NATO Ministers Urge End to All Mid-Range Missiles

NATO defense ministers called Friday for worldwide elimination of medium-range nuclear missiles--those with a range of 1,000 to 3,000 miles.

This position was set out in a statement issued at the end of a two-day meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Nuclear Planning Group. It conflicts with a U.S. proposal put forth last month in the superpower arms talks in Geneva, which would permit the United States and the Soviet Union to retain 100 warheads each in the medium range.

Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger declined to say Friday whether the United States will now change its position at Geneva to reflect the view set out in the NATO statement.

The State Department is known to object to such a move, and Moscow could be expected to complain that the United States would be reneging on the agreement to retain 100 warheads.

Weinberger appeared to endorse the position announced Thursday by the British, who said they support, with minor qualifications, a Soviet proposal to eliminate from Europe all medium-range missiles and short-range missiles--those between 300 and 3,000 miles.

It appeared for a time that this would put new pressure on West Germany to accept the Soviet offer. In Bonn, however, Chancellor Helmut Kohl on Friday set a new condition for accepting the Kremlin’s proposal, saying the so-called battlefield nuclear weapons--those with the shortest ranges of all, from 300 miles down--must be included in any agreement.

Kohl said in a statement read by a spokesman that his government supports the Soviet proposal to eliminate from Europe all medium-range missiles. But he said the second part of the Kremlin proposal, to eliminate all short-range weapons, is too narrow. West Germany, he said, is opposed to eliminating missiles just in the short-range category, normally listed as between 300 and 1,000 miles. He said he would prefer that all nuclear weapons with a range of 1,000 miles or less be included in an agreement with the Soviet Union.

Kohl said that the Kremlin’s proposal “would leave out of consideration the weapons that threaten our country above all”--the battlefield nuclear weapons.

“Therefore, all weapons with a range of between zero and 600 miles must be included, with the goal of a supportable solution that increases the security of all participants, above all the Germans,” Kohl said, without offering specifics on the proposal.

Kohl’s government has generally opposed elimination of the short-range category of missiles, arguing that they are needed to maintain the traditional Western flexible response in the face of Soviet superiority in conventional forces.

The Soviets have a 10-to-1 advantage in tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons--which, because of their short ranges, are targeted essentially on West Germany. Such weapons have not been an issue in the superpower arms talks.

Pentagon officials attending the meeting here said that the notion of Washington and Moscow retaining 100 warheads each emerged in confusion from the Soviet-American summit meeting last October in Iceland. They said there was never any formal agreement on it. Nonetheless, the U.S. draft treaty now before the Soviets in Geneva embraces that position.

At Friday’s final round of meetings here, attention was focused for the most part on Britain’s surprise announcement of the day before, which said the British could accept the elimination of short- and medium-range missiles--everything from 300 to 3,000 miles--if they are eliminated worldwide.

Weinberger, asked about the British statement, told reporters, “I don’t find very much in it to disagree with.”

On Thursday, other U.S. officials had said that the British stand is consistent with President Reagan’s views on the matter.

In Washington on Friday, the State Department, in an apparent rebuff to Weinberger, said the United States is prepared to implement the proposed superpower pact on medium-range missiles that would allow the Soviet Union to retain 100 SS-20 warheads in Asia.

State Department spokeswoman Phyllis Oakley told reporters that the elimination of all medium-range nuclear missiles--which include the U.S. Pershing 2 and cruise missiles and the Soviet SS-20s--is a long-term U.S. goal that has been made clear to the Soviet Union.

But, she said, “as an interim step, we are prepared to implement the approach worked out by the President and the general secretary (Mikhail S. Gorbachev) at Reykjavik for reductions on an interim global ceiling of 100 warheads each” on medium-range missiles, with none based in Europe.

Chancellor Kohl’s views are in conflict not only with those of Washington and London but also with those of Hans-Dietrich Genscher, his foreign minister. Genscher, a leader of the Free Democrats, the junior partner in the governing coalition, favors an outright ban on short- and medium-range nuclear missiles but said Friday that he is opposed to linking those two categories with any other for purposes of negotiation. In general, he has been more receptive to the Soviet proposal than has Kohl.

Aides to Kohl said Friday that they had not checked the chancellor’s statement with Genscher before it was made public, and this could make for fireworks within the coalition. The Free Democrats, in a statement issued shortly before Kohl’s, said: “Disarmament and not rearmament is the question of the hour. The government would therefore be well advised to close ranks with its NATO partners on disarmament in order to avert a totally unnecessary isolation of the (West German) Federal Republic.”

At present the Western governments have no missiles in the 300- to-1,000-mile range based in Europe, but the United States has about 4,600 nuclear warheads in West Germany for use with a variety of tactical weapons, including artillery, tank-mounted guns, mortars, mines and aerial bombs.

According to analysts in Bonn, Kohl appears to want to match the Soviet Union in numbers of warheads for the shorter-range weapons, rather than ban them entirely, in order to have a nuclear counter to the Warsaw Pact forces. He also wants to ensure that such weapons are not based solely along his border with East Germany.

A test of popular support for the differing Kohl and Genscher positions may come Sunday in state elections in the city-state of Hamburg and in Rhineland-Palatinate.

Genscher has said that eliminating short- and medium-range missiles would pose no threat to West Germany but would pave the way for a superpower accord on eliminating even more missiles.

Robert C. Toth, of The Times’ Washington Bureau, reported from Stavanger; William Tuohy from Bonn, where he is bureau chief.