Reagan still holds some hope for Geneva summit

Press, 14 November 1985, Page 6

Reagan still holds some hope for Geneva summit

NZPA-Reuter Geneva President Reagan says he hopes his summit meeting next week with the Soviet leader, Mr Gorbachev, will dispel suspicion and mistrust, but doubts a concrete agreement will emerge. “A great measure of success would be if we came away with a decision to meet again to discuss common problems,” he said in a live television interview with West European reporters yesterday. The meeting will be held next Tuesday and Wednesday. Mr Reagan, aged 74, said he hoped the talks would result in agreement to exist in the world and compete peacefully but held out little hope of anything more concrete. The President said the agenda would cover four subjects: arms control, regional disputes, bilateral issues and human rights.

“I should think that what we should be dealing with at the summit is the elimination of suspicion and mistrust,” the President said.

Mr Reagan emphasised his commitment to the Strategic Defence Initiative (5.D.1.), or “star wars” research programme which he announced in March, 1983.

The ?US26 billion programme is aimed at developing a space-based shield to shoot down attacking Soviet missiles.

The plan has been denounced by Kremlin leaders as an attempt to launch an arms race in space and deadlocked the super-Power arms talks which opened in Geneva in March. “I think it would be the greatest thing in this century if we could come up

with the idea that, at last, there is a defensive measure, system, against nuclear missiles,” he said. “These are the only weapons in the history of man that have not given birth so far to a defence against them,” he said, declaring his commitment to shifting to nuclear defence from present policies of the threat of mass mutual destruction. The President repeated that S.D.I. research would not be used as a bargaining chip in the Geneva arms talks and the system would, be negotiated only when the deployment stage approached. • A motley mix of interest groups, ranging from exiled royalty to homosexuals to Jewish groups, has begun arriving in Geneva in search of sum-mit-linked publicity.

With growing hints from both sides that the talks between President Reagan and Mr Gorbachev will produce little hard news, they may have a chance.

More than 3000 news media representatives will gather in the Swiss city, arguably enough for journalistic overkill, and lobbyists from all strata hope to capture their attention.

All public rallies are already banned near the summit meeting site and the security zone will be gradually extended to include all of Geneva and the adjacent countryside on the eve of the meetings. Before the total ban becomes effective, 100 local, national and international peace groups are scheduled to stage a procession through downtown Geneva on Saturday shortly before Mr Reagan is due to arrive. Organisers say partici-

pants will include groups opposed to American policy towards Nicaragua and to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Also bidding for attention will be a delegation of prominent Americans including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who will bring the super-Powers a nuclear test ban petition they say has been signed by a million Americans. Jewish organisations campaigning against restrictions on the Jewish community in the Soviet Union have scheduled a rally on Sunday with participants from several countries. On Monday, the day Mr Gorbachev arrives, 19 exile groups have scheduled a rally with the motto “no to a peace stitched with a red thread.”

While Geneva is off-limits to public rallies, authorities have announced that there are “no restrictions on meetings inside private buildings.” The Soviets, who have rapidly warmed to Western public relations methods under the new Kremlin leadership, have a wellversed advance party in Geneva to “explain the Soviet position.” It is headed by Georgy Arbatov, considered Mr Gorbachev’s chief adviser on American affairs and a fluent English speaker who has been a frequent guest on Western television shows.

They have also scheduled a separate pre-summit press conference featuring among others Samuel Zivs, who is billed as a “human rights specialist,” but is perhaps better known as the chief spokesman of the official Soviet Anti-Zionist Committee.