Bush, Thatcher Meet, Call For Soviet Restraint

President Bush and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, meeting here Friday, expressed frustration over the latest Soviet ultimatum on Lithuania but conceded there may be little the West can do to prevent a Soviet crackdown.

“I know there’s a great desire on the part of Americans to know what we might do . . . what the President of the United States can do” about the situation, Bush said. “It’s not that clear.”

The latest Soviet ultimatum to Lithuania threatens the Baltic republic with an embargo of oil and other vital products unless it backs down on its challenge to Moscow over its declaration of independence within two days.

Bush described the threat by Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov as “deeply disturbing.”

“Coercion, escalation is not the way to go,” he added. “The answer is dialogue and peaceful change.”

Thatcher, when asked about Lithuania, said improvement in East-West relations “could not continue” if the Soviets use force there.

“We’re not lecturing anyone, but we are entitled to express a view,” she added, referring to Gorbachev’s complaint Thursday to visiting U.S. senators about Western “lectures” on the subject. “We have a duty to say what we think.”

Earlier in the day, as Bush flew here for four hours of talks with the British leader, he told reporters aboard Air Force One that he feels the time has come to “forgive” Germany for the Holocaust, a remark that drew protests from some Jewish leaders.

“With all due respect to the President, it is not in the power of people living now to forgive” those who committed “the most horrific crimes ever,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. “The only people who have the right to forgive are the victims, and they’re not here any more.”

East Germany’s Parliament Thursday asked forgiveness for Nazi crimes, abandoning that country’s past insistence that it bore no responsibility for the Holocaust because its Communist founders had fought Nazism.

Bush, calling his comments a “personal observation,” not official policy, said, “I’m a Christian, and I think forgiveness is something that I feel very strongly about.”

“I’m inclined to think we ought to forgive--not forget,” he said, adding that the Easter season is a “very special time of the year . . . a time to take stock.”

“For those of us who have faith, most of the teachings have ample room for forgiveness and moving on,” he added.

Hier said he feared Bush’s comments would be “counterproductive” and encourage those in Germany who hope unification of the country will put an end to discussion of the Nazi past.

German unification and the resulting changes in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization were the main subject of the Bush-Thatcher talks. There was a “very wide measure of agreement” between the two, Thatcher said, “just as you would expect.”

In fact, however, the two leaders disagree substantially on at least one major issue: whether and how to add new nuclear weapons to NATO’s arsenal in Europe.

Before last year’s dramatic changes in Eastern Europe, NATO drafted plans to install new short-range nuclear weapons in West Germany that would be capable of hitting targets in East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland.

Thatcher still supports those plans.

“NATO will continue to need a mix of conventional and nuclear weapons, and they must be kept up to date,” she said. “That does, of course, include short-range nuclear weapons.” Officially, the Bush Administration sides with Thatcher, and Bush has asked Congress for money for more missiles. Privately, however, Administration officials concede that the plans are obsolete. German leaders oppose any new nuclear weapons on their territory and Congress is resisting the idea of spending money for them.

Bush ducked the issue when asked about it, but an Administration official confirmed that no progress had been made in reconciling the British and American views.

The two leaders also issued a statement commemorating the December, 1988, bombing of a Pan Am jet bound from London to New York. Relatives of the victims had presented the two leaders with a petition asking for more action to find those who committed the crime.

“No one wants to solve that terrible tragedy more than we do,” said Thatcher. “But we simply can’t pull solutions out of a hat.”

The talks here were part of an intensive round of discussions Bush has had with foreign leaders since his December summit with Gorbachev.

In the 4 1/2 months since the Malta meeting, Bush has met with every major Western leader at least once, in some cases twice. Next week, he will travel to the Florida Keys to meet with French President Francois Mitterrand, whom he saw on the Caribbean island of St. Martin in mid-December.

Bush has had so many meetings, in fact, that White House aides have lost count.

“We have three different lists--they disagree,” one official said.

Most of the meetings have mixed business with some sort of recreation, in the now-familiar Bush style. This time, the chosen event was kite flying, a Bermuda tradition on Good Friday.

In a blustery wind under rainy skies outside Government House here, Bush and Thatcher each briefly tugged at kite strings and talked to small children before heading back indoors. The wind nearly forced cancellation of the event.

In the evening, on his way to a reception that preceded dinner with Thatcher at the Governor-General’s Residence, the President plunged into a crowd of 400 to 500 cheering bystanders to shake hands.

The President is scheduled to play a round of golf today before flying back to Washington.