Clinton Will Go Slow on Plea to Expand NATO : Diplomacy: He says it would be “a critical mistake” to extend membership to East European countries now.

President Clinton said Wednesday that it would be “a critical mistake” to extend immediate NATO membership to East European countries because doing so could fuel feelings of insecurity and nationalism in the former Soviet Union.

But he sought to reassure Poland and other former Soviet satellites that the United States remains committed to their freedom and economic development, and that full partnership with the West--including NATO membership--is still a likely prospect for the future.

Clinton, interviewed at a White House luncheon by a small group of journalists three days before he is to leave for critical summit meetings with the heads of the NATO countries, Russia and Eastern Europe, presented a middle-ground approach designed to draw the former satellites closer to the Western Alliance without sowing alarm in Russia and Ukraine.

Clinton’s concern that Russia would react adversely to any early move to expand NATO’s membership was underscored by Moscow’s harsh reaction Wednesday to a decision by Lithuania to apply for membership in the organization, which was created at the outset of the Cold War to halt Soviet expansionism.

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin’s spokesman warned that expanding NATO could evoke “a negative reaction in Russian public opinion” and play into the hands of the country’s extreme nationalists. Lithuania is the first former Soviet republic to seek admittance to the 16-nation alliance.

Granting immediate NATO membership to East European countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic, as some have requested, does not have the support of all the present NATO members, Clinton noted, and might ultimately have the effect of creating much the same kind of division that existed during the Cold War.

“We don’t want right now in 1994 to draw a new line across Europe which will make the very people we’re trying to support be, in effect, more insecure,” the President said.

He noted that both Russia, with its historical fears of encirclement, and the politically and economically fragile Ukraine retain formidable nuclear arsenals. And ultranationalists have become increasingly vocal all across the former Soviet Union.

Instead of feeding such tendencies by a rapid expansion of NATO, Clinton suggested, the U.S. proposal for a “Partnership for Peace”--in which Russia as well as the East Europeans would be invited to take a series of tension-lowering steps leading to the prospect of eventual NATO membership--offers the possibility of developing a broad-based alliance in which all members would be committed to peaceful coexistence.

“I think it’s important to emphasize that we view it not as putting a limit on NATO membership, but as opening the door to fuller partnership,” he said, adding, “I think it clearly will lead, ultimately, to some more countries coming into NATO at some point in the future.”

The U.S. goal, he said, is “a Europe that is free of the dividing lines of the past, instead of just moving them a little bit further east.”

While Clinton devoted considerable attention to the need to reassure Eastern Europe that it will not be abandoned to any future resurgence of Russian expansionism, he also emphasized the importance of reaffirming America’s commitment to democracy and economic reform in Russia. The pace of economic reform should not be slowed, he said, but greater effort must be made to provide a safety net for individuals and families hurt by the transition from communism to free markets.

One senior Administration official predicted Wednesday that Russia is likely to join the plan to bring the former Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern Europe into Clinton’s proposed Partnership for Peace. NATO members are expected to ratify the plan at their meeting Monday, and the official said he expects Russia to join “very soon.”

The plan is designed gradually to draw into NATO all former Warsaw Pact countries that demonstrate their commitment to democratic principles and their willingness to work with NATO military powers.

Russian officials themselves have given little public indication of which way they will go on the proposal.

Clinton said he had considered and rejected others’ views that if NATO does not take in the European countries while Russia is weak, once Russia is strong again it might refuse to let its former satellites join.

It would take at least several years for Russia to become that strong, he said, if for no other reason than “the enormous impact that the rampant inflation in Russia had on the military capacity of the country.”

In pressing campaigns for earlier admission to NATO, some East European countries, especially Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, have cited fears of resurgent Russian nationalism fueled by the success of Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky and his party in the Dec. 12 Russian elections.

Asked about Zhirinovsky’s rise, Clinton said, “I wouldn’t say it scares me, but it concerns me.”

Declaring that many voted for Zhirinovsky and his party because they wanted to feel Russia was strong again, the President said: “A lot of the bad guys that have been elected in history got elected for reasons that didn’t have anything to do with their most outrageous claims. And, yet, they did what they said they’d do when they got in. So it is a concern.”

Times staff writer Paul Richter contributed to this report.