Summit Glitches Surface; Soviets Cancel One Session : Monastery Guest List Disputed

The Soviet Union today abruptly canceled one of President Reagan’s meetings with General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev and questioned the composition of a religious group scheduled to meet with Reagan in Moscow.

Presidential spokesmen sought to minimize the last-minute glitches, with one, Roman Popadiuk, saying the session at the Danilov Monastery is “going to proceed as scheduled” and claiming that the decision to scrub one of Reagan’s meetings with Gorbachev was “mutual.”

However, on the President’s flight Wednesday from Washington, chief spokesman Marlin Fitzwater put the cancellation differently. He said the Soviets suggested dropping a meeting and the U.S. side was trying to clarify the reason.

Today, Fitzwater said that overall, Reagan still will spend six hours with the Soviet leader because the remaining sessions will be expanded. “I regard it as routine,” he said of the cancellation.

Despite the White House’s efforts to smooth over any differences, the schedule change and rumors that the Soviets are attempting to restrict access to Reagan contributed a measure of uncertainty to his fourth summit meeting with the general secretary.

Reagan, meanwhile, passed the day relaxing and keeping his distance from the hundreds of reporters following in his footsteps.

Takes Lakeside Stroll

A brief press notice said Reagan and his wife, Nancy, strolled along a lake near their guest house. During the 30-minute walk the President skipped stones across the water, the press release said.

The session with Gorbachev, called off because of what the Soviets cited as “some internal function,” was one of five that Reagan had scheduled over four days with his host.

The summit encountered another glitch when word reached the presidential party taking a rest stop in Finland that the Soviets had questioned the participation of one of the religious groups due to meet with Reagan at the monastery on Monday.

“The meeting itself is still on as far as I know,” Fitzwater said. He said he did not know which religious group might be excluded.

Reagan also plans to meet separately with a group of Jewish refuseniks who have been unable to obtain exit permits for Israel. Fitzwater said he was unable to verify a report that two of them had been intercepted by Soviet authorities on their way to Moscow from Leningrad.

No Concern Apparent

On the official level, the Soviets have shown no concern over the meeting planned between Reagan and Soviet refuseniks. At a press conference to discuss the forthcoming summit, U.S. affairs expert Georgy A. Arbatov and Communist Party Central Committee official Nikolai Shishlin both stated that they consider Reagan’s meeting partners his own business.

Reagan’s first visit to the country he once denounced as “the evil empire” was already clouded by failure of a U.S. effort to oust Gen. Manuel A. Noriega, the military ruler of Panama.

After the summit, Gorbachev will preside at the first full-fledged Communist Party conference since 1941, but there was no immediate word on whether the cancellation of the second of the Reagan-Gorbachev sessions on Monday had any connection with the party meetings.

For the Soviets, the party conference has tended to overshadow Reagan’s fourth summit meeting with Gorbachev, because it will serve as a test of the Soviet leader’s economic reform policies and his three years at the Kremlin helm.

At the same time, the summit itself has lost any expectation of major results with the failure of U.S. and Soviet negotiators to complete a treaty to sharply reduce long-range nuclear weapons.