Bush Welcomes New Arms Offer but It’s ‘Not Enough’ : Gorbachev Challenged on Figures

President Bush today welcomed new arms reduction proposals by Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev but said they were “not enough” to redress the edge Warsaw Pact forces maintain over NATO in Europe.

He also challenged Gorbachev to disclose accurate figures on Soviet military spending. “Open the ledger,” Bush said in a commencement address to the Coast Guard Academy.

Speaking only a day after the Soviet leader offered to impose new limits on troops stationed in Eastern Europe and on Soviet forces overall, Bush said, “The Soviets are now being forthcoming, and we hope to achieve the reductions that we seek.”

‘Are Not Enough’

However, he said, “these reductions alone, even if implemented, are not enough to eliminate the superiority the Soviet Union enjoys now.”

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater told reporters earlier that the President regarded the new Soviet offer as “meaningful and serious.”

The Administration’s public reaction was in marked contrast to previous responses to Soviet offers.

Bush and other U.S. officials have dismissed most other ideas coming out of the Kremlin as nothing more than public relations ploys. Fitzwater only last week described Gorbachev as “a drugstore cowboy” tossing out proposals.

In his speech, Bush declared communism “a failed system” and said the West is entering a new era based on economic and political success.

‘Shape a New World’

“There is an opportunity before us to shape a new world,” Bush said.

He took note of the pro-democracy demonstrators who have occupied Beijing’s Tian An Men Square for more than 10 days and said the United States “will do all it can to encourage” those who “are speaking the language of democracy and freedom.”

He wished Gorbachev success in attempting to restructure the Soviet economy and said lasting peace was now more likely than ever before.

But Bush said it is still necessary to maintain a strong nuclear deterrence with a new U.S. long-range mobile missile and making other ocean-spanning land-based missiles transportable.

“We live in a time when we are witnessing the end of an idea--the final chapter of the Communist experiment,” Bush said. He called communism “a failed system, one that promised economic prosperity but failed to deliver the goods, a system that built a wall between the people and their political aspirations.”

‘Era of Unparalleled Growth’

He urged further reductions by the Soviet-led alliance and reiterated his call for territorial overflights on both sides.

Bush also played on the theme of open markets in his speech and said, “If we succeed, the next decade and the century beyond will be an era of unparalleled growth.”

Bush said success also required an end to conflict and turmoil. He said the United States and its allies are pursuing a strategy of strength, economically, diplomatically and militarily.