INF Pact Debate Put Off in Jolt to Summit Hopes

President Reagan’s hopes of taking an approved intermediate-range nuclear weapons treaty to his Moscow summit meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev later this month were dealt a sharp jolt Monday when Senate leaders again postponed debate on the agreement.

After a closed hearing by the Senate Intelligence Committee and a round of late-afternoon meetings between senators and White House officials, Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) said that Senate floor debate on the agreement will be postponed at least until next week.

Problems that already had caused him to put the debate off for two days, until Wednesday, have not been resolved, Byrd said, and new complications appear to have arisen.

Baker and Powell Concur

Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) said that White House Chief of Staff Howard H. Baker Jr. and Lt. Gen. Colin S. Powell, the President’s national security adviser, concurred in the delay.

The Senate’s decision to put off debate left the nagging problems to be tackled by Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, who are scheduled to meet in Geneva on Wednesday and Thursday to continue preparations for the Reagan-Gorbachev summit, which begins May 29.

Reagan has urged the Senate to complete work on the treaty before he makes his trip to the Soviet capital.

Earlier this month, however, Byrd and leaders of the Senate Intelligence, Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees said they were not willing to begin the final debate until four problems are settled.

Sen. David L. Boren (D-Okla.), chairman of the intelligence panel, said after Monday’s meetings that progress is being made in three of the four areas. But he added that a disagreement persists over on-site inspection procedures.

There are, he said, “alarming indications that the Soviets may be backing away from what we think is very clear language.”

Reagan and Gorbachev signed the agreement, which bans all ground-based missiles with ranges of 300 to 3,400 miles, during their summit meeting in Washington last December.

After more than two months of hearings, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the pact by a 17-2 vote, and it appeared headed for easy ratification by the full Senate.

After hearing testimony from treaty negotiator Maynard W. Glitman on Monday, Boren described the outstanding problems as largely between Washington and Moscow rather than between Capitol Hill and the White House.

Nevertheless, some Democrats privately complained that the White House should have resolved the problems as soon as they arose, rather than creating a situation in which the Senate would be pressed to complete work on the agreement before the Moscow summit.

Senators’ Reservations

When they delayed the opening floor debate from Monday to a tentative Wednesday date, Democratic senators insisted that their reservations be resolved on:

--The absence of a firm definition of a weapons delivery vehicle in the treaty language.

--Questions on the U.S. ability to verify Soviet possession of “futuristic weapons” banned by the agreement.

--Indications that Soviet officials interpret some on-site inspection provisions in a manner disputed by the United States.

--The Reagan Administration’s commitment to the modernization of surveillance satellites.

Both Democrats and Republicans denied Monday that there is any attempt to embarrass the White House by holding up ratification. But Byrd said, as he has before, that the treaty will not be rushed through the Senate because of the impending summit session.

The agreement is the first to ban an entire class of weapons, and supporters had pointed to the on-site inspection provisions as an aspect breaking new ground in U.S.-Soviet arms control negotiations.

Basing of Inspectors

Under the provision, U.S. inspectors will be based in the Soviet Union, and Soviet inspection teams will be sent to the United States.

A dispute has arisen over the details of access, specifically as to what the inspection teams will be able to view.

At the time the agreement was signed at the White House, Reagan and Gorbachev had hoped that another arms control pact, making deep cuts in the two countries’ arsenals of long-range nuclear weapons, would be ready for signing at the Moscow summit.

Negotiators have not been able to complete work on the strategic arms accord and, thus, an Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty approved by the Senate would stand to be the centerpiece of the superpower meeting.