Reagan Proposes Sharp Missile Reduction

WASHINGTON--Despite a duel over diplomatic expulsions, President Reagan has directed U.S. negotiators to propose sharp reductions in long-range nuclear weapons to the Soviets in Geneva, administration officials said yesterday.

A package of U.S. proposals, including a defense of the "Star Wars" anti-missile program, was not as sweeping as the projected arms control measures Reagan took up with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in Iceland, the officials said.

Also, the instructions sent Tuesday night to chief U.S. negotiator Max M. Kampelman after a Pentagon review did not contain any call for removing U.S. and Soviet intermediaterange missiles in Europe.

But the officials, who demanded anonymity, said there would be a follow-up package expanding Kampelman's instructions and also dealing with the Euromissiles after details are worked out by U.S. arms specialists here.

After returning from Reykjavik, Reagan underscored his determination to push for arms control agreements in Geneva despite Soviet objections to his anti-missile program.

Since then, however, the two superpowers have traded expulsions of diplomats while accusing each other of using their embassies to conduct espionage operations.

Five more U.S. diplomats were ordered out of Moscow yesterday while new restrictions were placed on American support personnel in the Soviet capital. Additionally, the Soviets announced they were with-drawing 260 Russians who carried out administrative and other duties at the embassy.

In Washington, a statement issued by presidential spokesman Larry Speakes ignored criticism by Gorbachev of the expulsion of Soviet diplomats and a promise of retaliation. Instead, the statement focused on the Soviet leader's upbeat commments about Reykjavik.

"We believe an historic breakthrough occurred in Reykjavik and there is no turning back," Speakes said. "For the first time, there is serious discussion of arms reductions rather than arms control."

Speakes added, "We are pleased that General Secretary Gorbachev also stated the Soviet desire to move forward from where the two sides left off at Reykjavik. Much hard work remains, but we are ready to get on with it."

Gorbachev said in a televised speech in Moscow that "to get rid of the nuclear threat is a realistic and possible" goal.

However, he sharply condemned the expulsion Tuesday of 55 Soviet diplomats in Washington and San Francisco as "a provocation" and suggested the order was inspired by Reagan aides "who breath hatred for the Soviet Union."

As the superpowers continued parrying Wednesday over the size of their diplomatic staffs in the United States and the Soviet Union, U.S. officials, declining to be named publicly, said the 80 Soviet spies expelled from the United States this fall included the entire leadership of the KGB and GRU intelligence agencies here.

This will leave the Soviets using "case officers from the street as managers," said the officials, who declined to be named publicly.

"This is the end of an era," said one of three Reagan administration officials who briefed reporters on the ousters on condition they not be further identified.

"The Soviets operated the largest spy network in the world in the United States, but no longer will they have a massive, unchallenged, bloated number of intelligence officers here as some kind of inherent right or special privilege," an official said.