Some in Europe Say Bush Proposal Does Not Go Far Enough : Reaction: But the response is generally favorable in a region where most of the targeted weapons are deployed.

After an initial wave of euphoria over President Bush’s announcement of unilateral nuclear arms reductions, some European leaders contended Saturday that the President did not go far enough.

French President Francois Mitterrand, commander in chief of Western Europe’s only independent nuclear force, said France will not reduce its nuclear weapons arsenal until the United States and Soviet Union cut deeper into theirs.

“Make a further effort, gentlemen,” Mitterrand said in encouragement to Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, “and we will be happy to join you around the table to discuss nuclear security in the world.”

Least impressed by the Bush measures was incoming Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, who said: “Large parts of this arsenal are both technically and tactically antiquated. It is to a large extent about weapons from the ‘50s and ‘60s which lost their value a long time back. They no longer have military value.”

Other European leaders, such as Dutch Foreign Minister Hans van den Broek, said they saw internal U.S. political motives behind Bush’s announcement. However, Van den Broek quickly added: “Even though Bush has made these moves with an eye to elections, it does not lessen their implications for peace.”

In general, the reaction was highly favorable in Europe--where most of the short-range, land-based weapons are deployed--as well as in the rest of the world.

“This is a historic day--one could almost say the best day since Hiroshima,” said Danish Prime Minister Poul Schlueter, whose country has never permitted deployment of NATO nuclear weapons on its soil.

Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu was equally lavish in his praise: “The government of Japan strongly welcomes this epoch-making and courageous initiative by President Bush.”

Many of the glowing reactions singled out Bush for recognition. “It is an act of great imagination, vision and courage,” said Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke in a statement.

Bush also came out well in the early press evaluations.

The authoritative French newspaper Le Monde said in a front-page editorial Saturday: “As he showed during the Gulf War, Mr. Bush knows how to react to a new situation before being caught up in political pressures. Seizing the initiative once again, he drew from the lessons of the latest changes in Moscow in announcing these important measures for nuclear disarmament.”

After Bush’s speech, British Defense Secretary Tom King announced that Britain will destroy some of its older Lance short-range missile launchers and about 70 missiles in solidarity with the U.S. initiative.

But King warned that the Soviet Union is still “a very dangerous and unstable place” with large stocks of nuclear weapons in separatist republics.

Those who feel the American President did not go far enough contend that the Americans announced cuts in areas where the Soviets enjoy numerical advantages, knowing that the Soviet Union, in its greatly weakened state, could do little but agree to reciprocate. “Bush made the Soviets an offer they can’t refuse,” said French television arms analyst Richard Volker.

Left untouched by the proposed cuts, European commentators noted pointedly, are expensive high-tech projects such as the B-2 Stealth bomber and the “Star Wars” missile-defense system, in which the Americans are believed to have a great head start and technological advantage.

In the case of France, reservations expressed by President Mitterrand appear to be based on the relatively small French nuclear-weapons program compared to the larger, U.S.-supplied NATO forces and the Soviet Union. France claims to have only 400 nuclear warheads, compared to what Mitterrand termed the “considerable panoplies” of strategic arms held by the big powers.

Mitterrand, who has called for a meeting of major nuclear powers--France, Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States--in Paris later this year, said he will put pressure on Bush and Gorbachev to make additional cuts before that conference. Until then, Mitterrand said, France will not make any more reductions in its nuclear forces.

In fact, in a news conference earlier this month, Mitterrand announced disarmament moves as significant, in relative terms, as those announced by Bush. For example, Mitterrand announced that France had dropped plans to deploy the short-range nuclear missile Hades along the German border in eastern France. He also said the government had killed a project to build a new series of long-range ballistic missiles, the S-45.

Likely to be most relieved by the withdrawal and destruction of short-range tactical nuclear weapons is Germany, where East-West battles using such weapons were most likely to have taken place.