Gorbachev Whirls Through the Capital : Lobbies Congress on Treaty, Meets News Executives, Talks to Reagan on Afghanistan

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, moving aggressively in public and private Wednesday, lobbied congressional leaders to ratify the intermediate-range nuclear missile treaty, complained to news executives that the White House regards the Soviet Union as an enemy and declared at the State Department that “an end must be put to wars for good.”

But the eight-year Soviet occupation of Afghanistan dominated the only private working session of the day between Gorbachev and President Reagan.

Before their 90-minute morning meeting got under way, Gorbachev said during a picture-taking session: “The fact that we are ready to withdraw from Afghanistan is something that I have said some time ago. What we are here to discuss is more specific.”

And after the session ended, Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov said that Gorbachev had discussed a timetable for withdrawing Soviet troops and hinted that there might be an announcement before the Soviet leader leaves Washington today.

“We’ll know about it tomorrow,” he said. “This is negotiations in progress.”

But Administration officials, asking not to be named, said it was Reagan, not Gorbachev, who brought up a timetable for withdrawing the 115,000 Soviet troops who have occupied Afghanistan since late 1979. The President, according to one official, emphasized to Gorbachev that “you’ve got to get the troops out, and the thing to do is to set a timetable, a fast one.”

And another official insisted: “There’s no meeting of the minds.”

In public, Gorbachev stole the show in the second day of his summit with Reagan with a series of high-visibility meetings around Washington. In addition to his session with Reagan, Gorbachev met at the Soviet Embassy with congressional leaders and news media executives, gave a speech during a lunch at the State Department and put on a formal dinner at the embassy for the Reagans.

Another Busy Day

He is scheduled to meet separately with Vice President George Bush and Reagan this morning and have lunch with the President before leaving the White House for a series of private meetings--and also a late-afternoon news conference. He is to leave Washington at 5 p.m. PST, an hour before Reagan is scheduled to deliver a nationally televised address on the summit at 6 p.m. PST.

The pace of the private meetings between the two leaders was more difficult to measure. Behind them was the signing Tuesday of the historic treaty banning ground-launched medium-range nuclear missiles; still ahead are the departure statements, the expected communique and the announcement of any further accords.

Soviet officials expressed optimism that progress could be announced by tonight on the central issue under discussion by the two superpowers: a treaty that would meet the goal, already stated by Reagan and Gorbachev, of reducing by half the superpowers’ massive arsenals of long-range nuclear missiles capable of striking the other’s territory.

‘Smiles on Their Faces’

“Everyone has smiles on their faces, but the amplitude of the agreement has not yet been determined,” said Roald Z. Sagdeyev, director of the Soviets’ Institute of Space Research.

U.S. officials, speaking in private, were less optimistic. “There’s no success story at this point,” said one. “There’s nothing to be upbeat about.”

Both sides hope Reagan and Gorbachev can sign a long-range missile treaty at another summit in Moscow, probably in May or June.

While Gorbachev held his whirlwind series of meetings Wednesday, two working groups of top-level U.S. and Soviet officials continued to meet, one on arms control and the other on the remaining points on the summit agenda: human rights, bilateral issues and regional conflicts such as the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

The working group on arms control met through the night. The second group reported to Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze that with the exception of human rights, it had completed its work.

No Specifics Given

Government officials refused to reveal any of the specifics under consideration of the working groups.

Both leaders Wednesday stressed the history-making aspects of the treaty signed Tuesday to ban medium-range nuclear missiles, the first to require the destruction of existing weapons and the first to allow each side to place inspectors in the other’s territory to verify compliance with the accord’s provisions.

Gorbachev told congressional leaders that the United States and the Soviet Union should congratulate one another on the treaty.

“I have familiarized myself with the initial reaction in the world, and I can see that it has had major repercussions,” said Gorbachev, obviously enjoying the limelight.

Tightly controlling his discussion with media executives, Gorbachev refused to answer some of their questions and said, “I am not on trial here. I am here for mutual conversation.”

Tom Johnson, publisher of the Los Angeles Times and one of the meeting’s participants, said Gorbachev was upset by White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater’s comment just before the summit that the meetings here would not be between old friends but between “old enemies.”

“Why do that three days before the meeting?” the Soviet leader exclaimed.

At a reception before their discussions, Gorbachev told Johnson that on another trip to the United States, he would like to visit the West. But he said that “even in this concrete jungle, you can do certain things,” such as the signing of the medium-range missile treaty.

Gorbachev told the news media executives that both countries should be “ashamed” of what they have done in the past in the arms race. But he said he was encouraged by the mood of the people of both countries and felt “we are moving in the right direction” this week.

One of the Sorest Points

Several times during Gorbachev’s hectic day of activity, he found himself confronted by the Afghanistan issue--one of the sorest points in U.S.-Soviet relations and a possible obstacle to Senate ratification of the intermediate-range missile treaty.

Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), speaking after the congressmen’s meeting with the Soviet leader, pointed out that former President Jimmy Carter withdrew the 1979 strategic arms limitation treaty, known as SALT II, from the Senate after the Soviets marched into Afghanistan in December of that year, and thus the treaty was never ratified.

Byrd said he told Gorbachev that “it would be very useful to us if he could give us a timetable for withdrawal. I did say very clearly that this was a matter of concern and continuing debate.”

‘Nonaligned Afghanistan’

Gorbachev emphasized that the Soviets were eager to pull out of Afghanistan. Sen. Alan Cranston of California, second in the Senate Democratic leadership, quoted him as saying: “We have no intention of staying in Afghanistan. We just don’t want others to fill the vacuum. We want a nonaligned Afghanistan.” Soviet officials, including some at the summit here, have said they anticipate a Soviet pull-out next year. But generally they have also said the United States must promise to stop arms supplies to the anti-Soviet insurgents, the moujahedeen, when the withdrawal begins, a condition that is unacceptable to the Administration, particularly if the Soviets do not fix a definite date for departure of the final Soviet soldier.

Moreover, the Soviets have refused to spell out what kind of government they will leave behind. They and Najibullah, the current ruler, have spoken of power-sharing, but without conceding that the key ministries of defense and interior might go to the insurgents. Without an acceptable post-withdrawal government, the Afghan refugees in Pakistan, who now number as many as 5 million, or more than 10% of the Afghan population, will refuse to return.

Cites U.S. Problems

When congressional leaders confronted Gorbachev on the issue of human rights and the Soviet Union’s restriction on the immigration of Jews, he responded firmly that the United States has its own human rights problems and restricts the number of foreigners who can become American citizens.

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) later said that Gorbachev was well prepared and “lectured us a bit on human rights,” but that he “has a different view of human rights than we have.”

And Cranston said the Soviet leader concluded his remarks by saying:

“Let’s have a discussion about human rights between Congress and the Supreme Soviet (the Soviet legislature). Let’s have a joint seminar, not to hurl accusations but to discuss our mutual needs, mutual problems, our mutual understandings. We believe our human rights are better than your human rights. Our standard of living may be lower than yours, but we believe in the right to a decent standard of living of every human being, of every individual’s right to security.

“You have some different views. You seem to view human rights as wholly a matter of emigration. . . . Examine your own record. You won’t let everyone into your country who leaves some other country or wishes to. You seem to accept everyone who wishes to leave the Soviet Union. Yet you do not accept everyone who wishes to leave Mexico for your country. Take a look at your own record on human rights while you criticize ours.”

Driven by Public Opinion

At a State Department luncheon honoring him and his wife, Raisa, Gorbachev said that the joint effort by the United States and the Soviet Union toward ridding the world of nuclear arms was driven by public opinion.

“Urging us on,” he declared, “is the will of hundreds of millions of people who are beginning to understand, as the 20th Century draws to a close, that civilization has approached a dividing line, not so much between different systems and ideologies but between common sense and mankind’s feelings of self-preservation on the one hand and irresponsibility, national selfishness, prejudice--to put it briefly, old thinking--on the other.”

“Mankind is beginning to realize,” Gorbachev said, “that it has had enough of wars, that an end must be put to wars for good.”

Times staff writers James Gerstenzang and Robert C. Toth contributed to this story.