Geneva Arms Talks to Start Despite Chernenko Death

GENEVA —  The United States and the Soviet Union agreed today that arms control talks will start Tuesday as planned despite the death of Soviet President Konstantin U. Chernenko.

U.S. spokesman Joseph F. Lehman said that the opening meeting will take place at the Soviet mission at 11 a.m. and that a second session is planned for Thursday at the U.S. arms control headquarters.

Lehman told a news conference that the opening session will include the three senior negotiators of each side, headed by U.S. chief delegate Max M. Kampelman and his Soviet counterpart, Viktor P. Karpov.

Kampelman assured Karpov that the United States would understand if the Soviets wanted to change the schedule in the light of Chernenko’s death, Lehman said, but the Soviets said they preferred to begin the talks.

Delegations Ordered Home

There had been speculation that the talks would be postponed with the Sunday-night death of the Soviet leader. Soviet delegations traveling in San Francisco, Yugoslavia and West Germany were ordered home early.

It will be the first superpower arms talks since the Soviets broke off negotiations on intermediate and strategic nuclear weapons at the end of 1983 when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization began deploying U.S. cruise and Pershing 2 missiles in Western Europe to counter Soviet SS-20 missiles.

Soviet sources had said it was unlikely that Karpov and his two senior aides, Alexei A. Obukhov and Yuli A. Kvitsinsky, would return to Moscow for Chernenko’s funeral, because they do not belong to the Communist Party Central Committee.

The talks, agreed upon at a meeting in January between Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko, will take place under three headings--weapons in space, intermediate-range nuclear forces and strategic weapons capable of striking at the American and Soviet heartlands.

Lehman said the talks probably will take place in eight-week cycles, with negotiators alternating between Geneva and their home capitals. The first round of talks is likely to be somewhat shorter than eight weeks, he added.