U.S. to Test Extent of Soviet Reforms : Baker to Ask Gorbachev to Help With Mideast, Terrorism, Pollution Issues

Secretary of State James A. Baker III sets off on his first visit to Moscow this week, intent on testing the depth of Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s sweeping changes by challenging the Soviets to work with the United States on a broad range of issues.

“Can military confrontation really be replaced by political dialogue and even cooperation?” Baker asked in a speech Thursday. “Will the (Gorbachev) slogan of ‘new thinking’ be translated into enduring action?”

U.S. officials said Baker plans to deliver a two-part message during his two-day stay in Moscow:

-- That President Bush supports Gorbachev’s perestroika reforms of the economy and political structure but wants to see them reflected more fully in Soviet behavior around the world.

-- That the Administration wants to expand the focus of the Moscow-Washington dialogue beyond the traditional emphasis on arms control and human rights to give greater prominence to conflicts in such regions as the Middle East and to such global problems as terrorism and pollution.

Changing Relationship

In a sense, one official said, the Administration hopes to help change the relationship from one dominated by the nuclear confrontation of the Cold War to “a more normal relationship between two great powers.”

“The overall theme that we’re trying to focus on is testing Gorbachev, . . . probing opportunities in an activist fashion,” he said.

That may lead to some sharp exchanges in Moscow over such contentious areas as the Middle East and Central America. Unfortunately, complained a senior Administration official, so far the United States “has seen more old thinking” in Soviet actions in those regions.

“In the Middle East, we’d like the Soviets to constrain their military support for Syria and Syria’s activities in Lebanon,” he said. “Instead, we see them sending SU-24s (medium-range bombers) to Libya and continuing the high level of military supplies to Nicaragua.”

And in Iran, he noted, the Soviet Union has been slow to condemn calls for terrorism by the regime of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which the Kremlin is wooing as a possible ally. He said Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze “visited Tehran without publicly mentioning the Salman Rushdie affair,” in which Khomeini called for the author’s assassination because of a novel that allegedly blasphemes Islam.

Review Unfinished

About the only tangible agreement expected from Baker’s visit is a date, probably in June, for resumption of the strategic arms reduction talks (START). A senior State Department official said Baker does not intend to engage in any specific discussions on arms control, apparently because the Administration still has not completed its review of U.S. negotiating strategy.

Another senior official said Baker does not intend to discuss short-range nuclear forces in Europe, an issue that has split the Western Alliance, “although we might express hope that the Soviets will make unilateral cuts in their 1,400 (short-range) missile systems.” The United States and its allies have only 88 comparable systems in Europe.

Baker’s agenda, like his Thursday speech outlining the Administration’s approach to U.S.-Soviet relations, breaks no new ground on specific issues.

White House and State Department aides have objected to the characterization of their policy toward Moscow, compared to President Ronald Reagan’s, as “status quo plus.” But in fact, veteran career foreign policy officials said, it is only a little more than that.

“The framework of the past four years is solid and flexible enough to tackle the problems,” said a State Department officer. “This Administration just plans a more active attitude, a more forward-leaning approach toward change, implicitly setting its sights higher than its predecessor.”

He cited three examples of the Bush Administration’s cautious innovations:

-- On arms control, the Administration has indicated that negotiations should go beyond merely seeking a balance in armaments on both sides. Rather, they should aim for constraints on how each side structures its nuclear and conventional forces in the future.

-- On the Middle East, the Administration will ask the Soviets to participate in the peace process and to behave responsibly in the region. That marks a subtle shift from the past, when Washington had said Moscow could take part in the peace process only after its behavior turned responsible.

-- On Eastern Europe, the Administration is developing a policy to expand economic and cultural exchanges with the increasingly autonomous countries of the Soviet Bloc, beginning with a package of economic and trade benefits for Poland that it unveiled last month.

A Changing Relationship

Despite the modest scale of these changes, there is growing recognition in Washington that the broader political relationship between the superpowers is changing.

“A qualitatively new relationship is emerging,” said William Green Miller, director of the American Committee on U.S.-Soviet Relations. “Contacts are no longer formal, between officials, but occur at every level in every field, across the board, far beyond the previous issues of security and attitudes of hostility.”

A new set of common U.S.-Soviet interests has emerged, a development that was not foreseen by V.I. Lenin, leader of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, and cannot be explained by the conflict of communism and capitalism, Miller said. These include transnational questions of nuclear arms, environment, poverty and disease, which require cooperative measures.

‘Military Disengagement’

At the same time, the military relationship between the superpowers is becoming more stable, and U.S. officials believe less attention needs to be devoted to the risk of conflict. “A military disengagement of sorts is beginning,” said a State Department expert, “which means more energy can be focused on solving regional and global problems.”

As the risk of military confrontation in Europe recedes, Baker aides say, the importance of solving conflicts in the Middle East and other Third World trouble spots increases. Not only are those the most likely arenas for wars to begin, but the proliferation of ballistic missiles and chemical weapons makes brush-fire wars ever more dangerous.

Soviet officials visiting Washington have shown a revived interest in setting out new rules of behavior, akin to the “Basic Principles of U.S.-Soviet Relations” that were signed at the 1972 summit to guide the emerging new relationship.

Unenforceable Principles

These principles, as former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger later wrote in “White House Years,” were broad and unenforceable--such items as the importance of avoiding confrontation and the need for mutual restraint. They were intended, Kissinger said, to “establish a standard of conduct by which to judge whether real progress was being made.”

The “rules of the road” failed, however, to prevent Soviet adventures in Africa, Nicaragua and elsewhere. The Bush Administration, like its predecessors, remains highly suspicious about writing new ones or resurrecting the 1972 agreement.

Instead, the White House intends to build the new U.S.-Soviet relationship cautiously, “one step at a time,” taking the pertinent issues as they arise.

First Visit to Moscow

Baker, who has never visited the Soviet Union, will spend 32 hours in Moscow. He is scheduled to arrive Wednesday morning, meet with Shevardnadze and other Soviet officials and then talk with newly elected members of the Congress of People’s Deputies and a group of Soviet Jews.

On Thursday, Baker is scheduled to meet for about two hours with Gorbachev before wrapping up his talks with Foreign Ministry officials. He will leave Moscow on Thursday afternoon for Brussels.