Gorbachev: Another summit may take place before Reagan’s term ends

Gorbachev: Another summit may take place before Reagan’s term ends

According to the Soviet leader, an agreement to cut strategic nuclear weapons will be signed at the next summit • But experts believe that the formidable problems surrounding this agreement make it impossible to reach it so soon

Just two hours after U.S. President Ronald Reagan arrived for his first visit to the USSR, he held his first meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The meeting, which lasted an hour and fifteen minutes, was described by the president’s aides as “warm and businesslike.”

“This is going to be a good summit,” White House Chief of Staff Howard Baker said after the meeting. “They spoke frankly and touched on a great many subjects,” he added.

Dispute over human rights

Reagan and Gorbachev affirmed their desire to develop relations between the two superpowers, but tensions over human rights and disarmament had already made themselves felt yesterday. President Reagan gave Gorbachev a list of the names of all the cases in this area—a list that included Jewish refuseniks.

At the press conference held by the spokesmen, Gennady Gerasimov and Marlin Fitzwater, the Soviet spokesman accused his counterpart of spreading propaganda: “President Reagan has no clear picture and no understanding of the state of human rights in the USSR,” he said.

White House spokesman Fitzwater did not let the accusation go unanswered, saying that “given the importance of the issue in the eyes of the American people,” President Reagan would place the human-rights problem at the top of the agenda. Gerasimov responded: “We know our faults and shortcomings, but we do not like someone telling us how we should live.” Howard Baker later said there was no doubt that the Soviets did not like criticism of their actions on human rights, but, he said, President Reagan would continue to raise the issue.

In another interview with American television, Secretary of State George Shultz said that the first meeting had been “good, warm and businesslike,” and that it had dealt mainly with human rights and regional conflicts. The two leaders exchanged views on what they could do to ease tensions in those conflicts.

As for disarmament, Gorbachev called on Reagan, already in his first welcoming speech, to abolish the “Star Wars” program as a condition for a further agreement on nuclear disarmament.

Despite the many obstacles standing in the way of agreement on cuts to strategic nuclear weapons, Gorbachev told reporters yesterday that “a fifth summit conference may take place before Reagan’s term ends, in order to sign such an agreement.” But both American and Soviet experts believe the problems surrounding the agreement make it impossible to reach one so soon.

A warm speech in the Kremlin

George Shultz also said that the delay in reaching an agreement on cuts to strategic nuclear weapons was not due to the USSR setting up obstacles, but rather to the difficulty of reaching agreement on the many technical problems involved in monitoring implementation of the agreement.

Reagan was received at the airport yesterday by President Andrei Gromyko, in accordance with all the rules of protocol. The crowds, whose presence had characterized important visits to the USSR in the past, were absent from the reception. From the airport, the motorcade drove to the Kremlin, where Mikhail Gorbachev greeted him.

In the Kremlin, Gorbachev delivered a warm speech and offered Reagan another Russian proverb for his collection of proverbs: “Seeing is better than hearing.” Reagan did not leave this unanswered. He noted that relations between the two superpowers had improved thanks to patient effort, “with joy [illegible], not in agony”; he quoted a proverb in broken Russian.