Wall Called E. Germany’s ‘Biggest Symbol of Inadequacy’ : East Europe: Cheney sees hope in Communist reforms but warns that the Cold War isn’t over.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, on his first official visit to West Germany, aimed a stinging barb at the new East German leader, Egon Krenz, calling the Berlin Wall the “biggest symbol of the inadequacy” of his government.

“I would think that a government that clearly is beset by problems on the part of its people--as thousands have fled to the West in recent weeks--has to know that the biggest symbol of the inadequacy of the government in East Germany is the continued presence of the Wall,” Cheney said.

“The sooner it comes down, the better off it will be for everyone.”

Cheney called West Berlin “an outpost of freedom in the Communist world,” and he said that the U.S. commitment to the city “will not change.”

His remarks came at the end of a second day of intensive consultations with West German officials. Coming against the backdrop of rapid change throughout Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, these consultations have been dominated by debate over how far West Germany and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should go in promoting reform.

“The key for us,” Cheney said, “is to maintain that strategy that’s worked so well for us for so many years, and then to do whatever we can to promote peaceful change in the East.”

Cheney, who is on an eight-day tour of Western Europe, has offered “hope and optimism” for the success of reform efforts in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. But he has tempered his comments with a repeated call for military vigilance.

“It is far too soon for us to declare that the Cold War has ended or that peace is at hand,” he told soldiers of the U.S. Army’s 3rd Armored Division, based in West Germany’s Fulda Gap. “It’s far too soon at this point to believe that we can reduce our forces in West Germany” in response to unilateral Soviet reduction.

But Cheney told reporters in West Berlin that “some change in U.S. deployments in Berlin” might be possible “if in fact we see continued peaceful change in the East and if we’re able to negotiate mutual and balanced reductions in conventional forces.”

About 6,000 U.S. troops are stationed in West Berlin. Most of them gather, analyze and relay back to the United States intelligence on East Bloc military activities.

Today Cheney is scheduled to review those troops, and to receive briefings on their readiness to monitor arms control agreements.

At a meeting Friday with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Defense Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg, Cheney pressed for assurances that Bonn will do nothing to rule out the modernization of short-range nuclear weapons after 1992.

He repeated President Bush’s assurances that the United States firmly backs West Germany’s desire for reunification with East Germany, despite the reservations of many in Western Europe.

“I’m perfectly comfortable, as is President Bush, with the proposition that at some point we may in fact see the reunification of Germany,” Cheney said.

In an unexpected concession on the long-running debate on “burden sharing” among NATO allies, Cheney said he believes that West Germany’s financial aid to Eastern European nations undertaking democratic reforms should be counted against its responsibilities in helping to pay for the common defense of Europe.

“Clearly it’s in our interest to see that changes are made in Poland,” Cheney said. “I think we ought to push that (West German financial aid), and I think it ought to count if we’re going to talk about burden sharing.”

BACKGROUND

Heavy emigration has been an embarrassing problem for Communist East Germany since its founding in 1949. More than 3 million of its citizens had fled to the West by 1961. Seeking to stem the flow, the regime built the hated Berlin Wall--miles of heavily guarded concrete slabs and barbed wire that seal off Communist East Berlin from free West Berlin. More than 70 East Germans have been killed trying to scale it, but countless others have succeeded in crossing at the Wall or other heavily fortified borders.