Soviet Leader Due Today; Europe Tops Summit Issues

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev flies here today for a three-day summit with President Bush aimed at restoring momentum to a U.S.-Soviet rapprochement bogged down in discord over Lithuania’s demand for independence and Germany’s unification.

White House officials said that the two leaders, in formal talks beginning Thursday, almost surely will complete the outline of an agreement on strategic arms reductions and may also conclude a trade accord.

But the summit’s main work, and its most difficult, will be to bridge a dangerous gap between the United States and the Soviet Union on the future shape of Europe, including the terms for both Germany’s unification and the independence of the Baltic states.

“This is not a summit devoted to the celebration of agreements that we can sign. It is a summit designed to do the hard work of trying to overcome the remaining obstacles that stand in the way of transforming East-West relations,” a senior Administration official said. “I’d urge you to put away your score cards on this one about who’s winning and who’s losing. . . . We are now down to the bare-boned essentials, down to fundamental issues, and those are not going to be settled easily.”

Holding to a low-key public schedule, Bush spent Tuesday with his senior advisers, reviewing long-range economic and political issues facing the Soviet Union. He plans one more briefing today. “Then he’ll be ready,” said White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater.

Gorbachev, who is to land at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington this evening, arrived Tuesday in Ottawa for an overnight state visit and meetings with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Talks between Bush and Gorbachev are scheduled to begin Thursday morning in the Oval Office.

The visit is the sixth by a Soviet leader to the United States and Gorbachev’s third trip to this country in 2 1/2 years.

It was originally designed as an arms control summit, at which Bush and Gorbachev would sign a treaty cutting the superpowers’ arsenals of long-range nuclear weapons. That treaty, however, is not complete, and other issues have moved to the fore.

When the two leaders last met, at the storm-tossed summit aboard a ship off Malta, the Berlin Wall had just been opened by East Germany. In the six months since that meeting, the breach in the Wall has led East Germany and West Germany to the brink of economic and political union, a course that has overshadowed all other aspects of the U.S.-Soviet relationship.

Thus, it is the debate over Germany that will be the central topic--and the most contentious--of the summit, said senior officials involved in the President’s preparations.

The United States has insisted that the new, unified German state should remain a full member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But Gorbachev has argued, with increasing insistence, that German membership in the Western military alliance is unacceptable.

Giving a broad hint of the course that Bush may follow, Secretary of State James A. Baker III said that the Soviet Union should feel safer with Germany inside NATO because such a Germany “will not feel the need . . . to develop an independent nuclear capability.” If Germany does not remain in NATO, he implied, the Germans could feel the need to acquire their own nuclear missiles.

In other areas:

- Despite the failure of negotiators to make sufficient progress for the two presidents to sign a long-range, or strategic, weapons treaty, they are expected to sign a “framework” agreement outlining the major principles of the accord.

- The two presidents will try to break an impasse in East-West talks to cut conventional armed forces in Europe. Soviet negotiators offered some new signs of flexibility over the weekend, U.S. officials said.

- Bush will press Gorbachev to embark on a dialogue with Lithuanian leaders seeking independence for the Baltic republic that was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940, and to lift the economic blockade imposed after Lithuania declared independence March 11.

On the German issue, senior officials on both sides showed little flexibility.

“The discussion concerning the two Germanys is one of the most difficult in this meeting, and for us, this issue is very complex,” said Georgy A. Arbatov, director of the Soviet Institute of the U.S.A. and Canada, who is a member of the Soviet delegation.

U.S. officials said that Bush also will offer “new ideas” to the Soviet leader on how the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe can be made the foundation of a new European security system. The CSCE is a 35-nation group that includes the United States, Canada and every European nation except Albania.

A senior Administration official said that Bush is ready to propose to Gorbachev that the CSCE be given a “fact-finding or dispute-resolution authority.”

At the same time, however, another senior official said that Germany’s membership in NATO remains an “immutable” part of U.S. policy.

“We’re hopeful that we can both convince Gorbachev of the logic of the argument (for NATO membership), but also to take advantage of the opportunity with the Soviets to build some new structures and some new ideas into European security,” she said.

Soviet officials said they do not believe Bush will succeed in shaking Gorbachev’s stand.

“I believe in the eloquence of President Bush, but it is hard for me to believe that he can do this,” Arbatov said. “If I were President Gorbachev, I would not be persuaded.”

There were signs, however, that a deal could be struck on the issue of limiting the size of the new Germany’s armed forces--a major Soviet concern.

A White House official said that the United States already has told Soviet officials that German troop levels can be negotiated in the next round of talks to cut conventional forces in Europe. On the Soviet side, Arbatov said that the impasse “could be solved” by such a formula.

Meanwhile, White House officials held out the likelihood that the two leaders could reach agreement on economic and trade agreements. Although officials have said that the details of a trade agreement are essentially wrapped up, the matter is complicated by two factors:

- Wariness in Congress about pressing ahead with efforts to increase U.S.-Soviet trade until there is some assurance that the dispute over Baltic independence will be resolved peacefully.

- Failure of the Supreme Soviet, the Soviet legislature, to debate and enact laws granting emigration rights to Soviet citizens. Under U.S. law, the Soviets must allow free emigration to be awarded trade benefits.

However, the signing of a trade accord does not guarantee the Soviet Union the sought-after trade status.

GORBACHEV’S SCHEDULE TODAY

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev will be in Canada and the United States today. All times are EDT. 10:15 a.m.--Attends wreath-laying ceremony at war memorial in Ottawa.

10:30 a.m.--Goes to Parliament Hill with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney for bilateral meeting and brief ceremony in rotunda.

1:45 p.m.--Arrives at National Gallery for tour with Mulroney.

2:15 p.m.--Lunches with Mulroney and exchanges toasts.

4:30 p.m.--Holds news conference at Canadian Forces Base, Uplands.

5 p.m.--Departs for Washington from Uplands base airport.

6:30 p.m.--Arrives at Andrews Air Force Base, Md.