Baker Fails to Sway Bonn in Wake of Gorbachev’s New Weapons Cuts

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s surprise announcement of cuts in short-range nuclear weapons succeeded Friday in achieving one of its apparent goals--fueling the dispute within NATO over the Western Alliance’s own battlefield atomic weapons.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who ended two days of talks in Moscow on Thursday, stopped Friday at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters here to brief the alliance on Gorbachev’s proposal--and to make another attempt at solving the nuclear policy quarrel between the United States and West Germany.

But the U.S.-West German dispute proved intractable, and some American officials predicted that it could draw President Bush into an unseemly battle with Chancellor Helmut Kohl at the NATO summit meeting in two weeks.

Baker met for 40 minutes with Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the West German foreign minister who has argued strenuously that NATO should seek early East-West negotiations to reduce both sides’ battlefield missiles, a position the Bush Administration rejects.

“We haven’t as yet bridged that gap,” Baker said after the meeting.

Danger of Politics on Security

He added, with some asperity, that it would be a “disaster . . . if we let politics somehow endanger the security of the alliance.” U.S. officials have privately accused both Genscher and Kohl of pressing the dispute for domestic political reasons.

But Genscher stuck to his guns and said Gorbachev’s announcement provided another reason that his policy is right.

Noting that Gorbachev said he would withdraw 500 nuclear warheads to Soviet territory but did not promise to destroy them, Genscher declared: “The federal (West German) government feels that this announcement confirms its conviction that it is necessary to make such steps irreversible through negotiations and agreements.”

Baker, in turn, drew the opposite conclusion, arguing that the Gorbachev move would actually make it more difficult to move toward negotiations.

The NATO partners did agree that Gorbachev’s announcement was insignificant in military terms. The Soviet leader told Baker on Thursday that he will withdraw 500 tactical nuclear warheads from Eastern Europe by the end of the year--a mix of missiles, artillery shells and aircraft-borne bombs--out of a total estimated at more than 10,000.

A Well-Timed Shot

The NATO partners also agreed that the Soviet move was a well-timed shot that could only heighten public pressure in Western Europe against NATO’s plans to build new short-range missiles.

“I think it was designed with public opinion in mind,” Baker said. “We have been calling on the Soviets for a long time to do just this.”

“This was a very modest step,” he added. “The alliance is absolutely, totally and completely unified with respect to this proposal.”

In Bonn, Chancellor Kohl said Friday that the Gorbachev’s announced intention to reduce the number of warheads in Eastern Europe is “a step in the right direction.”

But Horst Ehmke, spokesman on security affairs for the opposition Social Democrats, who have called for the abolition of all short-range nuclear weapons--those with a range of under 300 miles--declared: “While NATO is quarreling, Gorbachev has acted again. If Gorbachev, despite his proposals, is still not taken at his word, then NATO runs the risk of losing further credibility.”

Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze arrived in Bonn on Friday, the day after Gorbachev’s proposals, for talks with West German leaders.

Dispute Over Lance Missile

The heart of the U.S.-West German dispute is a disagreement over NATO’s short-range Lance nuclear missile.

The United States contends that the Lance is essential to counterbalance the Soviet Bloc’s large non-nuclear armies based in Eastern Europe. Moreover, U.S. strategic planners want to build a new, more modern short-range missile to replace the Lance.

But the battlefield missiles are highly unpopular in West Germany, mainly because they would explode on German soil--East or West--if they were ever used. As a result, both Kohl and Genscher have asked for a delay in building any new missiles--and for early negotiations to reduce the short-range forces on both sides.

The dispute began as a rather technical quarrel, but has mushroomed into what many officials consider the most serious division in NATO’s 40-year history.

“The Germans are questioning the basic organization under which NATO has protected Western Europe since World War II,” a State Department official complained.

Pressing for a Solution

The West Germans have argued that NATO should appoint a working group to study the problem--in effect, postponing the issue. But Baker indicated that the United States is still pressing for a solution on terms acceptable to Bush within the next two weeks.

The secretary of state has taken a slightly softer line on the dispute in his meetings in Moscow and Brussels, saying for the first time that the United States could “think about negotiations” if the Soviet Union reduces its margin of superiority in nuclear and conventional forces.

But he insisted publicly--and other officials confirmed--that the U.S. position has not changed materially.

Gorbachev and his announcement dominated Baker’s meetings with European officials. Baker had intended his visit to Moscow to demonstrate that the Bush Administration is now, in his words, “totally re-engaged in our dialogue with the Soviet Union” after a four-month pause.

Asked whether he resented being upstaged by the Soviet leader, Baker said: “I don’t know whether you’d call it upstaging. But there’s no way we’re going to win by trying to play a public relations game of outbidding the Soviet Union with respect to arms control.”

Times staff writer William Tuohy, in Bonn, contributed to this story.