Kremlin’s pressmen interview President

Press, 1 November 1985, Page 6

Kremlin’s pressmen interview President

NZPA-Reuter Washington The President of the United States, Mr Ronald Reagan, is becoming today the first American leader in 25 years to be interviewed by Soviet journalists. This is his challenge to the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, for the world public relations high ground before they meet at Geneva this month.

Representatives of the official news agency, Tass, the Soviet Communist Party’s newspaper, “Pravda,” the Government’s daily, “Izvestia,” and the Novosti news service would meet Mr Reagan in the Oval Office of the White House, a spokesman, Larry Speakes, said yesterday. The four will have about 30 minutes with the President and are expected to question him closely on his' goals and hopes for the summit meeting on November 19-20, which Mr Reagan indicated yesterday, were limited to improving the r

super-Power atmosphere. Mr Speakes said that the White House regarded the interview with the Russians, who flew in from, Moscow especially for the occasion, as “a unique and historic opportunity for the President” to communicate direct with the Soviet people. John Kennedy was the last President to grant an interview to the Soviet press. He spoke to the editor of “Izvestia” in the livingroom of his home at Hyannisport, Massachusetts, on November 25, 1961. Mr Speakes said that a long-standing request for Mr Reagan to appear. on Soviet television still had not been answered.

Mr Reagan plans a series of interviews with European journalists and several addresses to the American public on issues likely to arise in Geneva. The Administration has been disturbed by Mr Gorbachev’s impact on the news media since he be-

came the first of a new younger generation of Soviet leaders six months ago. ® In an interview with the 8.8. C. yesterday, Mr Reagan offered to consider sharing space defence technology from his “star wars” programme with the Soviet Union in return for a mutual reduction of nuclear arms.

“There would have to be the reductions of offensive weapons. In other words we would switch to defence instead of offence,” he said. Asked to reply to Mr Gorbachev’s proposals earlier this month that the super-Powers should agree to reduce their stocks of strategic nuclear missiles 50 per cent, Mr Reagan said it contained elements that could be acceptable to Washington. • In Brussels yesterday Mr Reagan was given two strong boosts by his N.A.T.O. allies — a declaration of support for his summit meeting with Mr Gorba-

chev and an outline agreement for Britain (to join the strategic defence initiative project.

N.A.T.O. Defence Ministers said after a two-day nuclear planning meeting, “On the eve of the meeting between President Reagan and General-Secretary Gorbachev, we declare that the President goes to Geneva with the full support and solidarity of the Alliance.” They expressed strong support for American positions on strategic and medium-range nuclear arms and defence and space systems at the Geneva negotiations, calling Mr Gorbachev’s recent arms proposals “one-sided and selfserving.” They also cited evidence from the United States Defence Secretary, Mr Caspar Weinberger, of Soviet violations of arms control treaties and said, “We take the most serious view of’ this and call on the new Soviet leadership to take the steps necessary to assure

full compliance with its commitments.” The accord on British participation in the “star wars” project to develop a space shield against nuclear missiles was reached at talks between Mr Weinberger and the British Defence Secretary, Mr Michael Heseltine after the N.A.T.O. meeting. Mr Heseltine said that remaining differences had been overcome on conditions for British firms to join the programme, but the accord still had to be finally approved by the two governments. Mr Weinberger said that they had reached “the essentials of an understanding” but made it clear that he had given no guarantee that Britain would get the SUSI.S billion ($2.56 billion) in research funds that it had sought „■

The N.A.T.O. Ministers omitted the explicit support for S.D.L they made after their last nuclear planning meeting, in Luxemburg, in

March. Officials said that this was part of a compromise worked out between the United States and Norway, the representative of several allies who had reservations about the programme. Yesterday’s communique was the strongest allied statement on alleged Soviet violations of arms control accords. Mr Weinberger showed his colleagues photographs, figures, and even a cardboard model to support assertions that Moscow’s SS2S missile broke the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (Salt 2) of 1979 and that its radar station at Krasnoyarsk, in Siberia, violated the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. Three days before the Dutch are due to announce a decision to accept 48 cruise missiles, they reaffirmed their determination to continue deploying American medium-range missiles in the absence of an arms control accord.