U.S. Says ‘No’ to United Germany in NATO, Warsaw Pact

The State Department today flatly ruled out a proposal by Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze that a united Germany become a member of both the Warsaw Pact and NATO.

State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said the proposal “is in our minds another form of neutrality which the Germans themselves, their neighbors and the Soviet Union regard as undesirable.”

The idea was floated this week by Soviet officials, including Shevardnadze in a magazine published in Brussels, “NATO’s 16 Nations.”

Shevardnadze said in the article, “It should be recognized that the idea is out of the ordinary, but must we cling to things we have grown accustomed to in such an unusual situation?

“It would be erroneous to begin building German unity by destroying the existing security systems without having replaced them with new ones. Dual membership for Germany could provide a pragmatic way out of the difficulties.”