Bush Appears Unyielding on NATO Missiles

President Bush, under increasing pressure to retreat from a North Atlantic Treaty Organization plan to develop new short-range nuclear missiles, Wednesday apparently ruled out early negotiations with the Soviet Union to reduce such weapons, expressing “very grave concerns” about such a goal.

The President’s remarks appear to dim chances that NATO members will be able to reach a compromise before their 40th anniversary summit later this month over the planned development of the missiles.

Insists Missiles Essential

One day after West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl had voiced optimism about reaching an agreement, Bush Administration officials relayed the President’s insistence that the nuclear missiles, intended to counter a Warsaw Pact advantage in conventional forces, are essential to deter war in Europe.

Asked about the prospects for a pre-summit compromise, one Administration official replied that it would not occur “unless something happens out there with Kohl.” Kohl has led a campaign to delay building the new weapons and to hasten negotiations to scale back nuclear forces in Europe.

Meanwhile, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, criticized both the American and West German positions and proposed a “three-track” approach.

According to the proposal of the influential Democrat, the United States would deploy modern short-range missiles in West Germany as planned. However, NATO and the Warsaw Pact would negotiate mutual reductions in the number of all short-range nuclear weapons in Europe, including artillery, while stopping short of eliminating them. These talks would be tied to substantial progress in the current round of talks in Vienna on reducing conventional arms in Europe.

Meets Norwegian Leader

Bush met in the Oval Office on Wednesday morning with Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway, who said that she favors negotiations “on all types of weapons, including the short-range weapons.”

She said common ground could be found between the U.S. and West German positions before the summit meeting, although a possible compromise might not emerge until the two-day conference begins in Brussels on May 29.

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said that Bush told Brundtland in the hourlong meeting, which had been scheduled to last only 20 minutes, “that we have very grave concerns about short-range nuclear reductions.”

“The President explained his view that entering into arms control negotiations on short-range nuclear forces with the Soviet Union would be a mistake,” the spokesman said.

U.S. officials have refrained from discussing possible compromises in public for fear of weakening their position. But a West German official said that one solution could be an agreement within NATO to consider negotiations with the Soviet Union if progress is made in the conventional arms talks in Vienna and if the Soviets make initial, unilateral cuts in the Warsaw Pact’s short-range nuclear force.

While the Administration sees the short-range nuclear missiles as an important counterbalance for the superior East Bloc conventional forces, West Germany is concerned that in the event of a war, most of the German-based missiles, which have a range of less than 300 miles, would explode on German soil.

‘Position Not Diminished’

Negotiators do not expect to reach a U.S.-Soviet agreement on conventional weapons in the Vienna talks for several years.

The prospects of a split in the ranks of the Atlantic Alliance stem from Kohl’s demand that the alliance refrain from deciding whether to build a new missile to replace the aging, nuclear-tipped Lance missile until after the West German elections in December, 1990. Last month, reversing a previous position, he called for early negotiations with the Soviet Union to reduce the number of missiles in both East and West Europe.

The arms treaty signed in December, 1987, by then-President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev eliminates land-based, medium-range weapons.

Referring to Kohl’s interest in early negotiations, Fitzwater said: “We realize that there are political pressures in Germany that the chancellor there must be sensitive to . . . but nevertheless our position is not diminished.”

Another Administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “We don’t want to push them on modernization but you won’t see us agree to negotiations. Unless you are able to achieve concrete results in the conventional context, to start going down the path to negotiations undermines NATO’s fundamental strategy.”

That strategy calls for forward deployment of nuclear weapons near the potential front lines of East-West combat and a “flexible response” that would allow their use to blunt an attack by a massive conventional force.

Kohl generated an air of optimism Tuesday when he said in Rome that he is “ready to make a contribution” to a compromise. He said he sees “good chances” of an agreement before the summit, which will be the first major international conference that Bush attends as President.

And on Wednesday, the United States presented NATO with a formal proposal designed to resolve the dispute, a senior NATO official said.

The proposal, advanced at a meeting of the 16 NATO ambassadors at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels, calls for unilateral reduction of short-range NATO missiles in West Germany. The Soviet Union would be advised of the NATO decision and at the same time challenged to reduce the number of its short-range missiles to the same level. However, the reduced deployment of the existing weapons would be linked to a statement supporting modernization of the short-range missiles.

Times staff writers William Tuohy, in Bonn, and Doyle McManus, John M. Broder and Norman Kempster, in Washington, contributed to this article.