President Reagan was ``just being realistic'' in saying that there isn't enough time to finish work on a U.S.-Soviet strategic weapons treaty before his planned summit meeting in Moscow, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said today. Reagan, in an interview published in today's Washington Post, also said he believes it is still possible for the treaty to be completed and signed before he leaves office in January. U.S. and Soviet negotiatiors had hoped to have the treaty ready for Reagan to sign with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev when the two meet in Moscow in May or June. Fitzwater said the president's statements did not represent any major change in the U.S. position. ``The president said the same thing that I have said here many times, that Secretary (of State George) Shultz and others have said, and that is that we are working on a START agreement; if we can get one that will be done in time to sign at the summit, that would be great; but, realistically, it doesn't appear that's likely to happen.'' ``The president was just being realistic,'' Fitzwater said. During a 30-minute Oval Office interview with the Post on Thursday, Reagan was asked whether he expected to sign the treaty to reduce strategic, or long-range, nuclear weapons by 50 percent during the summit. ``That would be nice, if it could happen, but I have to tell you that common sense indicates that the time is too limited for us to really think that we could bring a treaty ready for signature to that meeting,'' Reagan said. ``We're not at this moment anticipating that it would be ready for signature then,'' he said. Reagan said the negotiations being conducted by representatives of both sides at the Strategic Arms Reductions Talks in Geneva are far more complex than those that preceded the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty, which was signed by the two leaders during the Washington summit in December. The INF treaty eliminated short-and intermediate-range missiles from Europe. It is awaiting action by the Senate. ``This one is so much more complicated with regard to verification and everything else than the INF Treaty, which we were able to bring together. But even that took a few months to do,'' Reagan said. ``I believe with the amount of time that would still be remaining that, if there is sincerity on both sides with regard to getting such an agreement _ and I think there is _ I think that could be done ... before my time expired,'' he said. He reiterated that he would not use the Strategic Defense Initiative _ known as Star Wars _ as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the Soviet Union. ``I have told him (Gorbachev) every time. ... If it is that good, we are going to deploy it. We see it as the basis then for eliminating the strategic ballistic missiles on both sides. And I have even told him that I would be willing to see this shared,'' the president said. Reagan also said National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. Colin Powell and Secretary of State George P. Shultz are convinced the Soviets want to pull out of Afghanistan, where they have been battling U.S.-backed rebels. ``I think that a large part of that could be the economic situation in the Soviet Union and the fact that, after going on nine years, it's still a stalemate. So I think that there's reason to believe that they really want out,'' he said. A group of senators back from a tour of NATO capitals said they won assurances from Reagan on Thursday that the strategic arms treaty would not be rushed through simply to have it ready for signing at the Moscow summit. ``I am very concerned that the START agreement not be based on the calendar, the day of the month, that it not be governed by meeting a deadline,'' said Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va. He said he was assured that would not be the case. On Monday, during Shultz's talks with Soviet leaders in Moscow, U.S. and Soviet negotiators at the START talks in Geneva had been directed to prepare within a month three draft agreements for a treaty to reduce long-range nuclear weapons by 30 percent to 50 percent. Draft accords on verification, disposing of weapons and exchange of information are to be ready for the next meeting between Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, scheduled for March 22-23 in Washington. Other issues covered during the Post interview included: _The U.S. budget deficit: ``It's a burden. There's no question about that. But ... not the disaster some people proclaim. ... One of the major factors in our budget right now is the interest. But who gets that interest? And you find out then that a great many institutions, universities, educational institutions of all kinds, that part of their endowment are government bonds. And so a lot of that interest is going to them ... (and) to individual Americans.'' _Former White House aides Michael Deaver, convicted of perjury for lying about his lobbying activities, and Lyn Nofziger, convicted of illegal lobbying, and Attorney General Edwin Meese III, who is being investigated by an independent counsel: ``Of course, I am saddened. ... I found all those individuals to be the very soul of integrity in the more than 20 years that I have known them.''
