Arms Control Talks Break Off Bitterly

VIENNA, Austria--High level superpower arms control talks ended bitterly yesterday with the Soviet Union accusing the United States of a "complete retreat" from positions agreed to at the Iceland summit. Secretary of State George P. Shultz said "Star Wars" was still the sticking point.

After five hours of meetings with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze over two days, Shultz, clearly disappointed, told reporters: "I can't say the meetings have moved us along in any significant way, and I regret this."

Shevardnadze, in an acerbic summary before boarding a plane for Moscow, said he departed with a "bitter taste."

He accused the U.S. side of a "complete retreat" from the October 11-12 summit meeting in Iceland between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Arms control positions conveyed by Shultz "represent a mixed bag of old mothballed views and approaches," he said. "One cannot avoid the impression that our partners [the Americans] wished to forget Reykjavik as soon as possible."

The Reykjavik summit ended in deadlock over the Star Wars antimissile program, after Reagan rejected restrictions on testing of it as part of an arms reduction deal.

The arms talks in Vienna, on the periphery of a 35-nation Helsinki review conference, focused on the tentative agreements between Reagan and Gorbachev to reduce nuclear weapons and the dispute over Star Wars, which sidetracked an accord in Reykjavik.

Shultz met for three hours Wednesday night with Shevardnadze at the U.S. Embassy, and again for nearly two hours yesterday morning at the Soviet Embassy.

In addition, U.S. and Soviet arms control experts discussed the details of all three arms control areas--long range missiles, intermediate-range missiles in Europe and spacebased defenses--at a three-hour working session that ran into the early hours of yesterday.

In the only apparent glimmer of progress, Shevardnadze agreed to consider a proposal by Shultz that U.S. and Soviet experts meet when regular U.S.-Soviet arms control negotiations in Geneva are in recess.

The current round winds up next week. The talks are not scheduled to resume until January.

"We'll keep at it," Shultz said. "There's a chance in the end we'll get there."

But he said the Soviets were intent on "crippling" the Strategic Defense Initiative, as the project for employing futuristic technology as a shield against nuclear attack is formally known.

"If that is their purpose, it is not going to work," Shultz said.