Soviet, Chinese Pledges of Safe Olympics Told

Both the Soviet Union and China have given assurances that North Korea will not attempt any terrorist action to disturb the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, Secretary of State George P. Shultz said Saturday.

“The Soviets have told us flatly that in their view, the North Koreans will not make any effort to disturb the Olympics,” the secretary told reporters aboard his plane Saturday during a flight from Beijing to Seoul. These guarantees came directly from Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, he said.

Shultz said that China has given the United States similar assurances. Despite their past support for the North Korean regime of Kim Il Sung, both China and the Soviet Union announced last winter that they would participate in the Olympic Games, which begin here Sept. 17.

The secretary’s remarks about the guarantees of safety went further than previous comments by American officials. In the past, U.S. officials have repeatedly expressed hopes that China and the Soviet Union would help deter any North Korean effort to undermine the Games, but they generally added the qualification that neither of these countries has any direct or controlling influence over the North Korean regime.

L.A. Concerns Recalled

Shultz reminded reporters that there were also concerns about safety and security before the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles but that those Games took place without any problem. “I feel the Seoul Olympics will go off in good style,” he said.

Shultz’s statements appeared to be aimed at easing anxieties in the United States about the possibility of terrorism at the Olympics--anxieties that could keep spectators or even athletes from going to South Korea for the Games.

In recent months, some Olympic athletes have voiced fears about their safety in Seoul and have said they planned to stay in South Korea for as short a time as possible during the event. South Korean officials have been irked by news stories in the United States about the jitters over the Olympics.

Praises Preparations

Immediately after his arrival in Seoul, Shultz, standing before South Korean television cameras, declared, “American athletes are excited about coming to Seoul. . . . The American people have great respect for Korea’s first-rate preparations for the Games.”

U.S. officials themselves have contributed to public anxieties about the Olympics.

Last November, 115 people died when a bomb exploded on a Korean Air jetliner flying near the border of Thailand and Burma. A North Korean woman later confessed that she helped plant the bomb on the plane while working as an agent for the Pyongyang regime.

Ever since the airplane bombing, U.S. officials have been voicing concern about a possible terrorist attack by North Korea to undermine the Olympics, an event that South Koreans hope will give this country new international prestige.

Missiles at DMZ

Those worries increased last month with the disclosure that North Korea has installed SAM-5 surface-to-air missiles south of Pyongyang near the demilitarized zone.

Nevertheless, some officials in the United States and elsewhere have been saying recently that the fears of a North Korean attack on the Olympics are being exaggerated.

“Most professional terrorists wouldn’t touch the Olympics with a 10-foot pole,” one U.S. official said recently. He said that because of tight security for the Games, a terrorist attack would be an extraordinarily difficult “logistical problem.”

An Asian diplomat in Beijing said last week that China seems to have talked extensively to North Korea, warning against any effort to undermine the Olympics. “The Chinese seem really confident (that there will be no North Korean attack),” he said.

Quotes Shevardnadze

Aboard the plane, Shultz told reporters, “I’m basically not concerned about security for the Olympics, because the South Koreans have done such a good job.”

He said that Shevardnadze recently told President Reagan, “ ‘We know the North Koreans well, and I can assure you that there will be no . . . terrorist attacks aimed at the Olympics.’ We said we were very glad to hear that statement. It was unequivocal, unambiguous.”

In his first hours after arriving here, the secretary of state toured the Olympic facilities and Olympic Village, which will house 15,000 athletes and officials and 6,000 media representatives.

Kim Sam Hoon, a spokesman for the Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee, boasted that Seoul will have nearly twice as many athletes and officials as attended the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.

‘Airtight Security’

“We are taking all the necessary measures to keep the visitors in extreme safety with minimum inconveniences,” Kim said. “ . . . Airtight security measures will be introduced.” He acknowledged that it will not be easy to “harmonize” the needs of security with the desire to avoid inconveniencing spectators at the Games.

Shultz said Saturday that during his two-day stay here, he will meet not only with South Korean President Roh Tae Woo, but also with opposition leaders Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam. Then-President Jimmy Carter met with Kim Young Sam in 1979, but Shultz has never met with either of the two opposition leaders.

“I think it’s appropriate to, of course, talk to members of the administration, but also to people in the opposition,” Shultz said.

Shultz will go to Central American on Aug. 1, the State Department announced. (Story, Page 4.)