THE MALTA SUMMIT : Won’t OK Troop Cuts at Malta, U.S. Assures Allies

President Bush and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney sought Tuesday to reassure U.S. allies that no deal on troop reductions in Europe will be struck at Malta, and Bush complained about “all kinds of hyped speculation” over his summit this weekend with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Many of the reports Bush was objecting to originated at the White House, where Bush spokesman Marlin Fitzwater on Monday confirmed that as a result of the rapid changes in Eastern Europe, Bush is prepared to discuss with Gorbachev the possibility of deep troop cuts in Europe.

Reports of Fitzwater’s comments caused a stir in Europe, where Cheney is meeting with North Atlantic Treaty Organization defense ministers, and the Administration moved rapidly to try to calm allied concerns.

“There’s great fear of (U.S.-Soviet) bilateralism,” one NATO diplomat said. “It makes people nervous. By definition, a U.S.-Soviet summit tends to tip the balance (toward the superpowers and away from the European states). Quickly organized summits, particularly in times of crisis, makes them even more nervous.”

But, Bush insisted, “I’m not going to surprise them.

“So the surprise will be, if you’re looking for a surprise, there won’t be a surprise. That may come as a surprise,” he told reporters in a brief question-and-answer session in the Oval Office.

Neither Bush nor his aides are denying that U.S. troop cuts in Europe are likely over the next few years. Nor do they deny that the topic will come up during Bush’s meetings with Gorbachev. “If we want to talk in a general way with the Soviet leaders about our aspirations for how a defense system will look (in the future), we’ll do that,” Bush said.

But Bush has tried to draw a sharp line between talking and agreeing, wary of aggravating anxieties among Washington’s Western allies about hasty moves that they fear might threaten their security.

Cheney, aware of the concerns among the NATO allies, stressed the same theme in Brussels.

“We are in Europe to stay,” Cheney told his fellow defense ministers, according to a senior Pentagon official who attended Tuesday’s closed meetings of defense ministers.

“The United States will not make any unilateral cuts, and any reductions in force levels will be done in a NATO context and in full consultation with the allies,” the official quoted Cheney as saying.

Bush last April proposed a first round of troop cuts that would bring U.S. and Soviet troop levels in Europe down to 275,000 soldiers each. The cuts would require a reduction of about 30,000 U.S. troops and 10 times that many Soviets. With Gorbachev agreeing in principle to that reduction, U.S. officials are hopeful that talks aimed at reaching a final agreement can be completed by June, in time for the next Bush-Gorbachev summit.

The question now being debated within the Administration is how to handle a second round of Conventional Forces in Europe negotiations, known as the CFE talks.

Although senior U.S. officials assigned to NATO have begun to plan for a new round of deep cuts in U.S. forces in Europe after the CFE talks are concluded, some allies, particularly the British, have been balking.

“Everyone is talking about CFE II, but we have not agreed to it,” one British official in Brussels said.

One force driving the discussion of further troop cuts is the U.S. budget. The defense spending trend over the past five years has been one of steady decline measured against inflation, and that trend is likely to continue, Cheney told his fellow defense ministers in Tuesday’s meetings.

As a result, he explained, the military services are being asked to cut about $200 billion from their previous spending plans for the years 1991 through 1995. But, Cheney explained, those previous plans were unrealistic and did not take into account the stunning changes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

Spending cuts alone would not require any European troop reductions in the next two years, and cuts in later years would be made only after consulting with the allies, Cheney insisted.

The Europeans remain skeptical about U.S. intentions.

Gen. Uigleik Eide of Norway, chairman of NATO’s military committee, urged the United States to travel slowly on the road to disarmament. “We still see quite strong military forces in the East, despite some reductions,” he said. “There are greater changes in public perception than we can see in the real world. We cannot afford to take unnecessary risks.”

One area, however, in which the United States has steadily refused to discuss arms limits with the Soviets is that of sea-based weapons. State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler repeated that policy Tuesday.

“The United States is a maritime nation,” she said. “We have opposed Soviet proposals for naval arms control because they would hamper our ability to honor our commitments to allies and carry out our global responsibility. The Soviet Union, a land power, with internal lines of communication, would be less constrained by such proposals.”

Lauter reported from Washington and Broder from Brussels.