Soviets OK Chemical Arms Cuts : Shevardnadze Tells U.N. That Moscow Accepts Bush Plan

The Soviet Union accepts President Bush’s proposal for the superpowers to begin at once to destroy their stocks of poison gases without waiting for the rest of the world to agree to outlaw chemical weapons, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze said Tuesday.

Although the procedure Shevardnadze outlined in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly differed in some details from the plan Bush unveiled less than 24 hours earlier, the gap seemed very narrow. Top officials on both sides said the positions are close.

Both nations said the purpose of a Washington-Moscow pact would be to overcome the inertia immobilizing a 40-nation disarmament conference in Geneva that has failed for almost a decade to draft a global ban on chemical weapons.

Bush ‘Very Pleased’

In Washington, Bush said he is “very pleased with the way things are going.”

“We’ve got some good common ground . . . that I don’t think we had before the foreign minister came here,” Bush added. “And I know he’s accurately reflecting Mr. Gorbachev’s view.”

Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who met for about eight minutes with Shevardnadze after the foreign minister’s speech, said the Soviet proposal “seems very responsive to the President’s initiative.” He said Shevardnadze delivered “a good speech, an interesting speech.”

If the United States and the Soviet Union begin joint destruction of their chemical arsenals--by far the largest in the world--it should become easier to persuade other nations to follow suit, U.S. and Soviet officials said.

‘Barbaric Weapons’

In his speech, Shevardnadze welcomed Bush’s initiative and said Moscow shares with Washington “the desire to rid mankind of those barbaric weapons.”

“The Soviet Union is ready, together with the United States, to . . . assume mutual obligations prior to the conclusion of a multilateral convention,” Shevardnadze said. He said the superpowers should agree “on a bilateral basis (to) radically reduce or completely destroy Soviet and U.S. chemical weapons, regarding it as a step toward the global destruction of chemical weapons.”

The President called for a Washington-Moscow pact to reduce U.S. chemical weapons stocks by 80%, with the Soviet Union cutting its even larger arsenal by enough to bring both nations to the same level. The United States is thought to have about 30,000 tons of chemical weapons. The Soviet Union acknowledges 50,000 tons, although some U.S. officials believe the figure is higher.

Viktor P. Karpov, the chief Soviet arms control negotiator, said, “We are in agreement with President Bush’s proposal, but we think we could go even farther.”

He said the Soviet Union agrees it must destroy more weapons than the United States to bring the two nations’ stockpiles to an equal level. Moscow is prepared to eliminate “any amount that we agree on--even 100%,” he added.

However, Karpov also said the Soviet Union would not want the superpowers to destroy all such weapons before the disarmament conference agrees on a global ban. He did not try to explain the seeming contradiction.

In his speech, Shevardnadze also called on both the United States and the Soviet Union to “cease the production of chemical weapons, as we have done already.” Karpov said the Soviet Union would insist on an end to U.S. production as part of any agreement, although he said Moscow is ready to begin negotiations unconditionally.

The United States is producing a new generation of “binary” weapons--two chemicals that are relatively harmless when kept separate but form a deadly gas when mixed together. Under the U.S. program, the new weapons, considered far safer to store, will be substituted for older weapons loaded with poisonous single-chemical compounds.

Baker said Monday that if the Soviet Union agreed to Bush’s proposal for deep cuts in existing stocks, the United States would greatly reduce--but not eliminate--its production of binary weapons. At the end of the process, he said, the U.S. arsenal would be mostly binary weapons, but the total tonnage would be only 20% of present levels.

There is no way to know whether the Soviet proposal to end production could become a roadblock to agreement. But it appeared that the gap could be bridged if negotiators on both sides really wanted to reach agreement.

As Bush did in his speech Monday, Shevardnadze avoided the sort of Cold War rhetoric that had marked the superpowers’ U.N. speeches in earlier years. However, the Soviet foreign minister reiterated earlier Soviet calls for a nuclear testing moratorium and ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons, steps that the United States has rejected.

Shevardnadze proposed a new nuclear disarmament conference to be attended by the five nuclear powers--the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and China--as well as non-nuclear nations where nuclear weapons are stationed.

That list would include West and East Germany and possibly some other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Pact. It would be the first time that nuclear arms limitation talks were extended beyond the superpowers. In the past, Britain and France have objected to limitations on their arsenals, which are tiny by comparison to those of Washington and Moscow.

“Only the complete elimination of nuclear capabilities would help to attain real security,” Shevardnadze said. “The advocates of nuclear deterrence do not believe this will be possible in the foreseeable future. They respond with concepts of the so-called minimum nuclear deterrence.

“In our view, that is a step forward, if only a timid one--a step that can be made,” he said. “But first, we must define what we mean by minimum nuclear deterrence and what capabilities should be considered sufficient.”

Doesn’t Name Names

In his speech, Shevardnadze did not identify the advocates of nuclear deterrence. But Karpov said he was referring to the Bush Administration as well as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and NATO Secretary General Manfred Woerner.

Shevardnadze also called for NATO-Warsaw Pact negotiations to reduce tactical nuclear weapons. He said that if NATO agrees to such talks, the Soviet Union would respond with “further unilateral cuts in its tactical nuclear missiles in Europe.”

Shevardnadze’s speech was far less ideological than previous Soviet statements at the United Nations. But he did include an implied response to Bush’s claim that Marxism is moribund.

“As a great concept, socialism is by no means a spent force,” he said.

At the same time, Shevardnadze said the Soviet Union is ready to integrate its economy with the capitalist world.

“We would like to participate actively in the work of the international economic organizations and to establish contacts with the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank, being convinced that our cooperation with them, as well as with GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) and FAO (U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization), will be useful for the community (of nations) as a whole,” he said.

Although Moscow previously has indicated an interest in joining the international economic organizations, Shevardnadze was the first high-ranking Soviet official to say so publicly. The United States is known to oppose Soviet entry into the organizations, which rely on free-market economic principles.

Shevardnadze also said that Moscow is “not enthusiastic” about the new Solidarity-led government in Poland. However, he said the Soviet Union will cooperate with Poland’s non-Communist leadership because “tolerance is the norm of civilized political behavior.”

In a swipe at Washington, he added: “Why are others so intolerant as regards, say, Cuba? If a non-Communist prime minister is possible in a socialist country, why should the appearance of a Communist as head of a Western government be perceived as heresy?”

That line produced the only applause that interrupted Shevardnadze’s 45-minute speech.

Times staff writer James Gerstenzang contributed to this story.