U.S. Plans to Cut A-Bombs in Europe by Half

The United States is expected to take yet another step toward cutting its nuclear arsenal later this month when, after consultations with its allies, the stockpile of U.S. tactical atomic bombs in Europe will be roughly halved, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

In his major arms-control address last week, President Bush announced the unilateral withdrawal and destruction of all ground-based tactical nuclear weapons--missiles and artillery shells--from Europe and Asia, and the removal of all such sea-based weapons as well.

The new step would broaden the initiative by reducing the U.S. arsenal of up to 1,500 nuclear bombs, attached to North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces, that can be delivered by American or allied aircraft.

Officials said that a reduction of 500 to 1,000 of the tactical bombs will be worked out at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers later this month, with a formal decision to come at a NATO summit in Rome in November.

At the same time, the Bush Administration, in formulating the far-reaching nuclear reductions unveiled last week, rejected a proposal that the United States pledge not to be first to use nuclear weapons, officials said. Such a declaration would have radically reversed American war-fighting doctrine that has prevailed since the start of the nuclear age.

Some officials have not yet given up hope of moving toward a no-first-use position. One idea under consideration is a U.S. declaration that would restrict use of nuclear weapons to deterrence of a hostile nuclear attack. Such a declaration would imply that American nuclear arms would not be used in conventional war, in contrast to U.S. policy throughout 40 years of the Cold War.

These issues are among a number that representatives of the United States, Western allies and the Soviet Union will address as they strive to build on cutbacks that already have been negotiated or unilaterally pledged.

Besides having little military value since the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the U.S. stockpile of air-dropped bombs in Europe is being impaired by the reluctance of some NATO nations to host aircraft capable of delivering them, officials said.

But the Europeans do not want all of these U.S. weapons to be withdrawn, officials said. The reasons include a desire to maintain some insurance against the possibility of a suddenly reassertive Russia that still ranks as a nuclear giant despite its internal economic chaos.

NATO continues to adhere to a “flexible response” doctrine, under which nuclear weapons would be used either to stop an overwhelming conventional attack by the Soviets, once vastly superior to NATO in ground forces, or to respond to a nuclear strike.

Last year, the alliance modified its attitude slightly by describing nuclear arms as “weapons of last resort.”

Although the Administration refused to declare an official no-first-use policy, some experts believe that it already has moved close to that position on a de facto basis as a result of the Bush arms-control initiative.

“I think his speech recognizes that nuclear weapons are no longer useful for purposes of war-fighting, and (will) serve simply the purpose of deterrence in the future,” said Spurgeon Keeney, director of the Arms Control Assn., a private research group.

But a Pentagon official said that a no-first-use declaration, considered as Bush’s initiative was being prepared, ultimately was rejected to avoid giving any hint that Europe could become “safe for conventional war.”

Another reason was the desire to avoid complicating problems confronting the British and French governments on nuclear weapons policy. The President’s announcement, said Katherine Kelliher, an international security specialist at the University of Maryland, created “a lot of turbulence” among the political and military elite of those two NATO powers.