nuclear first strike by the United States if U.S. officials assumed that most of the Soviet counter-strike missiles could be destroyed in the air.

A deadlock in Washington over extension of the ABM treaty--it was the controversy over whether SDI could be tested without violating this treaty that broke up the summit conference in Reykjavik, Iceland, 14 months ago--would be a bitter pill for Gorbachev.

On the surface, the two sides seem to be not far apart. Moscow has proposed a 10-year period of adherence to the ABM treaty, with the same rigid compliance that followed its acceptance in 1972. Washington has proposed that both sides adhere to the treaty until 1994--a period of seven years--and wants a more flexible interpretation of the treaty’s limitations, to allow greater leeway for SDI development.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz has said that these goals may be incompatible and, therefore, compromise may be impossible. But other U.S. officials say that they have detected “a certain amount of flexibility” in the Soviet position on the ABM treaty and that this gives them hope that agreement is possible.

Tortured History

The Soviet-American INF negotiations have a tortured history, going back to 1977, when Moscow started deploying SS-20 missiles in Soviet Europe. In response, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization decided in December, 1979, to adopt a two-track strategy of deploying U.S. missiles in Europe and negotiating with the Soviets to restore an INF balance at the lowest possible level.

At first the Soviets refused to negotiate, announcing after they had deployed 200 missiles with 600 warheads that a balance existed. But at that time no U.S. missiles had been deployed.

Reagan, in a 1981 speech, called for a “double-zero option” under which the West would refrain from deploying U.S. missiles if the Soviet Union would eliminate its SS-4, SS-5 and SS-20 missiles. Negotiations on this plan began a month later in Geneva.

In June, 1982, U.S. and Soviet negotiators came up with the famous “walk in the woods” proposal for an INF agreement that would have equalized the number of missile launchers in Europe, frozen Soviet INF deployment in Asia and blocked the use of U.S. Pershing 2 missiles. But Moscow later rejected this formula.

Renewed Negotiations

In 1983, the Soviets wanted to count British and French strategic missiles in calculating Western INF strength. A series of U.S. proposals was advanced, but agreement seemed impossible. In November, 1983, after the first U.S. missile components were delivered to Britain and West Germany, Soviet negotiators walked out of the INF talks.

A year later, the Soviets agreed to renew negotiations on INF, as well as on strategic missiles and space weapons. Finally, at the first Reagan-Gorbachev meeting--in Geneva in November, 1985--the two sides agreed to focus on an INF agreement.

At their second meeting--last year in Iceland--Reagan and Gorbachev agreed to eliminate all but 100 INF warheads on each side, provided that the United States accepted limits on SDI research. Reagan rejected this linkage.

In February of this year, the Soviets agreed to make a separate agreement that would eliminate INF missiles in Europe within five years but allow each side to keep 100 missiles elsewhere.

Then, in July, Gorbachev embraced the double-zero approach, agreeing to eliminate shorter-range missiles as well as medium-range missiles, with no exceptions.

On Nov. 24, after talks between Secretary of State Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, agreement was announced on an INF treaty.