Smiling Soviets Upset Baker’s Game Plan in Moscow

Secretary of State James A. Baker III made his maiden journey to Moscow last week hoping to refocus U.S.-Soviet relations away from nuclear arms control, an issue on which the Bush Administration wants to move slowly, toward such issues as Central America, terrorism and the environment.

It was a plan that looked good on paper, but it left out one key factor: the determination of Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

For a full day of Baker’s visit to Moscow, his Soviet hosts smiled, nodded and said all the right things about cooperation in the Middle East, in Central America, and on other problems from terrorism to drug trafficking.

But on Baker’s second and final day in the Kremlin, Gorbachev turned the tables with a surprise announcement that put nuclear arms control right back on top of the agenda, where he wanted it. In one of his trademark grand gestures, the Soviet leader said he will withdraw 500 short-range nuclear warheads from Eastern Europe and press for massive cuts in Soviet Bloc and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troop strength on the Continent.

As Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze pointedly told a press conference a few hours later, Moscow still considers nuclear arms control to be “the crux of the whole system of Soviet-American relations.”

The lesson, at least to some of Baker’s aides, was that Gorbachev does offer dramatic possibilities for improving East-West relations, but he will not allow the United States to escape responding to his agenda on arms control.

“They were very cooperative, remarkably cooperative, on almost everything we raised,” said one senior U.S. official who traveled with Baker. “But it may have been because they don’t want to give us any excuse for avoiding arms control.”

Gorbachev appears to be serious about seeking massive reductions in both nuclear and conventional military forces in Europe partly because he sees that as a key to his plans for reforming the Soviet economy, officials who met with him said.

During an extraordinary Kremlin meeting with Baker and his aides that lasted nearly four hours, Gorbachev gave a 50-minute exposition of his policy of perestroika, or restructuring.

“Perestroika is a reality; it used to be a policy,” a U.S. official quoted Gorbachev as saying as they sat across a long blond wood table in the ornate St. Catherine’s Hall. “It used to be a reflection of what we want to achieve; now, it’s beyond that. . . . A profound process is under way, and it will change the Soviet Union in significant ways.”

The Soviet president told the Americans that one of his major goals is to increase production of consumer goods, partly by redirecting resources away from defense spending--hence his interest in arms control.

But Gorbachev’s demand for a quicker pace in arms reduction talks ran into resistance from Baker, because the Administration wants to move cautiously.

Baker agreed to resume the Geneva negotiations on long-range nuclear weapons in mid-June, for example, but told Shevardnadze that the Administration has still not worked out a detailed bargaining position.

One reason, officials noted, is that Congress has not finally decided which mobile strategic missile the United States should build, a factor that would affect the U.S. position in arms talks.

But another reason, some officials say, is that Baker and President Bush are skeptical of Gorbachev’s chances--and thus worry that arms agreements could put the United States at a disadvantage if a more hostile Soviet leader should come to power.

That skepticism clearly remained intact after the Americans’ long meeting with Gorbachev.

The Americans were especially troubled by Gorbachev’s decision to delay a price reform, which would phase out the Soviet system of having the government set most prices, because of the political cost of raising prices on such essentials as bread and housing.

Nevertheless, the Americans acknowledged Gorbachev’s mastery of not only the substance of arms control--he described his new proposals in detail without any apparent recourse to notes--but, even more important, the politics of the issue.

The Soviet leader announced his planned arms cut one day before Shevardnadze traveled to West Germany, the NATO country most enamored of negotiations to reduce battlefield nuclear weapons, and only two weeks before a NATO summit at which Bush will face an alliance that is restive with his caution on the issue.

U.S. officials had expected Shevardnadze to offer a cut in short-range nuclear weapons during his visit to Bonn, but they were surprised that Gorbachev unveiled it during Baker’s visit to Moscow--stealing the thunder not only from Baker, but from Bush’s call for “open skies” in Europe as well.

According to one official, Gorbachev told Baker that his announcement was not designed simply for its political impact in Western Europe. “It certainly is,” an annoyed Baker shot back.

One of Gorbachev’s proposals, the unilateral withdrawal of 500 short-range nuclear warheads from Eastern Europe, succeeded in its apparent aim of fueling the division within NATO. West Germany is urging early negotiations with the Soviet Bloc to reduce the short-range weapons further, but the United States believes such talks should not be considered until the Warsaw Pact’s advantage in conventional forces is reduced.

Gorbachev’s other proposal, the massive cut in troop strength in Europe, may well cause the Administration more headaches. The suggestion that each side’s army should be slashed to 1.35 million troops, which involves a cut as high as 40%, would be difficult to verify. It would also almost certainly require a wholesale withdrawal of American troops from Europe--an idea that troubles NATO strategists but is politically popular.

Baker gamely argued, as he has before, that Gorbachev’s moves were intended mostly for public relations purposes, and that they should be counted as triumphs for NATO because “they are responding to the West’s agenda.”

But one U.S. official acknowledged that Gorbachev’s plan was “a terrific piece of packaging . . . it will make a big splash.”