Bush Assures Europe of U.S. Commitment

BRUSSELS —  President Bush, after conferring with the NATO allies on the Malta summit meeting, pledged Monday that the United States will “remain a European power” and keep “significant military forces” on the Continent despite the dramatic warming of U.S.-Soviet relations.

The rapid changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe offer “the chance to ease the Soviet army out of Eastern Europe and substantially reduce the risk of surprise attack and aggression,” Bush told the allied leaders in a closed-door meeting, according to a text of talking points supplied by the White House.

But he added that the West “must not blur the distinction between promising expectations and present realities.”

“We must stand together for negotiated, coordinated, stabilizing reductions against a rush to throw off defense burdens” in a time of “flux rivaled in my adult life only by the immediate aftermath of the Second World War,” he said.

For now, the military strength of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization must be maintained to provide stability during Europe’s period of transition, he said.

“The potential for strife is inherent in any period of fundamental political transition,” he said.

The NATO allies want the United States “fully involved,” Bush said, adding that Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev is also concerned about the potential for instability in Europe and would not have “any conflict” with the U.S. position.

Bush also presented a four-point policy on one of the most controversial elements of the rapid European transition--the reunification of Germany.

Reunification, if it occurs, must be “in the context of Germany’s continued commitment to NATO,” he said. The move must be gradual and based on peaceful self-determination, and therefore NATO should not endorse any particular plan on the issue, he said.

The final point of Bush’s plan involves support for Europe’s current borders, a principle designed in large part to reassure Poland that a reunified Germany would not seek to recover territories transferred to Polish rule after World War II.

West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who has proposed a plan for early moves toward confederation of the two Germanys, is “comfortable” with those principles, he said.

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who spoke out in the NATO meeting against any reunification measures in this century, canceled her afternoon press conference and left for home immediately after the NATO meeting.

Bush was asked at a press conference after the NATO meeting about the most recent developments in East Germany. He replied that he did not think there is a “dangerous situation” as long as leaders on all sides exercise caution and restraint.

Bush also moved to squelch speculation that cuts in the U.S. defense budget would produce a “peace dividend” sufficient to expand government efforts on issues ranging from the environment and highways to education and aid for the poor.

“There isn’t a lot of excess money,” Bush told the press. Any peace dividend would be “extraordinarily difficult” because of the urgent need to reduce the federal deficit.

The comments foreshadowed what is likely to be a major domestic political debate for the next several years.

Democrats in Congress have already begun arguing that a reduced defense budget will allow a more active government role in solving problems that have built up in the last eight years of reduced government domestic spending. Many political analysts, including some senior Republicans, believe voters are showing increased sympathy for those arguments.

Bush and his supporters, by contrast, plan to use the continuing deficit as an argument that allows them to oppose an expansive federal role without appearing indifferent to the problems the nation faces.

Bush pledged to “kick our bureaucracy and push it as fast as I possibly can” to finish three major arms control treaties--a strategic arms reduction agreement, a pact on reducing conventional forces in Europe and an agreement to ban chemical weapons.

“I’ve encouraged other allies to do the same,” Bush said. “I don’t think there was any resistance to that.”

According to the text made public by the White House, Bush warned the other allied leaders that progress toward a conventional forces treaty is being slowed by disputes within NATO. Moves to resolve those disputes have been “too little” and done “too slowly,” he said.

The negotiations “could be overrun by events” if they are not speeded up, he said, and “that could be dangerous, and we must avoid it.”

Bush told the allies he had an open mind about trying to achieve even lower levels of conventional forces in Europe than he had proposed last spring.

But with the Soviets in agreement with NATO over the current goals, a treaty on conventional forces is “within our grasp,” Bush said at his press conference. Therefore, the two sides should finish their present negotiations before starting talks on a second round of deeper cuts.

NATO and the Warsaw Pact are currently negotiating in Vienna toward cuts that would reduce U.S. and Soviet forces in Europe to 275,000 soldiers on each side. The goal would require a cut of 30,000 U.S. troops and roughly 10 times as many on the Soviet side.

A main stumbling block is disagreement within NATO on the alliance’s negotiating position, particularly some longstanding arguments between Greece and Turkey.

Bush said his eight hours of meetings with Gorbachev over the weekend had given him a good sense of Gorbachev’s priorities. Adopting one of Gorbachev’s favorite phrases, Bush said the Soviet leader’s actions require “new thinking” on the part of the West.

“As I watched the way in which Mr. Gorbachev has handled the changes in Eastern Europe, it deserves new thinking. It absolutely mandates new thinking. . . . When I hear him talk about peaceful change and the right of countries to choose--countries in the Warsaw Pact to choose--that deserves new thinking.”

Bush noted Gorbachev’s willingness to consider disproportionate troop withdrawals from Europe and his support for peaceful change and the right of Warsaw Pact countries to make their own choices and concluded that he and the Western allies feel “a certain respect for what he’s doing and thus, we want to try to meet him on some of the areas where he needs help.”

Gorbachev, he said, presented his arguments forcefully but unemotionally in their meetings.

SOVIETS HOPEFUL--The Malta talks will spur major gains in 1990, Moscow says. A7