U.S.,Soviets Settle All INF Snags : Washington Seen Winning Most of Arms Pact Points

With the United States apparently winning most of the points, American and Soviet negotiators Thursday completed two documents here that resolved all of their outstanding differences on implementing the medium-range missile agreement.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz said that the outcome, achieved at the end of two days of talks, was “absolutely satisfactory” to the Reagan Administration. He saw no reason, he added, why the Senate should continue to hold up ratification proceedings on the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

The documents were being carried back to Washington on Thursday night by National Security Adviser Colin L. Powell to present and explain to senators today, Shultz said.

Touches Off Debate

The announcement that Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze had come to an agreement on the nine disputed items in the treaty’s verification section touched of a flurry of debate on the Senate floor, where pressure is mounting to complete the ratification before the summit between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev that is to begin May 29.

Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said that Shultz will testify before the panel Monday afternoon and that Senate debate on ratification could resume Tuesday.

While Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) reiterated his determination to keep the debate removed from the summit schedule, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) called for the Senate to work into the night and on weekends if necessary to complete action before Reagan goes to Moscow.

‘Should Not Be Missed’

“The opportunity for an American President to present before the Soviet people this significant and historic agreement is one that should not be missed, if there is any way possible for the Senate to complete its business,” Stevens said.

At the White House, spokesman Marlin Fitzwater reported that “progress has been made.”

“They’ve made good progress on the verification issues, as well as on the larger questions,” he said, but gave no details. Fitzwater said that as a result of the progress reported in Geneva, “we will try to get ratification before going to the summit.”

Neither Shultz nor his senior staff would claim victory on virtually all of the disputed issues, which involve Soviet attempts to restrict U.S. on-site inspectors more than allowed in the treaty. But a senior Pentagon official said that “all outcomes were consistent with our original understanding of the treaty text.”

In view of the result, which had been widely expected, some U.S. officials expressed puzzlement that Soviet military officers who are charged with implementing the treaty had raised the largely technical issues in the first place.

Several U.S. officials said they suspected that the Soviet officers had simply wanted to show their superiors that they were tough. There were no indications that the disagreements were part of an effort by conservatives to embarrass Gorbachev, U.S. officials said.

‘Very Serious Problems’

Shevardnadze also welcomed the outcome Thursday after his meetings with Shultz. However, he objected to the U.S. view that the “misunderstandings,” as he called them, were technical in nature. They were “very serious problems that required political decisions,” he said.

“Many difficulties emerged through misunderstandings,” he told a news conference at the end of the talks, “and the misunderstandings turn into complex jigsaw puzzles. That seems to be the nature of U.S.-Soviet relations at this stage, that we will continue for a long time to pay the ransom of mutual mistrust.”

Shevardnadze said “this was the first test of the treaty,” which provides for the elimination of ground-launched nuclear missiles with a range of 300 to 3,400 miles. “And we feel the treaty has stood that test together with us (U.S. and Soviet negotiators),” he added.

The U.S.-Soviet disagreements over the treaty, which first emerged last month, took on serious political overtones in the United States when senators charged that the Soviets seem to be already reneging on the new treaty even before it was ratified.

As a result, it became the major focus of the Shultz-Shevardnadze meeting here, which had been scheduled before the differences became public. The meeting’s main purpose was to prepare for the summit--and in fact the two ministers spent virtually all of their time on the broader summit issues.

“The summit will be interesting, impressive, with a great deal to reflect on and an occasion to look prospectively to the future,” Shultz predicted.

He acknowledged, however, that relatively little progress was made here toward a new strategic arms reduction talks (START) agreement that could cut offensive nuclear weapons by 50%.

Cannot Be Ready

Once expected to be signed at the summit, the START treaty cannot be ready in time for that meeting, Shultz said. But he predicted that the summit will “energize negotiations” and that “sooner or later the START agreement will be reached.”

Shevardnadze, for his part, said the summit goal is “to achieve the maximum possible” progress toward a new START agreement, to record the status of the negotiations at the summit and then “continue intensively the work afterward. The May summit is not our final destination but an important mid-stage toward concluding an agreement.”

There were nine U.S.-Soviet disagreements over the medium-range missile accord. In addition, the Soviets had complained about West German-owned Pershing 1-A missiles stored in the United States, and the Senate was concerned that “futuristic” weapons had been inadequately dealt with in the treaty.

One of the documents said the United States and the Soviet Union agree that the INF treaty bans current missiles as well as future weapons within the specified range. This will preclude development of laser beam-like weapons mounted on medium-range missiles, officials said.

The West German problem was solved when the United States flatly refused a Soviet demand that it destroy the Pershing 1-As now in the United States. The Bonn government has promised to destroy all of its Pershings, but Washington refused to have anything to do with the weapons because they belong to another country.

21 in Warehouses

The Soviets also asked for the number of German Pershings in the U.S. warehouses, which Washington has reported as 21.

Other disagreements over the treaty dealt with such arcane details of implementation as identifying transit points when the missiles are being moved and providing information that would permit confirmation of what sorts of missiles were being destroyed.

Smallest Items to Check

Among the major issues, one concerned the smallest item subject to inspection. The United States claimed that it could inspect individual missile stages--not just fully assembled missiles, which the Soviets wanted--without removing the missiles from their shipping canisters. However, the United States apparently gave up its request after the Soviets argued that such a move would be dangerous.

Another issue on which the United States won was the right to inspect all buildings within a base that had been associated with medium-range missiles, not just individual buildings on the base that the Soviets have singled out for inspection.

On a third issue, the Soviets lost their claim that they should be able to veto any request by U.S. inspectors to use inspection equipment such as cameras. The Soviets now acknowledge that they cannot refuse such requests.

Shultz said it was inevitable that there would be an “occasional argument or two” in implementing such a complex treaty. He even predicted that “we’ll probably see such arguments for 13 more years,” which is the duration of the treaty.

Further Assurances

Initially, the Senate schedule had called for the debate to begin Monday, but early this month, key Senate Democrats cited four areas where they first wanted clarification and further assurances from the Reagan Administration.

At the outset of hearings by the Foreign Relations, Armed Services and Intelligence committees, the on-site inspection arrangements were hailed as the most significant aspect of the new agreement, and senators predicted that the pact, signed last December, would sail through to easy ratification.

In light of the difficulties, Democrats, who are expected to support ratification almost unanimously, caution that the Senate must be deliberate in the floor debate.

“We were told that all the i’s were dotted and the t’s were crossed,” Byrd declared on the Senate floor Thursday, “and we found through minute investigation of these committees that this was not the case.”

Urging careful deliberation, he added, “If we find we have been hoodwinked, outgunned, outsmarted . . . you can kiss the next treaty goodby. That would be the end of arms control.”

Times staff writers Rudy Abramson and James Gerstenzang, in Washington, contributed to this article.