President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev reached ”broad areas of agreement” on what to tell the world about the results of their summit meeting, White House spokesman Larry Speakes announced Wednesday at the conclusion of two days of superpower discussions.
However, there was no immediate word on whether Reagan and Gorbachev had achieved agreement on the substance of any of the major issues dividing the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
Speakes said ”good progress” had been made during the final Wednesday afternoon meeting of the two leaders but that ”some work remains to be done.”
As a result, Reagan and Gorbachev assigned a working group of aides from both sides to continue working and to report back at a windup banquet being hosted by Reagan Wednesday night.
Amid considerable confusion, Speakes emphasized that the progress he reported, and the work yet to be done, had to do with ”the manner and content” of how the two sides would report the result of the summit.
He was not speaking about substantive issues, such as nuclear arms control. But the progress he did report indicated the possibility that they would at least agree on a joint statement of some kind. That in itself was in great doubt when the summit began Tuesday.
Speakes said it was still uncertain whether the report to be presented at dinner would make it possible to lift the news blackout imposed Tuesday on the substance of the talks.
Both Reagan and Gorbachev are scheduled to leave Geneva Thursday and Gorbachev, for his part, has already booked time on the Eurovision TV network for a press conference at 10 a.m. Geneva time Thursday.
Speakes said it still was not certain how Reagan would handle the summit report Thursday. The progress developed Wednesday afternoon, according to Speakes, when Reagan and Gorbachev held a 14-minute one-on-one meeting, and then met in formal session for 47 minutes with their summit delegations.
At that point Reagan and Gorbachev dispatched their aides to another meeting at the U.S. Embassy. Reagan and Gorbachev continued their private talks for another 90 minutes.
Meanwhile, their aides dispersed to their respective embassies to continue work on the way to report the summit discussions. They subsequently rejoined Reagan and Gorbachev at the Soviet mission where they got the orders to go back to work and report again at the dinner.
The afternoon proceedings boosted to five hours the total amount of time Reagan and Gorbachev have spent together head-to-head with only their interpreters present. That was far more than had been expected or scheduled when the summit began, and it was one of the most intriguing developments at this first U.S.- Soviet summit in six years.
As at the opening of the summit Tuesday, Reagan and Gorbachev again Wednesday morning began with a private meeting, with only their interpreters present, before joining their delegations in the formal discussions.
Speakes said he could only ”interpret” the extraordinary amount of time Reagan and Gorbachev spent alone to mean that the two leaders ”communicate well” and ”obviously are comfortable with each other.”
Wednesday was Gorbachev`s turn to host the meetings, at the Soviet mission here, and he seemed more talkative and ebullient than Reagan in responding to reporters` questions as the two posed for pictures.
Gorbachev said they had had a ”lively discussion on everything” and that the talks had been ”frank . . . businesslike . . . responsible.”
Reagan characterized them as ”worthwhile” and Gorbachev said the fact that the meeting was taking place was in itself ”important.” He was asked if there had been any ”table pounding” in the proceedings and replied, ”No, not today or tomorrow or in the future.”
When Reagan was asked if he would like Gorbachev to come to Washington for another summit, the President replied, ”Of course.” Reagan noted ”there is much that divides us,” but said ”I believe the world breathes easier because we are here talking together.”
”Our differences are serious,” he said, ”but so is our commitment to improving understanding.”
One of the curious aspects of the private meetings between Reagan and Gorbachev was that, according to Speakes, no formal notes are being made of the sessions, as is customary in such diplomatic operations.
Speakes said Reagan was subsequently briefing his aides on the private talks but was doing so from memory. Speakes would not go into detail on the matter but insisted that the U.S. was ”comfortable” with what was being done to create a ”political, diplomatic and historical” record of these clearly important historical proceedings.
At a Soviet press briefing, spokesman Leonid Zamyatin was pressed with questions about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and its continuing occupation of that country with 100,000 troops. That was an issue Reagan also was intending to press Gorbachev on Wednesday when they got to the human rights part of their agenda.
Zamyatin insisted the Soviets are eager for a ”political solution” in Afghanistan rather than the military solution they are currently seeking to impose. And he said the Soviets believe a political solution ”is possible on the basis of talks currently underway” under the auspices of the United Nations secretary general.
He observed that Reagan and Gorbachev cannot be expected to resolve all the differences between the two sides in only two days of talks.
Following the final scheduled formal summit session Wednesday afternoon, both leaders and their wives were guests of honor at a reception put on by the Swiss government.
