3 Arms Pact Obstacles Overcome, Baker Says : Military: Progress reported on cruise missiles, ‘Star Wars.’ Gorbachev proposes equality in troop ceilings.

Following unexpected progress on key issues, U.S. and Soviet negotiators appear to have broken the back of the last three major obstacles to a strategic arms reduction treaty, Secretary of State James A. Baker III indicated Friday.

Baker told a midnight press conference that the three areas in which unexpectedly swift progress was made in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) talks were sea-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs), air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs) and Soviet “linkage” of offensive nuclear weapons and anti-missile defenses, specifically the U.S. space-based missile defense system commonly known as “Star Wars.”

“If you ask me if I am pleased at what we are able to do here, I am very pleased,” Baker said. The arms talks here “moved progress very, very smartly toward a START treaty” being completed this year, he said. Such a treaty would reduce U.S. and Soviet offensive nuclear arsenals by about half.

The secretary of state said he believes the talks have taken the United States and the Soviet Union another step away from the era of confrontation.

“I think the relationship is in better shape than it has been in the past,” he said.

“We have made substantial progress across the full range of arms control issues,” he said.

In another major development during Baker’s three-day visit here, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev made a counter-proposal to President Bush’s offer to cut U.S. and Soviet military manpower in Europe. He called for equal ceilings for the two superpowers on the Continent at either 195,000 or 225,000 troops--both figures are in Bush’s proposal. His plan implicitly rejects a 30,000-man disadvantage that the American position would impose in practice on the Soviet side.

Baker declined to respond to Gorbachev’s proposal before taking it up with North Atlantic Treaty Organization foreign ministers next week in Ottawa. But initial indications were that the Soviet leader’s problems with the Bush proposal could be resolved and that, as a result, prospects for reaching agreement this year to radically cut U.S. and Soviet conventional forces in Europe have been improved here.

The U.S. and Soviet negotiating teams also reached agreement on destroying virtually all of their stocks of chemical weapons over an eight-year period. The remainder, reportedly about 2%, would be destroyed over the two years after that if all other countries capable of producing chemical weapons join the agreement, Baker said. The text of the agreement was not immediately available.

Baker met for a total of almost four hours with Gorbachev on Friday. Besides talking about reducing nuclear weapons and conventional forces, the two also discussed a “wide array of regional issues,” including German reunification, Afghanistan and the Middle East. At the press conference, Baker has these comments on those issues:

- On Germany, Baker said that when East and West Germany are reunified, they should continue to be “members in or associated with NATO.” Pressed on whether he meant that a united Germany might have a less binding association with NATO than West Germany’s present membership, Baker said he did not mean to signal any change in U.S. position but only to reflect the possibility that the character of the alliance may change in the future to adopt a greater political role with less emphasis on security matters.

- On Afghanistan, the United States presented a subtly different approach to attaining a peaceful settlement. It proposed that Afghan President Najibullah, who is supported by the Soviet Union, should be permitted to be a party to peace talks with the moujahedeen rebels, if the rebels agree. But he must agree to give up power once a solution is reached, Baker said. Earlier, the United States had insisted that Najibullah leave office before talks begin.

- On the Middle East, the United States refused, contrary to a Soviet report Thursday, to join in a statement condemning Israel for resettling Soviet Jews in the occupied West Bank. Baker said it “would not be productive” to condemn a U.S. ally, but he repeated that the United States opposes such a settlement policy.

Progress on the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks treaty, which was the centerpiece of two days of intensive negotiations between Baker and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, seemed all the greater here because advances had not been anticipated on the issues of sea-launched cruise missiles and the link between offensive nuclear weapons and the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative, as the anti-missile defense program is officially known.

Those issues were among the final obstacles to a treaty on which the two sides expect to have agreement in principle for the next Bush-Gorbachev summit, reportedly set for June 11-17. They hope to have the pact formally completed before year’s end.

The third major obstacle to a treaty, the issue of how to count the air-launched cruise missiles to be carried by bombers, was “70% to 80% resolved at this meeting, Baker indicated. Baker’s delegation had come prepared to tackle the issue of the air-launched cruises, which are small, pilotless winged missiles carried by bombers. They were also ready for two lesser issues: how to keep tabs on “non-deployed” ballistic missiles such as spares and training missiles; and what kind of information should be radioed back from missile test flights “in the clear,”--without coding--so that the other side can learn the missile’s capabilities.

These two smaller issues also were resolved, Baker said. He did not provide details except to say that the outstanding difference on the air-launched cruises deals with their range. That difference was referred to technical experts of the two sides in Geneva.

The larger issue, now apparently resolved, dealt with how many cruise missiles should be counted for each bomber, to be counted against a total of 6,000 warheads permitted each side under START.

The U.S. proposal was to count each bomber as carrying an agreed-upon number of air-launched cruises no matter how many are in fact loaded on the plane. An American B-52, for instance, would be considered to be carrying 10 cruises despite its capacity of 20. The Soviets, in contrast, wanted to consider each bomber as carrying the maximum number of missiles it is capable of carrying--20 in the case of the B-52.

Baker’s remarks indicated that the Soviets had accepted the U.S. position, at least in principle.

Baker also said that the two sides “made considerably more progress than anyone anticipated” on the sea-launched cruise issue which he termed “very significant.”

Sea-launched cruise missiles are not covered by START, but the Soviets have insisted that they should be limited in order to prevent any circumvention of the treaty by a buildup of these weapons. The U.S. opposed any controls on sea-launched cruises on the grounds that verification of such limits would be too intrusive and complex.

Now, Baker indicated, the Soviets have largely accepted the U.S. position that each side should simply declare how many sea-launched cruises it intends to deploy.

The last important START issue now largely resolved deals with the linkage between the strategic arms treaty and what research and development may be done on “Star Wars” that can be pursued under the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty.

The Soviets during this meeting agreed to drop their demand that START contain a clause permitting either side to withdraw from the treaty if the other, in its judgment, violates the ABM treaty.

On the issue of superpower military manpower in Europe, Gorbachev’s objections to Bush’s offer last month appeared to be primarily a matter of principle rather than serious disagreement on figures.

Bush proposed a two-part approach on Jan. 31. First, he suggested, U.S. and Soviet forces would be limited to 195,000 men each in the central zone of Europe, which he defined as West Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg on the one side, and East Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia one the other.

But he also proposed a second ceiling, of 225,000 men each for the whole of Europe. This would include 30,000 men outside the central zone. The extra 30,000 Americans would be stationed in Turkey, Italy and Britain. The Soviets’ extra 30,000 could be put in the other three Warsaw Pact nations of southeastern Europe--Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania.

In practice, however, following the sweeping political changes in Eastern Europe last year, Hungary and Czechoslovakia have already demanded the withdrawal of all Soviet forces. Moscow has agreed in the case of Hungary, and cited difficulties in a swift withdrawal from Czechoslovakia. Neither Romania nor Bulgaria has ever had Soviet forces stationed there and are unlikely to accept them in the current political climate.

The Soviets could thus see no way they would get to deploy the additional 30,000 men out of the central zone; political realities appear to give the United States a 30,000-man edge under the Bush plan.

Gorbachev indicated that he would accept either 195,000 or 225,000 as a limit for Europe as a whole, Baker said, but “would not deal with a central zone as such.”

Soviet party officials have said that the Soviets would prefer a lower figure even than 195,000 in Europe, because the East European nations are unlikely to allow the Soviets to keep very many, if any, forces there in the future.

But Gorbachev feels it is premature to propose further cuts now, they said, because it would make the conventional force negotiations now under way between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in Vienna more complicated and also place a greater demobilization burden on the Soviet Union.

With over 600,000 men now in the Warsaw Pact countries, the Soviets would be reducing their manpower by about two-thirds under either Bush ceiling, compared to about one-third for the United States. Moscow will take even greater cuts, proportionately, in tanks and other equipment under terms of a conventional forces reduction treaty.

Before Baker’s visit here, U.S. officials in Washington had speculated that the United States would probably accept the kind of counter-offer Gorbachev has now made, partly because the Soviets are unlikely to be able to maintain either level, 195,000 or 225,000, in the future.

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