USSR WHEAT BONUS OFFER SAID STILL UNDER DEBATE

  The Reagan administration continues
  to debate whether to offer subsidized wheat to the Soviet
  Union, but would need assurances from the Soviets that they
  would buy the wheat before the subsidy offer would be made, a
  senior U.S. Agriculture Department official said.
      "I think it still is under active debate whether or not it
  would be advisable" to make an the export enhancement offer to
  the Soviets, Thomas Kay, administrator of the department's
  Foreign Agriculture Service, told Reuters.
      "We'd need some assurances from them (the Soviets) that they
  would buy if offered" the wheat under the subsidy plan, he said.
  Kay called reports that such an offer was imminent "premature."
      The Reagan administration's cabinet-level Economic Policy
  Council is set to meet today to discuss, among other matters,
  agricultural policy but is not expected to address a wheat
  subsidy offer to the Soviet Union, administration officials
  said earlier.
  

