Reagan, Shultz Debate Summit Results

WASHINGTON--President Reagan said yesterday that Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev agreed to drop demands for restrictions on the Star Wars program, but Secretary of State George P. Shultz said he did not sense any Kremlin departure from its insistence on linking long-range weapons cuts to a curb in the American missile-defense initiative.

Reagan denied that the issue of his Strategic Defense Initiative, which interrupted progress on arms agreements at the Reagan-Gorbachev meeting in Iceland last year, had been sidestepped at this week's Washington summit.

Asked whether his understanding with Gorbachev resolves or postpones the question, Reagan replied, "It resolves it."

"As a matter of fact by agreement we will go forward with our research and development of SDI...with whatever is needed in that development and then, after a certain point, if and when we have succeeded in putting together this initiative, then we will deploy," he said.

But Shultz, who was in Brussels to meet with European allies on the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty that was signed Tuesday, took a far less optimistic view than that espoused by Reagan.

Despite progress at the summit, Shultz said, the Soviets had not assured they would sign a strategic arms reduction treaty without securing limitations on Star Wars.

The Soviets have linked the two issues in the past, "and I don't sense any particular delinkage," Shultz said.

In Washington, another senior administration official disagreed with Reagan's interpretation that the Soviets have dropped their demands for curbs on Star Wars.

"In my opinion, we have not resolved the issue," he said. "In my opinion, they'll come back to us. But they have moved in our direction."

The official, who spoke to a reporter only on condition of anonymity, said there was no Soviet "capitulation."

Reagan commented in a question-and-answer session with reporters and editors from Boston, Chicago and other cities.

Soviet spokesmen have suggested that, although the Star Wars program is not an obstacle in its present state of development, it could become one and would have to be discussed later.

Reagan, however, said, "I don't think there is any impediment there at all." When asked whether the Soviets would no longer require restrictions, he said, "No, that was eliminated."

Ronnie on Gorby

Reagan told the journalists that he found Gorbachev "a hard bargainer" but that he had "a very different relationship" with him than with any of the Soviet leader's three predecessors who served since the President took office in 1981.

Reagan did not meet any of the other three as president.

The President also seemed to soften the 1983 description in which he called the Soviet Union "an evil empire."

"I meant it when I said it because under previous leaders they have indicated their program was bent on expansionism, on going forward toward the Marxian philosophy of a one-world communist state," the President said. Under Gorbachev, however, he said, "There seems to be an entirely different relationship."

The President was also asked whether he took exception to Gorbachev getting out of his limousine Thursday to shake hands and talk with passers-by.

"No, wait until next summer and he sees what I do with his people," Reagan replied. The two leaders are expected to meet in Moscow in the spring.