End to Arms Split Unlikely Before Summit, Baker Says

Secretary of State James A. Baker III held out little hope Tuesday that the United States and West Germany would resolve their dispute over short-range nuclear missiles before next week’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit conference, saying that an issue so “extraordinarily important” could not be disposed of hastily.

Baker’s pessimistic assessment, which he said was echoed by President Bush in an interview Tuesday morning with European journalists, suggested that the attempts to prevent the meeting from being marred by political friction may fail. The session was intended to celebrate 40 years of allied unity.

“While we would prefer to resolve it before we get to the summit, it’s an extraordinarily important matter that deals with the security of the West and, therefore, it should not be resolved at all costs,” Baker said in a briefing on the issues that Bush will face at the summit, which begins Monday in Brussels. “So, if we have to take it on at the summit, we will take it on at the summit.”

In the one bright note at the session, Baker announced that U.S.-Soviet talks on long-range nuclear weapons will resume on June 19. The talks, which will pursue an agreement on a 50% reduction in the superpowers’ arsenals of intercontinental weapons, have been delayed for more than half a year while the new Administration reviewed national security issues.

At the heart of the dispute over the short-range weapons is the pace and ultimate goal of any East-West negotiations over the deployment of short-range nuclear missiles. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, under political pressure from voters favoring wider arms control efforts, has called for speedy talks aimed at reducing nuclear weapons with ranges of less than 300 miles.

The United States fears that such talks would push the alliance toward removing all nuclear weapons from Europe--a step that Bush opposes because of the East Bloc’s overwhelming superiority in conventional weapons. The Bush Administration wants to put off any such talks until the imbalance of non-nuclear weaponry has been narrowed in talks that have been started in Vienna.

Baker said that it would be a mistake to move into “early, immediate, unconditional negotiations” with the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact over the short-range missiles, which NATO had already decided to develop, as a replacement for the 88 launchers of its aging Lance missile force. He also said that the issue, while “very, very important,” would not “totally dominate the summit.”

‘We Remain Hopeful’

Although he said “we remain hopeful” that continuing efforts will resolve the dispute before the summit conference, he foreshadowed a hard line in any renewed bargaining with West Germany in the final days before the NATO leaders meet.

White House officials supported that view. They said that no face-to-face talks between senior U.S. and West German officials are scheduled before the Brussels summit. The text of Bush’s interview with the European journalists was not released to other news organizations.

In the latest exchange of messages between Bonn and Washington, the Germans were “quibbling over several points,” in response to the latest U.S. proposal, an Administration official said.

In that proposal, which prompted Baker on Saturday to state that the two sides were “very close” to resolving their differences, the United States suggested that the NATO nations commit themselves to negotiations with the Soviets on the short-range missiles but that the commitment be made conditional on “significant progress” in the negotiations on conventional weaponry. Thus, there would be no opening of short-range nuclear weapons talks until the United States felt assured that the conventional imbalance--which the nuclear missiles and artillery shells are needed to offset--would be narrowed.

The Administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that in a response received Monday evening from West Germany, Bonn refused to rule out the eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons from Europe. In addition, the Germans objected to making a commitment to the eventual modernization of the Atlantic Alliance’s short-range missile force, and were not willing to put off negotiations on these weapons “until we see a full treaty” on conventional weapons.

“These are three critical areas,” the official said. “They want wiggle room.”

Bush leaves Washington on Friday for the summit of the leaders of the 16 NATO nations.

Baker said that Bush will emphasize the need for “a strong common defense,” strengthening of European institutions and the “peaceful decentralization of economic, political and social authority in Eastern Europe.” He said that Bush also will seek to turn NATO’s attention to a wider range of issues, including environmental problems and the proliferation of chemical weapons.

Seeking to answer critics who have said that Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has successfully courted support in Western Europe with a skillful public relations campaign that threatens the unity of the alliance, Baker said: “We’re winning economically, we’re winning politically, we have the other philosophy (communism) acknowledging that it is a failure.”