2 Leaders Stress Gains at Summit : Rights, Regional Issues Cited; Further Arms Talks Called Vital

President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev concluded their fourth summit Wednesday with scant gains on strategic arms control, but they said progress on improving U.S.-Soviet relations had, in Gorbachev’s words, “dealt a blow at the foundation of the Cold War.”

In a joint communique and in separate news conferences, the leaders of the world’s superpowers said they had also made concrete progress on human rights and regional conflicts.

Tacitly conceding that the minimal progress achieved here on the strategic arms reduction agreement raises serious doubts that it can be completed before Reagan’s term ends in January, the President and the Soviet leader declared it is vital for the strategic arms reduction talks (START) to continue under Reagan’s successor.

“I would hope that before the year is out that we could eliminate the differences that still exist” on START, Reagan said at his news conference Wednesday afternoon. “But if not, I would hope that my successor would continue, because here we are getting at, I think, the most important reduction that should take place in nuclear weapons.”

And Gorbachev, asked if it would be important to have regular meetings with the next President, responded that it would be “vitally necessary.”

Indeed, in appraising what had been accomplished during Reagan’s dramatic trip to Moscow--the first by an American President since the Richard M. Nixon Administration--both leaders stressed the importance of regular summit meetings as part of a framework for stabilizing and improving U.S.-Soviet relations.

‘Serious Differences’

“Serious differences remain on important issues” and “will continue to characterize the U.S.-Soviet relationship,” they acknowledged in their final statement.

But they declared the dialogue established by the four summits “can serve as a constructive basis for addressing not only the problems of the present, but of tomorrow and the next century.”

Administration officials said that their closed-door discussions with Soviet officials on human rights were highly productive and moved forward smoothly. In public, however, the issue continued to prove sensitive and difficult for both Reagan and Gorbachev.

The Soviet leader was clearly still nettled by the President’s highly publicized meetings with dissidents and refuseniks.

And Reagan, apparently seeking to avoid rubbing salt in the wound as the summit ended, put himself in the awkward position of contending that much of the problem over Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union stems not from Kremlin policy but from stubborn bureaucrats.

On a more positive note, the two leaders, in ceremonies at the Kremlin, exchanged the ratification documents of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which provides for elimination of all ground-launched medium-range nuclear missiles. They hailed the treaty as a historic development in U.S.-Soviet efforts to avoid nuclear war.

“Historians who will one day describe and evaluate what is now being done have probably not yet been born,” Gorbachev declared. “But every day, babies are being born who will live in the 21st Century, and to them we must bequeath a safe and humane world.”

Reagan said the INF treaty “makes possible a new dimension of cooperation.” But, he said, “We must not stop here. . . . We must try to move forward in the months ahead to complete this START treaty as soon as possible.

“So let us continue to expand the frontiers of trust, even as we verify, Mr. General Secretary, even as we verify,” Reagan said.

Although both leaders were relatively optimistic in their concluding comments, Gorbachev was outspoken in expressing his disappointment that the summit had not accomplished more.

Heated Discussions

And, seeking to lay the blame directly on Reagan, he suggested that some of their closed-door, one-on-one sessions had been more heated than Kremlin and White House briefers had led reporters to believe during the summit.

At one point, Gorbachev said, they had “a very intense discussion” about Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. He accused the President of “going back” on his word by pursuing SDI after promising at the Geneva summit that the United States would not seek military superiority.

Reagan views the proposed SDI program to provide a space-based shield against incoming nuclear missiles as strictly a defensive weapon.

“There is nothing offensive about it. It cannot possibly hurt or kill anyone,” Reagan said in responding to Gorbachev’s contention that it is dangerously destabilizing.

Asked why Gorbachev continues to reject Reagan’s view despite their supposedly close relationship, Reagan quipped at his news conference, “Well, maybe he just doesn’t know me well enough.”

Gorbachev also said that during the summit sessions he showed Reagan a proposed statement he described as “very powerful” that would have committed both powers to embrace “peaceful coexistence” and repudiate any military action to resolve problems.

The Soviet leader said he saw it as a “Moscow Declaration” along the lines of the declaration at the Geneva summit that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. He said he offered the statement to Reagan for inclusion in their final communique.

And he wanted it incorporated so badly that he and Reagan stood up, instead of sitting, and debated the matter intensely after the President first said he liked it, but then returned after checking with aides and said he could not support it.

The President later explained that while he liked “the whole general tone” of the statement, he took it to aides who found “certain ambiguities” in it.

Reagan aides said they had experience with the phrase “peaceful coexistence” before--during the Nixon era--and found it “imprecise.”

On the question of a fifth summit, Gorbachev said it all hinged on whether a START accord is reached, although the President declared “something else might come up that necessitates our getting together again and settling something other than that particular treaty.”

Reagan generally refrained from directly attacking Gorbachev throughout the summit, although several times he emphasized that although he and the Soviet leader were developing a trusting relationship, his watchword was still “trust, but verify.”

In their 16-page joint statement, the two leaders declared their relations are “based on realism and focused on the achievement of concrete results.”

The two leaders also instructed Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze and Secretary of State George P. Shultz to meet “as necessary” and report back on ways to assure continued progress across the board.

Other highlights of the statement:

--Arms control. “Important additional work is required” to complete a START treaty, but “many key provisions” already have been approved by both sides. Soviet and American experts found “substantial additional common ground,” particularly on air-launched cruise missiles and verifying location of mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Major Stumbling Blocks

But Administration officials made it clear that little or no progress had been made on the major stumbling blocks: the Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars,” and sea-launched cruise missiles.

--Missile-launch warnings. An agreement was reached to notify each other of launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

--A Joint Verification Experiment Agreement was signed during the meeting to find a commonly accepted way to detect nuclear explosions, as part of an effort to limit and eventually eliminate nuclear testing.

--Conventional arms control. The leaders emphasized the importance of strengthening stability and security in the whole of Europe, but gave no details of how this might be done.

Concerning regional issues, the statement said discussions of such trouble spots as the Middle East, the Iran-Iraq War, Central America, Cambodia and southern Africa showed “serious differences” on both the causes of the problems and ways to resolve them.

But they agreed such differences should not be an obstacle to “constructive interaction” by the superpowers.

Both sides pledged to intensify bilateral ties, including exchanges of high school students, and agreed to start negotiations on opening cultural centers in each other’s countries.

Gorbachev and Reagan mentioned expanded space cooperation and said missions to the moon and to Mars might become areas of possible bilateral and international cooperation. Gorbachev has proposed a joint Soviet-American mission to Mars, but Reagan has said only that the suggestion would be considered.

On the issue of trade, the two leaders expressed strong support for expanded trade and economic relations, including joint ventures, but in his news conference Gorbachev criticized the United States for imposing restraints on trade with the Soviet Union.

Reagan and Gorbachev also said a U.S. consulate would be opened in Kiev and a Soviet consulate opened in New York City “as soon as practicable.” An agreement to open the consulates was made at the first summit they held in Geneva in November, 1985.

In the final analysis, perhaps the most important impact of the fourth summit was to advance and solidify the political dialogue Reagan and Gorbachev began in Geneva when they generally agreed on the concept of a 50% cut in strategic nuclear missiles.

At Wednesday’s ceremony exchanging the INF documents, Gorbachev declared:

“Assessing the work done over these past few days, we can . . . say that what has been happening these days in Moscow is big politics--politics that affect the interests of millions and millions of people.

“Each such meeting dealt a blow at the foundations of the Cold War. Each of them made huge breaches in the Cold War fortress and opened passages to modern, civilized world politics worthy of the truly new times.”

Reagan responded with praise for Gorbachev, declaring that at crucial moments his personal intervention was needed and proved decisive in the INF negotiations, “and for this we are grateful.”

No Change of Mind

Despite his own change of tune about the Soviet Union, Reagan, who years ago referred to it as an “evil empire,” could not bring himself to concede that his dealings with Gorbachev and other Soviet officials and his visit to Moscow might have changed his mind about the Soviet Union.

Pressed repeatedly on whether he had changed or expanded his view on the Soviet Union, the President said, “No. I think that a great deal of it is due to the general secretary, who I have found different than previous Soviet leaders have been. . . .”