Bush Plan to Trim Troops Doesn’t Go Far Enough, Soviet Official Says

President Bush’s proposal for deeper troop cuts in Central Europe was a step in the right direction, but it failed to go far enough, Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov said today.

In a surprise overture, Bush proposed in his State of the Union message Wednesday a cut in military manpower in Europe to 195,000 troops on each side. The previous U.S. bargaining position at conventional force negotiations in Vienna was 275,000 on each side.

“(The Bush speech was) a good sign that things are changing for the better,” Gerasimov said at a news briefing. “Some observers note that the events in Europe run ahead of the slow diplomatic negotiations.”

Gerasimov criticized the proposal for not going far enough. “You can note in his speech that he needs American troops in Europe from here to eternity--125,000 or about this figure. This is not a good sign.

“We, together with Les Aspin (chairman of the House Armed Services Committee), feel it must be the ceiling, not the floor.”

Bush said in his speech that he and the United States’ European allies agree “that an American military presence in Europe is essential--and that it should not be tied solely to the Soviet military presence in Eastern Europe.”

Gerasimov also complained that the proposal applies only to troops in Central Europe and would leave the United States with 30,000 or more troops in Britain, Greece and other countries in Europe.

“So it comes out that the U.S. is to have 235,000 troops,” Gerasimov said. This will have to be considered at the conventional arms talks in Vienna, he said.

Gerasimov also complained that Bush seemed to take credit for the “revolution of 1989,” as the U.S. President called it.

He said attempts to show these events as a triumph of American ideals and a failure of communism “are a relic of the Cold War.” He added that the U.S. invasion of Panama was further evidence of this attitude.

In his speech, Bush said that the remarkable events of 1989 “validate the longstanding goals of American policy--a policy based on a single, shining principle: the cause of freedom. America--not just the nation--but an idea, alive in the minds of people everywhere.”

Overall, however, Gerasimov repeated that “we want to see in Bush’s address a signal to use to the maximum the unique chance of 1990 to improve Soviet-American cooperation.”

Gerasimov also said the Soviet government objects strongly to the fact that Cable News Network continued to broadcast a report alleging that Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev was considering quitting as Communist Party leader.

Gerasimov said the station kept putting the report out even after Gerasimov and Gorbachev on Wednesday said it was untrue and based on rumor.