Gorbachev Arms Plan Wins Praise From Bush

President Bush, responding to a Soviet arms control move that caught the United States by surprise, expressed approval Saturday of President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s plan to withdraw 500 nuclear warheads from Central and Eastern Europe.

But the President indicated that the Soviet step would not hurry the United States into talks to reduce short-range nuclear forces in Europe.

“Let him go ahead and do what he says, unilaterally. It would be good,” Bush told reporters aboard Air Force One before arriving here for a commencement address at historically black Alcorn State University.

Gorbachev unveiled the measure at a meeting Thursday in Moscow with Secretary of State James A. Baker III. The Soviet leader also said he would seek reductions of more than 2 million troops in the NATO and Soviet Bloc armies. NATO places its forces at 2.2 million troops and those of the Warsaw Pact at 3.1 million.

Gorbachev’s initiative would cut the Soviet Bloc’s European arsenal by 284 short-range missiles, 166 nuclear bombs and 50 nuclear artillery shells, Gorbachev told Baker, according to a U.S. official.

The Gorbachev plan reflected an ongoing effort by Moscow to increase pressure on the United States as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization nears a summit conference May 29-30, marking its 40th anniversary.

The steps Gorbachev laid before Baker were seen as intended to draw the United States into negotiations on the so-called battlefield nuclear weapons. Such weapons make up one of the most politically sensitive arms control issues because their range of under 300 miles limits their wartime use to the heart of Europe.

U.S. officials believe that the Soviet Union has as many as 10,000 nuclear warheads for short-range nuclear forces in Europe. Thus, the Soviet leader’s plan would result in a 5% reduction.

The Administration has held that NATO’s short-range nuclear weapons cannot be scaled back in Europe until the Warsaw Pact’s advantage in conventional forces is trimmed. The West counts on its nuclear weapons to offset the imbalance in conventional, or non-nuclear, forces.

Gorbachev’s focus on nuclear forces has triggered a transatlantic campaign between Moscow and Washington for support of popular opinion in Western Europe--with the Bush Administration concerned that the result could be the hasty removal of all nuclear weapons in Europe.

At the heart of the current debate is a NATO plan, favored by the United States, to replace aging Lance tactical missiles--which are based in West Germany and would be used against East Germany in a war--with a new short-range nuclear weapon. The Lance has a range of 80 miles.

Shevardnadze in Bonn

Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze said in Bonn on Saturday that if NATO persists with its plan, the Kremlin might consider breaking with the 1987 U.S.-Soviet treaty eliminating the superpowers’ intermediate-range missiles or developing a new short-range weapons system.

West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl has campaigned with some success among other NATO members on behalf of a proposal, reflecting popular political thought in his nation, to move quickly into negotiations to reduce all short-range nuclear weapons between the Atlantic and the Ural Mountains.

The United States, backed primarily by Britain, has rejected that notion, concerned that if NATO loses its battlefield nuclear weapons--missiles, artillery shells and bombs--Western Europe would be much harder to defend against any attack by Warsaw Pact forces with their greater numbers of tanks and troops.

Bush, speaking with reporters as he flew here from Houston, was asked if he would win the public relations “war” with Gorbachev.

“No such war,” he said. “I want to win the peace war. Lasting peace--that’s built on action, not words.”

The debate over European weapons catches NATO in the midst of a weapons modernization program. Bush said, “we’ve already removed--what is it?--2,000 tactical nuclear weapons.”

White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater said later that the President was referring to a variety of battlefield weapons, including nuclear-tipped artillery shells, that are considered militarily obsolete.

“It would be nice to have him go ahead and make some moves,” Bush said of Gorbachev. “Action is what I talked about yesterday.”

The President was referring to his Friday commencement address at Texas A&M; University, in which he outlined the Administration’s emerging policy toward the Soviet Union in the wake of shifts initiated by Gorbachev.

In his speech, Bush said it was “time to move beyond containment, to a new policy for the 1990s, one that recognizes the full scope of change taking place around the world, and in the Soviet Union itself.” But, he added that any new relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union “must be earned because promises are never enough.”

In that speech, Bush also called on Gorbachev to join him in a proposal to open the skies of the United States and the Soviet Union to unarmed surveillance flights, as a demonstration of new openness in superpower relations.

Asked whether the United States had received any response from Gorbachev to the proposal, Bush said, “not that I’ve heard.”

Here in Lorman, Bush pledged that as the Soviets “meet the challenge of responsible international behavior, we will match their steps with steps of our own.”

In that speech and in a second commencement address delivered later in the day at the mostly white Mississippi State University, Bush wove a theme of shared family values that make up the fabric of the United States.

“We’re not talking about two sets of values. Family values are the same regardless of race, color, or creed,” he said in his speech at Alcorn State.

And at Mississippi State in Starkville, he praised volunteerism and community service.

“Compassion helps one child escape heroin addition. Generosity allows another to eat a decent meal. Through faith in God, still another overcomes the curse of bigotry and hatred,” he said.