McFarlane Predicts U.S-Soviet ‘Accommodation’ on ‘Star Wars’

The United States and the Soviet Union will reach “some kind of accommodation” on the Strategic Defense Initiative, but probably not until after the Moscow summit meeting that begins later this month, former National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane predicted Monday.

McFarlane, a key figure in developing the SDI concept of a space-based missile defense system, said that in the long run neither SDI nor problems of verifying compliance will be a stumbling block to achieving a pact reducing long-range, or strategic, missiles.

In the past, the Soviets have insisted on limits on SDI, also known as the “Star Wars” program, as a precondition to progress on other forms of arms control.

Verification problems and other issues standing in the way of a strategic arms reduction treaty can be resolved within the next year, McFarlane told reporters in a breakfast interview.

At one time President Reagan had held out hope that a strategic arms agreement could be reached in time for the Moscow meetings May 29 to June 3. More recently, the Administration conceded that arms negotiators would be unable to resolve the remaining problems in time for the meeting.

McFarlane, who attended five of President Reagan’s sessions with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev during the 1985 Geneva summit meeting, suggested that Gorbachev is interested in pressing ahead on a strategic missiles agreement in hopes of reaching an accord before Reagan leaves office next January.

But Reagan apparently is more cautious. “The President, to his credit, is not pressing the issue,” McFarlane said.

Asked how he expects Reagan to negotiate with Gorbachev at the next summit session, McFarlane recalled “a telling vignette” concerning a discussion on SDI that the President had with Gorbachev in Geneva.

Reagan, according to McFarlane, laid out a four-item agenda for the summit meeting--human rights, arms control, bilateral relations and regional issues--and then “led off with a passionate presentation on SDI.”

The Soviet leader, vigorously objecting to SDI, responded with “a more technical rebuttal.” So Reagan launched into a more detailed explanation of his hopes for a nuclear-free world and for a space-based defense system that would protect the United States from a nuclear missile assault.

Gorbachev, McFarlane said, “sat back and didn’t say anything for several moments, then said: ‘Well, I disagree with you very fervently, and I think you’re dead wrong. But I see you feel strongly about it . . . and I will reconsider.’ ”

Reagan believes that “leaders count for more than ideology,” McFarlane said, and despite a tradition of Soviet expansionism, he still “believes leaders can be persuaded to behave differently” and will proceed on that basis in Moscow.

McFarlane said that Reagan’s personal diplomacy is underwritten by real strength. Gorbachev’s respect for Reagan as a person who backs up his word with “appropriate and real strength is quite high,” he added.

The United States’ foremost goal at the summit meeting, McFarlane said, should be to urge the Soviets “to do something that benefits us.” He said the signing of the intermediate-range missile treaty at the Washington summit session last December and the pullout of Soviet troops from Afghanistan “mostly benefit” the Soviet Union.

Curtailing Soviet support for the leftist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua should be high on the list of summit objectives for the United States, he added.