Willing to Talk With Bonn on Nuclear Arms, Bush Says

President Bush declared his willingness Thursday to conduct negotiations with West Germany over the development of new short-range nuclear missiles for Europe, but he insisted that he would balk at any plan that would remove all nuclear weapons from Europe.

For the second day in a row, the President received a foreign leader at the White House and found himself in the midst of a discussion of the controversy that threatens to disrupt a NATO summit meeting May 29-30 that has been called to celebrate 40 years of Western unity.

Mulroney Visiting

With Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney standing at his side outside the White House, Bush declared: “I want the NATO summit to be a success, and we will be working with the Germans and with others to see that there is a common NATO position.

“I’m always willing to negotiate,” he said in a question-and-answer session the two held with reporters. But, he added, “we’re not going to go” for any plan involving the removal of all nuclear weapons from Europe, “or getting SNF (short-range nuclear forces) out of whack in terms of negotiations. So let’s get clear on that.”

At the heart of the current dispute that has split the 16 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a proposal advanced by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl to put off any development of the new nuclear missiles until after elections are held in West Germany in December, 1990, and that the Atlantic Alliance move quickly into negotiations with the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact over the future of the short-range weapons.

Washington fears that such talks could lead to the elimination of all nuclear weapons in Europe. Intermediate-range nuclear weapons--the land-based tactical missiles with ranges greater than 300 miles but less than 3,400 miles--were banned in the U.S.-Soviet treaty signed by then-President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in December, 1987.

The NATO nations have already accepted a U.S. plan to modernize the short-range force, which is built around 88 launchers for aging Lance missiles targeted at Eastern Europe from bases in West Germany. Bush, indicating a lack of willingness to shift from that decision, said, “The U.S. position is well known. NATO’s last stated public position is well known.”

Like Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, with whom Bush held talks at the White House on Wednesday, Mulroney is seen as much more sympathetic to the German position than is Bush.

Under a compromise suggested by Canada, negotiations would be undertaken with the Soviets, with the understanding that not all of the existing Lance missiles would be removed and that the conventional balance of power in Europe would be evened up. But under this plan, the missile modernization would go forward.

East Bloc Edge

The U.S. objection to Kohl’s effort to slow the building of a new missile is based on concern that the Warsaw Pact’s advantage in conventional, or non-nuclear, weapons would give the Soviet Bloc an overwhelming edge in a European conflict if the NATO nations could not rely on an up-to-date, short-range nuclear arsenal.

“My emphasis will be on conventional force reductions,” Bush said. Renewed talks between the Warsaw Pact and NATO have been under way since March in Vienna, with the intention of reducing conventional weapons in Europe.

Mulroney avoided any sign of a rift with Bush during their public comments, instead telling reporters “it’s the solidarity that has brought about the success that the West has engendered thus far, and we have to stick together on these fundamental questions. And we will.”

“There is going to be vigorous debate,” he said. But “in the end there must be solidarity--total solidarity.”

Mulroney, appearing to defer to the central role that the United States plays in the Atlantic Alliance, added, “The position of Canada . . . deals with the effectiveness of NATO being predicated on our solidarity and the very particular role of leadership by the United States in that equation.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, offered a proposed compromise to the dilemma facing NATO, suggesting that talks with the Warsaw Pact, as sought by Kohl, could get under way. But these talks would be intended to set boundaries for future negotiations, rather than reach agreement on specific limits.

“Specifically, NATO’s position, agreed to in advance by the Germans, should be that zero (total elimination of short-range nuclear weapons) will not even be considered in the future talks,” Aspin said in a statement.