Bonn Aides Coming to U.S. for Missile Talks

West Germany’s ministers of foreign affairs and defense will fly to Washington today for talks aimed at averting a developing crisis within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The sudden trip reflects the increasing isolation of the Bonn government from its major NATO partners on the twin issues of modernization of short-range nuclear missiles and talks with the Soviet Union to limit their numbers. And it also underscores what many commentators are calling political confusion and panic in Bonn, as Chancellor Helmut Kohl reverses himself on major issues, apparently in response to public opinion polls.

The hastily arranged Washington trip comes only days after a meeting in Brussels of NATO defense ministers designed to iron out differences so that a scheduled meeting of NATO chiefs of state on May 29-30 can adopt a united Western policy in the face of various arms reduction proposals by Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Holding Off Decision

At the end of the Brussels meeting, U.S. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney agreed to defer a decision on deploying a modernized version of the Lance short-range nuclear missile until after West Germany’s elections in December, 1990.

However, Cheney repeated the NATO view that the Western alliance should not enter talks with the Soviets on the issue of short-range nuclear forces at this time.

But back in Bonn, Kohl finally realized that he faces a fight for his political life, with opinion polls running heavily against his coalition government of conservative Christian Democrats and Christian Socialists and the more liberal Free Democratic Party.

A day after Cheney left Brussels, Bonn’s governing coalition drew up a decision paper, scheduled to be made public this week, spelling out fresh policies and calling for talks with the Soviets on short-range missiles in the near future.

This proviso was inserted at the insistence of Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who reportedly threatened to break up the governing coalition if the decision paper did not include a call for talks with the Soviets.

In the past, Kohl has expressed a commitment to upgrading the aging Lance missiles and his opposition to immediate East-West talks on short-range missiles. His turnaround has left Washington, London and the other NATO capitals in a quandary over what is the official government position here.

Most conservative commentators here argue that Kohl has caved in to Genscher because opinion polls show that West Germans favor reducing the number of short-range missiles based here.

Kohl has also angered NATO officials by reneging on his pledge to lengthen military conscription from 15 to 18 months of service as a way of keeping the West German army at full strength in the face of a declining population.