Cheney Urges Flexibility in Confronting Soviet Moves

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, softening his views on Soviet policy, Monday hailed several “encouraging” moves by the Soviets and declared that the United States should take advantage of any new opportunities they offer to lessen the threat of war.

In a cautiously optimistic view of Soviet policy, Cheney, the Bush Administration’s foremost hard-liner, suggested there may be emerging “a new era of international relations” and said the United States must be flexible enough to deal with the changing circumstances.

He also said he is encouraged by what has developed in the U.S.-Soviet talks on reducing conventional forces in Europe, “and we may reach an agreement” on significant reductions.

Although tempered with caution, the overall view of U.S.-Soviet policy, voiced during a luncheon interview with reporters, was unusually optimistic for Cheney. He recently upset White House and State Department officials by straying from Administration policy and predicting that Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev would fail in his reform efforts and be replaced by a leader more hostile to the West. The view subsequently was repudiated by both President Bush and Secretary of State James A. Baker III.

Trying to be Careful

Declaring he was “trying to be very careful” in answering reporters’ questions, Cheney said:

“Gorbachev’s stated intentions of reducing the defense budget and pulling troops out of Eastern Europe and the fact that they’ve taken the troops out of Afghanistan--all of these obviously are encouraging, and I think in the West we obviously need to do everything we can to take advantage of the current circumstances to reduce the overall threat of war and to enhance international stability and enter into arms control agreements if they make sense. . . . “

However, Cheney said there is “enough uncertainty” about what will happen in the Soviet Union that U.S. decisions now should not be based “upon the hope that these changes will be fundamental and irreversible, that we can afford to significantly reduce our own military commitments.”

He said “the jury is still out” on whether the Soviets will live up to Gorbachev’s promises of unilateral reduction of Soviet military forces in Eastern Europe. The first reductions--withdrawals of 10,000 men and 1,000 tanks from East Germany--were scheduled to begin last Thursday.

In terms of strategic systems or long-range missiles, Cheney said there has been no letup in the modernization or deployment of Soviet SS-24 and SS-25 missiles.

“I could not at this point,” said Cheney, “sit down and say to the President, ‘Mr. President, here’s all the evidence that shows that, in fact, the Soviets are going to implement all the good things that Gorbachev has said he wants to do.’ But, on the other hand, it’s a big cumbersome system and you would expect that it will take time before some of that stuff can be accomplished.”

Both Cheney and a State Department official also rebuked Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze on Monday for threatening to break terms of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty or take a rearmament step if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization goes through with its plan to modernize its short-range nuclear missiles based in Europe.

Cheney denounced the threat as an attempt to “create turmoil” within NATO only two weeks before its summit meeting in Brussels from May 29-30.

Shevardnadze’s comments followed a pledge by Gorbachev, during talks in Moscow with Baker last week, to reduce the number of its short-range missiles in Europe by removing 500 warheads. Both Soviet moves were designed to increase the pressure on Western Europe to repudiate a call by the United States and Britain to modernize nuclear missiles instead of beginning new negotiations with Moscow to reduce short-range nuclear missiles.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said at a news briefing: “We think Shevardnadze’s remarks are an outlandish statement. One day the Soviets announce small unilateral reductions, the next day they’re talking about breaking recently concluded treaties.”

Baker had called Gorbachev’s pledge to remove the warheads “a small step, a good step.” But Cheney, referring to the pledge as “Gorbachev’s latest ploy,” said the Soviet leader has “got so many rat holes over there in Eastern Europe that 500 is a pittance. He’s still got an overwhelming preponderance in sheer numbers with respect to short-range nuclear forces.”