Baker Says He Failed to Heal Rift Over Missiles in W. German Talks

Secretary of State James A. Baker III today failed to heal a rift with West Germany over nuclear missiles, leaving a shadow over the May 29 and 30 summit that President Bush will attend with other Western leaders.

“If we had bridged the gap, I would tell you,” Baker said after he met with West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher. He said the security of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization could be at risk if the allies let their nuclear defenses down.

Meanwhile, officials of the 15 other NATO nations welcomed in guarded terms Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s proposal to unilaterally cut 500 short-range nuclear weapons. Baker said it was merely a Soviet public relations ploy, and Bush’s national security adviser said it was designed to split NATO.

Brent Scowcroft, speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One as Bush flew to Texas for a speech, said the Soviet proposal “is designed principally to create problems within the alliance . . . divisions within the Western alliance.”

The NATO officials, in a statement after Baker briefed them on his trip earlier this week to Moscow, said, “We consider reduction in 500 weapons alone as a welcome, positive, but rather modest step.” The statement said NATO looks to Moscow for further “reductions in its unwarranted superiority.”

The Bush Administration’s dispute with West Germany is over short-range nuclear missiles targeted against the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact countries, mostly from sites on West German soil.

West Germany wants to delay a proposal to triple the range of the missiles and to increase their speed, asking instead that the United States begin to negotiate short-range missile cutbacks on both sides with the Soviet Union.

The dispute has opened fissures within the alliance. A majority supports West Germany in a position that Baker suggested was partially motivated by politics.

Disarmament feeling is strong in West Germany, and Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s decision to oppose modernizing the Lance missiles and to urge negotiations is viewed as a way of trying to improve his chances for reelection next year.

Gorbachev complicated Baker’s task with an announcement Thursday that the Soviets would withdraw 500 nuclear missiles, bombs and artillery shells from Eastern Europe this year.

He also advised Baker in a 3 1/2-hour Kremlin meeting that the Warsaw Pact would propose at East-West talks in Vienna wide-ranging cutbacks in troops, tanks, artillery and other non-nuclear forces.

Baker said the unilateral withdrawal of about 5% of the Soviet short-range nuclear arsenal was “quite apparently designed for public opinion” and included no guarantee that the missiles would be destroyed.