Cuomo Calls for Negotiations With Iraq : Politics: Traveling in California, the N.Y. governor offers an alternative to Bush’s gulf policy. He says war must be the ‘last possible resort.’

New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, on a brief swing through California, has called on President Bush to “try to negotiate our way out” of the confrontation with Iraq.

Offering one of the most pointed alternatives to President Bush’s policy yet put forward by any Democrat, Cuomo said the United States should go to war as “only the last possible resort.”

“You could negotiate something that gets them out of Kuwait for the most part, leaves them maybe a little bit on the water, leaves them a little bit of the oil, and then puts in a United Nations task force to go over the whole question of chemical weapons . . . and this movement toward nuclear capacity,” Cuomo said Monday night in an appearance before The Guardians of the Jewish Homes for the Aging in Los Angeles.

Bush has rejected calls for direct talks with Hussein, saying “you cannot negotiate with a terrorist.”

In an interview here Tuesday, Cuomo somewhat qualified his remarks, saying: “I’m not suggesting that as a blueprint for a settlement. That would be presumptuous and stupid. . . . I’m not in a position to know how to negotiate this. I don’t know the intelligence.”

But, while insisting he supports Bush’s moves to this point, Cuomo reiterated that the United States should seek a negotiated settlement. And reaching an agreement, he said, will require the United States to recognize that Saddam Hussein cannot capitulate to all U.S. demands because he “could not survive in Iraq” if he did.

“It’s war or a settlement,” Cuomo said. “If it were a settlement only, then you would want a perfect settlement. But when it’s a settlement or war, you take a less than perfect settlement.”

Cuomo’s visit to California came as Democrats around the country are beginning to focus on the slow-starting race for the party’s 1992 presidential nomination. At this time four years ago, Democratic presidential aspirants were doing everything they could to catch the attention of key party activists, including Los Angeles’ liberal West Side fund-raisers.

But Cuomo--considered by many Democrats the likely front-runner should he seek the nomination--slipped in and out of Los Angeles this week about as quietly as a potential presidential candidate can. Half a dozen leading Los Angeles Democratic money collectors contacted Monday were unaware that Cuomo was even appearing in the city.

His Monday evening speech drew no television cameras. He flew to Fresno early Tuesday, where he spent most of the day in a hotel room working on a speech for a Cal State Fresno lecture series.

“Clearly he’s trying to avoid the appearance that he’s jumping into the fray,” said Los Angeles Deputy City Atty. John B. Emerson, a leading Democratic activist.

Although some commentators have argued that Cuomo’s luster dimmed when he won reelection this month with only 53% of the vote against three little-known candidates, he remains enormously attractive to many Democrats hungry for a candidate who can articulate the party’s traditional positions more forcefully than its recent nominees.

But anyone waiting for a declaration of Cuomo’s presidential intentions--a subject that has inspired Talmudic scrutiny over the past six years from activists and journalists--will probably have to wait a while longer. He told his audience Monday that he would not consider the question until he deals with the massive budget deficits facing New York state in the current and next fiscal years. That should push back the decision at least through next spring.

“If I can handle my budget problems . . . and I don’t see anybody else on the horizon who can handle the presidency on the Democratic side, I’ll consider it then,” Cuomo said.

But, characteristically, Cuomo was less encouraging in conversation Tuesday. “I have no plans and no plans to make plans,” he said. “I’m not interested in it; I don’t work toward it; I don’t come to California and meet with the state party chairman, call (Democratic Rep.) Nancy Pelosi and set up somebody to collect money. . . . I don’t feel they (the Democrats) are going to need me.”

Still, Cuomo sounded every bit the candidate in his Los Angeles appearance, offering a grim and sweeping critique of the past nine years of Republican administration that stressed the growing gaps between rich and poor.

“There are more millionaires than ever, more billionaires than ever, but the country is going down the tubes,” Cuomo said. “The middle class is desiccated, we have more poor than ever, more social problems than ever, we have made no investments. We can’t compete with the Japanese, with the Germans, and we’re not doing what we have to do to catch up.”

In his Los Angeles speech, Cuomo called on Bush and congressional Democrats to prepare a new budget plan that cuts the deficit further--by slashing military spending, raising income taxes on the rich and targeting entitlement payments toward the needy. On the other hand, he urged Washington to stimulate the economy by passing a capital gains tax cut for investment in productive businesses, an investment tax credit and economic opportunity zones.

Cuomo also argued that the crisis in the Persian Gulf highlighted the need to build new international institutions to share the military and financial burden of keeping the peace.

“I think you need a force like the United Nations that becomes real to keep peace in the world,” he said. “Can’t ask the United States to go rushing off every time there’s a problem. . . . Frankly, we don’t have the wealth anymore to do it.”

With his verve and style, Cuomo apparently entranced the liberal Jewish audience that assembled Monday night. And Cuomo himself seemed far more animated and confident discussing national issues than only a few years ago. But if his message is increasingly clear, his plans remain, as always, obscure.