Iceland Cometh

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

If the timing of the private letter to the President seemed odd, its contents were startling. The crisis created by the Soviet detention of American Journalist Nicholas Daniloff threatened to poison all negotiations between the nuclear superpowers. Yet in the midst of this impasse, here was Mikhail Gorbachev declaring not only that he still wanted to meet Ronald Reagan again but also that he wished to do so right away, before the two superpower leaders committed themselves to a full-dress summit conference.

True, Gorbachev had repeatedly and publicly proposed a snap meeting to negotiate a ban on nuclear tests. But Reagan and his closest advisers had had no hint that the Soviet leader was about to suggest, under conditions of strict secrecy, a far broader meeting. Upon beginning talks in Washington on $ Sept. 19, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze had informed Secretary of State George Shultz that he was carrying a letter from Gorbachev to Reagan. Shultz called White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan to suggest that he bring Shevardnadze to the Oval Office to deliver it in person. But not until Shevardnadze handed two copies of the letter, in Russian and English, to Reagan and briefly summarized its contents did it become clear that the last paragraph of the missive was one of the most extraordinary in the lengthening annals of White House-Kremlin correspondence. Reagan did not reply immediately; he devoted most of his 45-minute meeting with Shevardnadze to a stern lecture about how angry the U.S. was over Daniloff's arrest.

Only three of Reagan's advisers -- Shultz, Regan and National Security Adviser John Poindexter -- were at first allowed to see the full text. Nearly all of the five pages were devoted to a point-by-point reply to arms-control proposals Reagan had made in a personal letter on July 25. The substance was not surprising, but Gorbachev's tone was: it struck notes of impatience bordering on urgency, frustration amounting almost to desperation. The Soviet leader sounded fed up with the slowness of diplomats in working out agreements. Though he included the usual accusations against the U.S., he implied exasperation with his own bureaucracy as well as Reagan's. Says a U.S. official: "All at one time, Gorbachev was wringing his hands, pounding his fist and holding out his hand for the President to shake."

The punch lines came in the last paragraph. Gorbachev declared that he and Reagan should "personally involve" themselves in preparations for a full- scale summit meeting in order to give an "impulse" to their bureaucracies to draft something the two leaders could sign. To that end, he proposed a quick presummit meeting in either Britain or Iceland. Reagan, like Gorbachev a believer in personal diplomacy, was intrigued. But though Shultz, Poindexter and Regan all counseled acceptance, the President decided to sleep on it. By next morning Reagan had made up his mind. He instructed Shultz, who was to meet Shevardnadze later that day, to say yes, subject to one major condition: there could be no meeting until Daniloff was free.

For ten more days, the White House and the Kremlin kept their secret. Assistant Secretary of State Rozanne Ridgway was informed so that she could begin quiet talks with Soviet officials about the dates and place for a | presummit. Moscow had announced, and Washington had confirmed, the receipt of Gorbachev's letter, but both allowed the world to think it dealt exclusively with arms control. The White House even cut the proposal for a meeting out of a copy of the letter that was circulated within the Administration. Explains a senior State Department official: "We didn't want everyone in every agency weighing in with a lot of arguments about why it was a bad idea. And we sure as hell didn't want someone to leak the proposal so that George Will and the right wing could pre-emptively attack us for being wimps even to consider such a thing."

By last week Ridgway's negotiations had settled on Oct. 11 and 12 as the dates and Reykjavik, Iceland, as the place for a Reagan-Gorbachev meeting. That arrangement proved to be the deal maker that finally impelled a compromise on Daniloff. Two weeks ago Shultz and Shevardnadze had moved their discussions to New York City, where both were attending the U.N. General Assembly meeting. But through three tense meetings they failed to find any formula for the release of Daniloff. The Soviets demanded equal treatment for the U.S. News & World Report correspondent and for Gennadi Zakharov, the Soviet U.N. employee whose arrest on espionage charges in New York City had triggered the KGB's seizure of Daniloff. They insisted on "reconsideration" of the American order that 25 named employees of the Soviet U.N. mission leave the U.S. by Oct. 1. The U.S. insisted that Daniloff had to be freed immediately and Zakharov had to stand trial, though he could later be exchanged for some prominent Soviet dissidents.

But at the start of last week, the ice broke. On Sunday evening Shultz slipped the Soviet mission for a meeting with Shevardnadze, which went on for three hours. Shevardnadze grudgingly announced Moscow would free Yuri Orlov and his wife Irina Valitova. Orlov, a physicist, had helped organize the first Helsinki Watch Group, which publicized Soviet violations of the human rights accords signed in the Finnish capital in 1975. For that temerity he was imprisoned for seven years, ending in 1984, and then sent into "internal exile" in a remote village in Siberia. Shultz in return reluctantly agreed to a quick release of Zakharov and a two-week stay of the expulsion of the 25 Soviets at the U.N. (The Soviets and the U.S. cannot even agree on how many remain in New York, and what will happen to them is still unclear; Shevardnadze said their fate would be settled at Reykjavik.)

All pieces of the package fell into place within 36 hours. On Monday afternoon Daniloff was told he could catch a flight out of Moscow immediately. The next day Zakharov appeared in a Brooklyn courtroom, changed his not-guilty plea to no contest, and was told to get out of the U.S. within 24 hours. Simultaneously, both sides let it be known that Orlov would be released. Finally, while Zakharov was preparing to leave on Tuesday, Reagan, in Washington, and Shevardnadze, in New York, announced the one element of the not-exactly-a-deal that nobody had anticipated: the not-exactly-a-summit this weekend in Reykjavik.

American conservatives grumbled that the deal amounted to the swap of an innocent hostage, Daniloff, for a real spy, Zakharov, a trade the Reagan Administration had sworn never to countenance. Republican Presidential Hopeful Jack Kemp charged that the Administration had set a "terrible precedent" by letting Moscow get away with hostage taking, and Conservative Caucus Chairman Howard Phillips expressed himself more pungently to the New York Daily News. Said Phillips: "This Administration's foreign policy has been to kiss the Russian bear's bottom, and he keeps turning the other cheek." Administration officials replied that the U.S. had secured the release of Daniloff without any trial, while Zakharov had really been exchanged for Dissident Orlov.

The deal promptly increased pressure on the Administration to negotiate freedom for the kidnaped Americans being held hostage in Lebanon. Two of the hostages, Terry Anderson and David Jacobsen, made a videotape that was delivered to news offices in Beirut by Islamic Jihad, the extremist group holding them, and played on American TV last Friday. Anderson, the chief Middle East correspondent of the Associated Press, contrasted "2 1/2 years of empty talk and refusals to act on the part of the Reagan Administration" in his case with the "propaganda and bombast with which that Administration solved the problem of Mr. Daniloff." Reagan said Friday that "there is no comparison." The hostages in Lebanon, he said, "were not seized by a government. We don't know who's holding them. There's never been any contact between their kidnapers and us."

The Daniloff trade that the Administration would not call a trade was promptly overshadowed by the summit that neither side would call a summit. Officially, it is a meeting to prepare for the full-scale summit in the U.S. ^ that both leaders pledged themselves to conduct when they first met in Geneva last November. The second summit was to be held sometime this year, to be followed by a third in Moscow in 1987.

The hope of both leaders is that in Iceland they can agree on the general outlines for an accord that would drastically reduce INF (intermediate-range nuclear forces) missiles and warheads. Diplomats would then try to put a pact in shape for the leaders to sign if and when they eventually meet in the U.S. That does seem possible; negotiators in Geneva have come close to accord on the basic numbers. But an INF pact is far from assured. Though Moscow no longer insists that one be linked to a reduction on long-range strategic weapons and a ban on space defenses, Gorbachev is expected to propose a different sort of linkage. He will probably urge that an INF agreement be accompanied by a U.S. pledge to observe, for another two or three years, the strategic limits contained in the unratified SALT II treaty. Reagan announced in May that the U.S. would no longer be constrained by SALT II because the Soviets have been violating it, but he has hinted he may reconsider if the Soviets are forthcoming in arms-control negotiations. In any event, the President will have a demand of his own to voice to Gorbachev. Reagan will insist on verification procedures in an INF accord that are much more stringent than Moscow has ever accepted.

There is much room for disagreement on other arms-control issues as well. Gorbachev is just about certain to press Reagan hard for a complete ban on nuclear tests. Some American experts uneasily view this as a demand on which the Soviet leader must win something to save face with his own military, who are believed to be discontented with the unilateral moratorium on tests that the U.S.S.R. has been observing for 14 months. Gorbachev will look bad if he has to resume testing without having got anything from the moratorium. Reagan is most unlikely to accede to a complete ban, but he can offer something: a repetition of his proposal to the U.N. two weeks ago that the U.S. will at last move to ratify two treaties restricting the size and number of tests -- if satisfactory verification procedures can be concluded. He might then offer to resume negotiations for a complete ban but one that would be concluded only when and if the two sides can agree on sharp reductions in long-range strategic nuclear weapons.

On the central issues of long-range nuclear weapons and space defenses there has been little progress. Negotiators in Geneva have narrowed somewhat the differences between Soviet and American proposals for a sharp reduction in strategic weapons. But the Soviets insist that any agreement be linked to a ban on the development, testing and deployment of Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. Reagan not only is determined to press ahead with SDI but intends to make another try in Iceland to convince Gorbachev that the Soviets too should shift their nuclear strategy from offense to defense. Gorbachev is most unlikely to become a convert. At best, an INF agreement might give negotiators for both sides an impetus to get cracking on a broader pact containing some compromises on strategic and space weapons for consideration at a later summit.

Though the focus of the Iceland meeting, certainly on the Soviet side, will be arms control, all the other issues familiar from past summits will also be on the agenda: bilateral relations, such as trade and cultural exchanges; regional issues like Afghanistan and Nicaragua; human rights. The first two are unlikely to take up much time. Bilateral relations have been improving satisfactorily since the Geneva summit. Shevardnadze announced last week that the Soviets will withdraw some troops from Afghanistan "in a few days" and added that Gorbachev may talk with Reagan about a possible political solution. But American experts doubt that the position of either side on regional issues has changed much, and anticipate only perfunctory discussion of the subject.

Reagan expects to hit human rights almost as hard as Gorbachev will stress INF and a test ban. He will press once again for more Jewish emigration from the U.S.S.R., reunification of families divided by the Iron Curtain, release of other Soviet dissidents besides Orlov, and less internal repression generally. American experts concede there has been little sign of Soviet give on any of these matters: the best one can predict is a "long, tough discussion." Reagan's advisers are convinced the Soviets do not appreciate how seriously the U.S. takes human rights, and think they need to hear the American position directly from Reagan. With the partial exception of INF, a mere listing of the positions of the two sides on the agenda's main items could lead to bleak predictions for success. But the great imponderable is the extent to which the two leaders, talking face to face, can find the compromises that have so far eluded their bargainers. The conference arrangements are being drawn to maximize the chance that they can. Though Reagan and Gorbachev are not giving themselves much time -- only a day and a half -- they are supposed to spend a good deal of that period alone. Even when advisers are called in, the sessions will be kept very small. On the U.S. side, only Shultz, Poindexter and Regan are scheduled to sit at the table with the President. Reagan agreed to the meeting partly out of sheer self- confidence. His advisers believe he scored nothing short of a spectacular personal triumph at Geneva and can repeat it in Iceland. Politics entered into his motivation too. Regan judged that a successful presummit summit shortly before next month's congressional elections would allow Reagan to be perceived as a President who got superpower relations back on track, and thus boost his efforts to help Republican campaigners.

But the decisive motive was a reading of Gorbachev's intentions. To Shultz and other advisers, the Soviet leader seems genuinely to want, and need, agreements of some kind with the U.S. to bolster his stature as a man who can manage the superpower rivalry successfully. Gorbachev has little to show so far for his efforts to reduce tensions with the U.S. He has been an unsparing critic of the sluggish Soviet bureaucracy, and may hope to galvanize it by negotiating directly with Reagan agreements that he can present to his subordinates as faits accomplis.

The Soviet bureaucracy has not been the only barrier to progress. Soviet officials complain that the incessant squabbling within American negotiating teams between moderates and hard-liners makes progress glacially slow. At recent bargaining sessions, says one well-placed U.S.S.R. official, the tensions and disagreements on the American side were "if not right out in the open, then very easy for us to detect." Some of Reagan's advisers are dissatisfied too, and had begun to discuss opening some sort of "back channel" to Moscow before Gorbachev in effect proposed the ultimate back channel, one running through the top leaders.

For all that, the Iceland meeting stirs worry among some diplomatic experts, who believe summit meetings must be thoroughly prepared. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger insists that U.S.-Soviet tensions "cannot be removed by the personal relationship of two leaders, and it is not in our interest to create the impression that they can be." He adds, "This hurry-up presummit summit is a source of great concern to me." William Hyland, editor of Foreign Affairs, thinks the Iceland meeting is "dangerous" because diplomats are "escalating their disagreements to their bosses, and if their bosses disagree, the whole thing could blow up. I'd say there is a 40% chance it will fall apart."

While that may be too pessimistic, the nonsummit, or presummit or whatever, is indeed a risk. American Presidents and Soviet leaders have generally met in the past only after their diplomats had worked out agreements, however minor or ephemeral, for them to formalize. But Reagan and Gorbachev are conferring precisely because their subordinates have not been able to agree, in the hope they can pull off a kind of joint end run around their own diplomatic machineries. Even if all they can do is give the negotiating process a slight personal impetus -- or "impulse," as Gorbachev put it -- and produce enough momentum to bring about a full-scale summit in a few months, the gamble will have been worth it.

With reporting by James O. Jackson/Moscow, Johanna McGeary and Strobe Talbott/Washington