Soviet and American officials, on the eve of Mikhail Gorbachev's arrival in Washington, suggested yesterday that a compromise is possible on "Star Wars" testing.

Meanwhile, the chances of a Gorbachev trip to Harvard faded as Harvard heard indirectly that it was unlikely Gorbachev would make a trip outside D.C., according to University Marshall Richard M. Hunt.

Although University officials intially thought the probability of a Gorbachev visit high, the Soviet leader's tight schedule precluded the trip to Cambridge, Hunt said.

"We heard that it would be a very likely thing. We heard information that the General Secretary wanted to visit a major American university," said Hunt, adding, "Our loss is his loss."

Thirteen months after the breakup of the last superpower summit, Gorbachev heads to Washington today for three days of talks with President Reagan and the signing of a treaty to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear missiles (INF) over three years.

Both leaders say they are optimistic about making progress toward a bolder agreement to cut long-range strategic nuclear weapons by half, paving the way for another summit as early as next June in Moscow.

Acknowledging a shift in the once-rigid Soviet opposition to Reagan's "Star Wars" missile defense plan, known formally as the Stategic Defense Initiative, White House chief of staff Howard Baker said the Kremlin's position "now is a little different than it appears to have been a few weeks or a few months ago."

Interviewed on NBC's "Meet the Press," Baker predicted that Gorbachev would move forward on strategic-weapon cuts "perhaps without requiring as a precondition that the president abandon SDI or reduce SDI or postpone SDI, which he's not going to do."

Human rights is one of four items on the summit agenda, along with regional conflicts such as Afghanistan, Nicaragua and the Persian Gulf, bilateral relations and arms control.

Soviet officials said Star Wars was not even an issue. Gerasimov said a missile-defense system was not technically feasible now.

"There is no quarrel now [on Star Wars]," Gerasimov said on ABC's "This Week with David Brinkley." "That's my point. There may be quarrel later."

Gorbachev's insistence on limiting Star Warsresearch and testing led to a stalemate at thesummit in Reykjavik, Iceland, in October 1986.

Now, however, the Kremlin apparently hassoftened its position because Congress has putsharp limits on Star Wars. Reagan reluctantlysigned legislation requiring that any Star Warstests through late next year--shortly before heleaves office--be conducted within a strictintepretation of the 1972 Anti Ballistic MissileTreaty.

"We don't discuss Star Wars," Arbatov said onNBC. "We are ready to make a deal on deep cuts instrategic weapons if both sides adhere to the ABMtreaty."

Despite the congressional restrictions on StarWars, Shultz said Reagan was adamant about pushingahead.

"The president is pressure proof on that,"Shultz said on the ABC program. "We are going todo the research and testing necessary to find outif we can defend ourselves against ballisticmissiles. And if we find out that we can, then wehave to be prepared to deploy."

Even so, he said "prospects are reasonablygood" the two sides can move ahead on strategicweapon cuts.

Shultz said the narrow interpretation of theABM treaty mandated by Congress would not permitthe United States to determine if Star Wars isfeasible.

"And that is why the president insists that wehave to take a broader look and have to be able toconduct the tests necessary, to learn how todevelop this program...not at the end of seven to10 years but as we go along. And we believe thatit's perfectly consistent with the ABM treaty.