THE HELSINKI SUMMIT : Summit Agenda Expands Far Beyond One-Topic Gulf Crisis

When President Bush proposed Sunday’s meeting with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, there was only one major item on the agenda: the crisis in the Persian Gulf region and what the superpowers could do to resolve it.

But Gorbachev quickly added several more items, including new steps in the negotiations to reduce nuclear and conventional arsenals, the future of Europe in the post-Cold War era and the expansion of Soviet-American economic ties.

“The crisis in the Persian Gulf is undoubtedly the dominant international issue, and the two presidents will have much to discuss on ways to avoid war and bring peace,” Vitaly N. Ignatenko, Gorbachev’s press secretary, said this week. “We hope that new, international resolve, new measures within the context of the United Nations, will emerge from their meeting.

“Our relationship is very complex and becoming increasingly closer, and a lot has happened in the three months since the two presidents last met in Washington. So they are certain to discuss several other major issues, but in the way of a free back-and-forth and seeking broad understanding rather than tight negotiations.”

Even as the final preparations were being made for the meeting Sunday in Helsinki, the capital of Finland, Soviet officials were marveling not so much at the suddenness of it all or the magnitude of the crisis prompting the unprecedented superpower meeting, but at its naturalness.

“Our relationship is changing, has changed even from that of adversaries to one of partners,” commented Gennady I. Gerasimov, the chief spokesman for the Soviet Foreign Ministry. “Such a meeting would be unimaginable five, even three years ago, but today it seems altogether natural, normal, maybe even a little overdue. . . .

“Some will say, of course, that we are trying to impose a settlement, to make others bend to our will. That’s not true. We couldn’t do it if we tried. But shouldn’t the world be thankful that the two superpowers are trying to live up to their responsibilities for world peace?”

Eduard A. Shevardnadze, the Soviet foreign minister, has described the summit meeting as “a major milestone on the road towards resolving the crisis in the Persian Gulf,” and other Soviet officials have expressed their hope that a joint initiative by Bush and Gorbachev could provide the political leverage needed to force Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein to withdraw his troops from Kuwait.

“Saddam must be made to realize that he will not get away with this aggression,” a senior Soviet diplomat commented. “He might have thought that we would back him or remain silent, and he might still think that he can divide us from the United States and benefit from the resulting international paralysis. He is wrong, absolutely wrong. Helsinki should show him that.”

According to Soviet officials, the degree of understanding between Moscow and Washington thus far in the gulf crisis has demonstrated the validity of Gorbachev’s conciliatory approach to foreign policy, particularly to relations with the United States.

Had the crisis arisen even three years ago, Shevardnadze said, the two superpowers would have become quickly involved on opposing sides and the world would have been endangered by the possibility of a nuclear clash. Today, largely as a result of what Gorbachev calls “new political thinking,” the superpowers are cooperating in trying to resolve the conflict.

“It is hard to remember a crisis in which we did not try to profit at the expense of the U.S. or they at our expense,” a Soviet Foreign Ministry official commented. “We have avoided what would have been an inevitable escalation in an arena where we competed, sometimes rather fiercely.”

Although Moscow and Washington are in full agreement on the basis of a settlement of the crisis--Iraq’s complete and unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait and the restoration of Kuwaiti sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity--they differ significantly in their approaches, and Bush and Gorbachev are expected to focus on harmonizing their efforts.

Soviet officials have emphasized reliance on political measures to resolve the conflict. They doubt strongly that military measures would succeed, and they worry that, in fact, such measures would harden Iraq’s resolve. For the most part, they see the massive buildup of U.S. forces in the gulf region as necessary, but warn that Iraq will use it to rally support in the Arab world.

“The crisis cannot be resolved through military action,” Vitaly Naumkin, deputy director of the Soviet Institute of Eastern Studies, said Friday. “Even if the U.S. concentrates really impressive power there, it will not be in a position to achieve its goals. The hostilities will result in a huge loss of lives and, most probably, the total destruction of Kuwait as a place of human habitation.

“Iraq will get the sympathies of many Arabs, who are hostile to the Western military presence. And we must not forget that Saddam Hussein can easily move his army into Jordan, and then Israel will be sucked into the conflict. No predictions can be made for the outcome then.”

With such hard-headed and sober analyses from Soviet specialists, Gorbachev is likely to resist pressure from Bush to send Soviet troops and ships to the multinational force that the United States has assembled in the region. Iraq, he will remind Bush, is closer to the Soviet Union’s southern border, just 120 miles away, than New York is to Washington.

Igor Belayev, another Middle East expert here, said: “I have no doubt that (Gorbachev) will continue to argue for diplomatic efforts to achieve a political solution and for military restraint at the present stage.

“But given Iraq’s intransigence, he may well tell Bush he is ready to accept passing from words to some sort of action to increase the pressure on Baghdad, as long as it comes under the flag of the United Nations. . . . If fighting did break out, there would certainly be a political fallout here.”

Stanislav Kondrashov, a highly respected liberal commentator for the government newspaper Izvestia, warned in assessing the issues at the Helsinki summit that war in the gulf region, however localized, “would certainly have global consequences,” notably for the Soviet Union.

This, he went on, “would affect the fate of our reforms and destroy hopes of economic cooperation with the West, which would be obliged to use its resources to solve its own problems.”

And Gerasimov commented: “This gulf crisis could not have come at a less convenient time for us. There are so many things for us to do, economic problems to be resolved, ethnic conflicts to be settled, a new political structure to be built. . . .

“Mikhail Gorbachev is extremely busy, but he still finds the time--he must--to do what he can to ease this crisis. We are trying to contribute to a resolution. The Americans, I know, don’t like our low-key approach, but we think the United Nations must be the approach, not two superpowers doing it alone.”

Despite these cautionary views and even greater doubts expressed by Soviet officials far more wary of cooperation with the United States, Gorbachev welcomed Bush’s proposal for the first superpower summit meeting aimed at managing an international crisis.

“The meeting reflects a new maturity in our relationship and the end of Cold War confrontation,” Ignatenko said. “This is going to be a very intense day. Not only is there an international crisis to discuss, there are important arms control and bilateral issues to review.

“Both presidents want to develop Soviet-American relations for the benefit of the world as well as of both their nations. That is a real desire, not just a slogan. This type of meeting, small, focused, intense and personal, is a chance, an unprecedented one, to do that.”

Although there is no formal agenda for the Helsinki meeting and only limited staff preparations, the two presidents are widely expected by Soviet officials and Western diplomats here to take up several other topics in the hope that their discussions will provide new momentum for continuing negotiations.

Gorbachev told a U.S. congressional delegation this week that he would assure Bush of Moscow’s strong desire to conclude a treaty reducing conventional armed forces in Europe in time for the European summit meeting scheduled for Nov. 19 in Paris, but would ask for greater flexibility to meet changed Soviet security needs as a result of the virtual collapse of the Warsaw Pact.

“The original treaty has been overtaken by events, and we are now in the position of wanting much lower troop levels than the West,” a senior Soviet official explained. “There are other problems as well in the original framework agreement. We think that if the two presidents can reach an understanding on force levels, the negotiators can conclude the agreement in time for the Paris meeting.”

The all-European summit meeting, which will bring together the leaders of virtually all the countries of Europe, including a united Germany, as well as of the United States and Canada, is of particular importance to the Soviet Union as a formal ending of the Cold War and an opening of a new era of security and cooperation in Europe.

“Gorbachev wants to be able to tell Bush how he sees this conference, and he believes Bush will then use all the influence an American President has to ensure its success,” a Gorbachev adviser said. “The Americans should understand the importance of this meeting and the documents that will be signed there.”

Soviet officials said they have similar hopes that new problems that have arisen in the negotiations to reduce the two superpowers’ strategic arsenals can also be resolved so that a treaty can be concluded by the end of the year and signed in Moscow in early 1991.

Noting that a second, higher-level negotiating track was opened a month ago to focus on significant problems while the negotiators proceeded with drafting the actual treaty, the officials said that some questions now need top-level attention.

“Again, it is more a question of reaching an understanding of each other’s point of view,” the Gorbachev adviser said. “We are not looking for specific agreements in Helsinki as much as a common approach that the negotiators can work from.”

Gorbachev will also outline to Bush the status of his efforts to reform the Soviet economy. A reform program is now near completion, according to Ignatenko, and Gorbachev is scheduled to present it next week to the Supreme Soviet, the national legislature, and push for its early adoption.

The program, as drafted, envisions extensive use of foreign loans, credits and investment to ease the transition from a state-owned, centrally managed economy to one based on the market forces of supply and demand.

SUMMITS WITH GORBACHEV

1985 LOCATION: Geneva CIRCUMSTANCES: President Ronald Reagan and President Mikhail S. Gorbachev meet Nov. 19-21 MAJOR ISSUES: Arms control; but no agreements are achieved. They agree to revive cultural exchanges and to enhance air safety. 1986 LOCATION: Reykjavik CIRCUMSTANCES: Reagan and Gorbachev meet Oct. 11-12 MAJOR ISSUES: Arms control. Chance of an accord falls through due to disagreements, including U.S. plan for a space-based missile defense system, or “Star Wars.” 1987 LOCATION: Wasington CIRCUMSTANCES: Gorbachev meets Reagan Dec. 8-10 MAJOR ISSUES: Arms control; regional conflicts. They sign a treaty to destroy Intermediate-range nuclear forces and agree to work on cutting log-range arsenals. 1988 LOCATION: Moscow CIRCUMSTANCES: Reagan meets Gorbachev June 3 MAJOR ISSUES: Arms control; cultural exchanges; regional conflicts. The two ratify immediate-range weapons treaty. 1988 LOCATION: New York CIRCUMSTANCES: Gorbachev meets Reagan and then-Vice President Bush Dec. 7 MAJOR ISSUES: Disarmament; Afghanistan. 1989 LOCATION: Malta CIRCUMSTANCES: President Bush and Gorbachev meet on anchored warships Dec. 2-3 MAJOR ISSUES: Arms control; regional conflicts. They agree to work to conclude log-range nuclear weapons and conventional arms treaties. 1990 LOCATION: Washington CIRCUMSTANCES: Bush and Gorbachev meet may 31-June3 MAJOR ISSUES: Arms control; Lithuania; membership of a united Germany in NATO; trade agreements Source: AP/Los Angeles Times