Gen. Rogers Fails to Keep Top NATO Job : U.S. Commander in Panama Seen Likely Successor

U.S. Gen. Bernard W. Rogers, NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe, will leave his post at the end of June, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization announced today.

Rogers, 66, who has held the post for seven years marked by his controversial comments, indicated last November that he was prepared to stay on if asked to do so.

Reports from Washington have tipped Gen. John R. Galvin, 57, chief of the U.S. Southern Command in Panama, to succeed Rogers in a post traditionally held by a U.S. Army general.

Rogers, a Korean and Vietnam war veteran, succeeded Gen. Alexander M. Haig in June, 1979, in a post commonly known within the alliance by its NATO acronym of SACEUR.

Considered one of the most effective and by far the most outspoken NATO commanders since Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower held the post 37 years ago, Rogers has never bitten his tongue on controversial issues.

Critical of ‘Zero Option’

Some NATO diplomats have linked his clearly reluctant departure to his open criticism of the “zero option” under which U.S. cruise and Pershing 2 nuclear missiles would be withdrawn from Western Europe in exchange for the removal of Soviet SS-20s stationed west of the Urals.

Rogers said last year that the idea, proposed by the United States and grudgingly espoused by the European allies, “militarily gives me gas pains.”

He has often found himself at odds with West European governments, scolding them for reducing defense spending or proposing alternative strategies to NATO’s doctrine of nuclear deterrence.

He has been an outspoken advocate of strengthening NATO’s conventional forces and has campaigned for new tactics and weapons to target and attack enemy reinforcements before they reach the battlefield, a concept called Follow-on Force Attack.

Grim Prognostications

His sometimes gloomy prognostications of how NATO would fare in a conflict with the Soviet Union have often made him unpopular.

In recent years, he has repeatedly warned the allies that he would have to ask for authority to use nuclear weapons within days rather than weeks if the Warsaw Pact attacked because NATO forces could not sustain a long battle.

Several West European allies were clearly disturbed last April when Rogers, in his twin role of commander of U.S. forces in Europe, played a central role in directing the U.S. air attack on Libya.

Many allies said Rogers’ part in the controversial raid tarnished the image of NATO as an organization whose prime aim is the defense of Europe.