NATO Reaches Out to Soviets, Eastern Europe

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization made an unprecedented offer Thursday to Eastern European nations and the Soviet Union to participate in sweeping political and military cooperation.

On the first day of a two-day meeting here, the NATO foreign ministers issued a declaration reaching out to their onetime Communist enemies in the now-disbanded Warsaw Pact military alliance.

However, the 16-member NATO appeared to close the door on the issue of admitting East European members into the Atlantic Alliance because it does not wish to “isolate” the Soviet Union or see “a new division of Europe,” the delegates said in their statement. Some of the former Warsaw Pact members, such as Hungary and Czechoslovakia, have expressed interest in joining NATO.

Diplomats here said NATO is pursuing a delicate goal: offering help to the emerging East European democracies that would like to be part of the alliance, without alarming the Soviet Union by actually inviting those countries to join.

NATO officials have said that adding Eastern European nations to the Western alliance could strengthen the hand of hard-liners in the Soviet Union and undermine President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who is beset by domestic enemies on the left and right as he attempts to reshape his country politically and economically.

The NATO declaration, titled “Partnership With the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe,” stated: “Our own security is inseparably linked to that of all other states in Europe.

“Our common security can best be safeguarded through the further development of a network of interlocking institutions and relationships.”

But in almost the same breath, NATO warned: “The consolidation and preservation throughout the Continent of democratic societies and their freedom from any form of coercion or intimidation are therefore of direct and material concern to us.”

U.S. diplomats explained that the word coercion was carefully chosen to tell the Soviets that any crackdown on their former East European satellites could ruin the new cooperative effort.

The NATO statement signaled to Moscow that the West is seeking no gain from the collapse of the Warsaw Pact.

“We will neither seek unilateral advantage from the changed situation in Europe nor threaten the legitimate interests of any state. . . . We do not wish to isolate any country,” the document said.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III told the delegates that NATO wants to “reach out to the Soviet Union and to the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe to demonstrate NATO’s genuine concern for their legitimate security interests.”

There was no immediate response to the NATO statement from either the Soviets or the East European countries.

Diplomats said the announcement should be considered part of a gradual transformation of NATO that is expected to be formally adopted at a summit meeting of the alliance this fall. Last week, NATO’s defense ministers, meeting in Brussels, approved the most radical changes in the postwar alliance, including the creation of a multinational quick-reaction force intended to deal with threats to NATO territory--while cutting back substantially on manpower.

The document also gave full support to the 35-member Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), which includes the old East Bloc as well as Western Europe and that some nations hope will eventually take over from NATO as the basic European defense structure.

In their declaration, the foreign ministers said, “We support the expectations and legitimate aspirations of the Baltic peoples,” whose three republics are locked in a sometimes violent political struggle for independence from Moscow, and the statement called on the Soviets to negotiate with the leaders of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

Among the new East-West links called for by NATO were:

* Meetings of officials and experts to exchange views and information on security policy issues, on military strategy and doctrine, and exchanges of experience in the arms control field.

* Intensified military contacts between senior NATO military authorities and their Soviet and East European counterparts, discussions at NATO headquarters and major NATO commands, and invitations to ex-Warsaw Pact officers to attend NATO training facilities.

* Offers to parliamentary, educational and media delegations to visit NATO headquarters.

In his opening remarks Thursday, NATO Secretary General Manfred Woerner declared that the alliance has a “vital interest” in the “democracy and prosperity” of its former adversaries. “We intend to make our network of contacts and exchanges even more substantive,” he said.

This week, French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas--whose country, although a NATO member, is not a part of its integrated military command--criticized the new military look of the alliance, saying:

“Logic would require that one first define the political objectives, then that one work out the strategy, before deciding on force structures.

“NATO has chosen the opposite path. I am not sure that this will ensure a long-term success for the enterprise.”

However, Dumas did not raise the subject before his fellow foreign ministers Thursday, diplomatic sources said, because he would have publicly been voted down.

BACKGROUND

The counterbalancing North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Treaty Organization came into being in the chill of mutual suspicions. Established in September, 1949, NATO was formed in light of the perceived hostility of the Soviet Union, which had already made its presence felt with the February, 1948, Communist coup in Czechoslovakia and the June, 1948, blockade of West Berlin. NATO now numbers 16 nations, with the United States as the linchpin. The now-moribund Warsaw Pact--six Eastern Europe satellites that revolved around the Soviet Union--was founded in 1955 as a direct response to NATO and especially the rearming of West Germany.