Higher Soviet Alert Status in Germany ‘Benign’: U.S.

Some Soviet military forces in East Germany have raised their alert status, but it apparently is just to protect their bases and nuclear weapons, a Pentagon official said today.

“It’s a self-protection measure,” said the official, who spoke on condition he not be identified by name.

The official said the Pentagon does not view the Soviet move as a prelude to intervention in the political turmoil of East Germany.

“They have taken increased security measures, but it is similar to something we might do at our bases if there are problems nearby. . . . They haven’t moved their troops forward, and they aren’t preparing for battle,” the official said.

The development was first reported in today’s editions of The Washington Post.

“We think this is probably a benign development,” the Post quoted a senior U.S. military official as saying. “They’re worried about their own forces (in the midst of this turmoil) and rightfully so.”

The official said, “The Soviets are basically going into a bastion mode.”

Secretary of State James A. Baker III told the Post in an interview that the Soviet Union has pledged to the United States since last summer that it will not intervene militarily to block the fast-paced changes in Eastern Europe.

“They have been very, very firm with us,” Baker said. He said the Soviets told the United States that “they would not use force in Eastern Europe; to do so would mean that perestroika has failed.”

Baker said the first assurances were conveyed by Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze in a meeting in Paris last July 29, before the entry of Solidarity into the government of Poland and the massive flight from East Germany.

The Soviets have used troops to suppress change in the region before, notably in East Berlin in 1953, Hungary in 1956 and, with their Warsaw Pact allies, in Czechoslovakia in 1968.

There were reports last August that Romanian authorities had requested Warsaw Pact intervention in Poland, and leaders of the new movements in Eastern Europe have sought assurances the Warsaw Pact would not be used against them.

Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said today that the reported increase in the readiness of Soviet forces is “a prime example of instability creating tensions . . . and tension causing a higher state of military alert.”

Skelton stressed that the United States should maintain its troop levels overseas and cautioned against any rash steps until the “turmoil and instability settles.”

Richard Boucher, a State Department spokesman, was asked whether the department regarded developments in Eastern Europe as unstable.

“I wouldn’t describe it that way,” Boucher said. “There are dramatic events and important events happening almost every day, and sometimes we’re surprised. We welcome them. But at this point, I don’t think we’re talking about instability.”