Genscher to Give Shultz Bonn’s Views on Arms

West Germany’s views on control of intermediate-range nuclear arms are expected to be given to Secretary of State George P. Shultz in Washington today by Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who left here Sunday for a scheduled meeting with Shultz on the issue.

A problem with today’s meeting is that Genscher’s ideas on arms control do not necessarily reflect the thinking of the conservative members of the governing coalition in Bonn, including Chancellor Helmut Kohl. So the question that fascinates political observers here is whether Genscher, a member of the Free Democratic Party, will expound his own views or those of Kohl and most of his Christian Democratic colleagues.

Basically, Genscher’s minority party shares Shultz’s views that the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should seek the elimination of all intermediate-range nuclear forces in Europe, including longer-range (1,000 to 3,000 miles) as well as shorter-range (300 to 1,000 miles) missiles.

Supporters of this position contend that nuclear deterrence would not be sacrificed because of the existence of battlefield atomic weapons, aircraft-carried nuclear arms, submarine-based missiles, the strategic armory in the United States and the 350,000 U.S. servicemen committed to the NATO forces in the European area.

Kohl, Defense Minister Manfred Woerner, other leaders of the Christian Democratic Party, as well as Franz Josef Strauss, head of the Bavarian coalition partner, the Christian Social Union, all agree that there should be a “zero option” for the longer-range weapons: the Soviet Union’s SS-20s and the American Pershing 2 and cruise missiles.

‘Double Zero Option’

However, these senior leaders oppose a “double zero option”--abolishing all shorter-range missiles in Europe, of which the United States has none in place, compared to about 90 that the Soviets have deployed.

The West German leadership would like to keep open the option of maintaining an agreed-upon equal but “reduced “ number of the shorter weapons, even though deploying them would provoke political repercussions because of the anti-missile movement here.

The irony is that anti-missile political groups--the Greens party, some members of the Social Democratic Party and others--find themselves on the side of a conservative U.S. Administration when it comes to the question of control of intermediate nuclear forces.

Behind Kohl’s thinking, according to aides, lies the rationale that ridding Europe of all mid-range and shorter range missiles would dangerously denude the alliance of its nuclear deterrent.

“We have maintained the Western defense on the basis of a flexible nuclear response,” one adviser to Kohl said. “We don’t want to shift back to (the policy of) massive retaliation as a defense against conventional attack.”

The West Germans point to the Warsaw Pact’s alleged 2-to-1 superiority in conventional troops and weapons in citing the need for a nuclear deterrent.

Conservatives’ Concern

West German conservatives say they do not wish to rely only on strategic arms or on battlefield nuclear weapons. In a new phrase heard here, the West Germans are trying to avoid “singularity”--that is, being the only NATO power having such short tactical weapons on its soil and the only nation within range of similar weapons from the other side.

As Volker Ruehe, the senior foreign policy spokesman in the Bundestag for the Christian Democrats, puts it: “The shorter the range, the deader the Germans.”

The Bonn government is not alone in worrying about a U.S. deal to rid Europe of all the mid-range ans shorter range weapons.

Such figures as Lord Carrington, secretary general of NATO, and Netherlands Defense Minister W. F. van Eekelen have warned against eliminating all nuclear weapons in Europe.

The Europeans are aware of the U.S. impatience over their inability, so far, to stake out a common position on which missiles to ban and which ones to keep.

West German sources say they and their allies hope to come up with specific proposals for American negotiators before the June 8 economic summit meeting in Venice that will bring together the heads of the world’s major industrialized states.