Reagan Shifts Tone, Lauds Soviets on Rights Progress

President Reagan, abandoning his harsh criticism of the Kremlin, credited the Soviet Union today with making progress on human rights and said gradual improvements are ‘better than no change at all.”

Striking a conciliatory tone in a pre-summit address, Reagan also acknowledged that the United States has its own problems with homelessness, racial discrimination and unemployment, as Moscow has charged.

Reagan’s comments appeared intended to soothe Soviet anger about his demand for the Kremlin to “tear down a wall of oppression” and his claim that the Soviet troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is being made under pressure.

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev told Secretary of State George P. Shultz in Moscow in April he was tired of Reagan’s sermons. And the Soviet government accused Washington of “imperial arrogance.”

In his remarks to a Chicago group, Reagan went out of his way to credit Gorbachev with loosening restrictions on religion, freedom of speech and emigration.

‘We Applaud Changes’

“We applaud the changes that have taken place and encourage the Soviets to go further,” Reagan said. “We recognize that changes occur slowly but that is better than no change at all.”

Reagan’s speech was part of a series of addresses intended to frame the issues he will highlight at the summit in Moscow with Gorbachev May 29-June 2. His audience was the National Strategy Forum, a nonpartisan organization that sponsors educational programs on national security and foreign policy.