Tass Salutes Bush Troop Plan as 1st Answer by U.S. to Soviet Offers

Although the Soviet government had no immediate comment on President Bush’s proposal for across-the-board, East-West troop and arms reductions in Europe, the official Soviet news agency Tass welcomed it as “the first answer of the new American Administration to concrete proposals put forward earlier by the Soviet Union and the Warsaw treaty organization.”

Tass noted that, “for the first time, helicopters and combat aircraft are mentioned, both of which the United States refused to negotiate on before,” thus meeting a major Soviet demand.

Col. Gen. Nikolai Chervov, a member of the Soviet general staff, said before the Bush speech that Moscow and its allies were waiting for the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to respond to recent Soviet “constructive steps” intended to move arms control negotiations ahead.

“The world public has the right to expect the leaders of the NATO countries not to modernize their short-range nuclear forces in Europe,” Chervov told Tass, “but to take specific measures to reduce NATO armaments in response to the good-will of the Warsaw Treaty Organization.”