U.S. Missile Shield May Spark New Arms Race, Chancellor Tells Clinton

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder warned President Clinton on Thursday that Europeans fear that plans for a U.S. missile defense system could set off a new arms race and provoke fresh instability in Russia.

During 90 minutes of official talks and then at a private dinner at an eastern Berlin restaurant, the two leaders verbally dueled over the dangers and protections they foresee if the U.S. launches its reinvention of the 1980s “Star Wars” missile-interception system.

“We have to be very careful that any such project does not re-trigger the process of a renewed arms race,” Schroeder told journalists after the talks, which had been expected to last only 20 minutes.

Clinton confirmed that he and Schroeder spent virtually the entire meeting discussing Russia and the missile defense program, but he made no reply to Schroeder’s clear message that the two fail to see eye to eye on how to ensure peace and prosperity for their erstwhile Cold War adversary.

But National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger declined to describe the exchange as a sharp disagreement.

“It was a very intelligent discussion of a very complicated issue by two very smart men, as a result of which both learned something,” Berger said of the talks, which also were dogged by differences about international child custody disputes and compensation for World War II-era slave laborers.

Germany, although one of Washington’s strongest allies in the post-World War II period, has joined the chorus of European political voices warning that the national missile defense plan, or NMD, could undermine the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union and compel a threatened Russia to reply in kind.

The sensitive issue of foreign parental rights in cross-border battles over children has lately emerged as another point of contention between the U.S. and Germany, and the two leaders resolved to form a committee of experts from both sides to weigh individual complaints.

In a message replete with implications for German officials, who have been accused by some U.S. parents of insensitivity, Clinton hailed the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals decision recognizing the father of Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez as the only legitimate guardian of the boy’s legal interests. That ruling, which may allow Juan Miguel Gonzalez to take the 6-year-old back to his homeland within a few weeks, upheld the Clinton administration’s handling of the case.

Child custody disputes have become a persistent irritation in German-U.S. relations in the wake of a few high-profile cases, one involving Catherine Meyer, the French-born wife of the British ambassador to Washington, who has been unable to see her two sons, who are in the custody of her German ex-husband. A New York father, Joseph Cooke, also has been involved in a protracted and fruitless legal battle to see his two children, who have been in the care of German foster parents since their German mother checked into a mental hospital seven years ago.

On the stalled slave-labor issue, U.S. and German negotiators had been expected to resume talks ahead of Clinton’s arrival, tackling the legal fine print of an agreement reached in principle in December. But negotiators put off the discussions until late Thursday, unable to satisfy German industries’ fears that they could face further claims beyond the nearly $5 billion already pledged for a compensation fund.

Today’s continuation of the German-U.S. summit is expected to take on a more amiable tone, as Clinton is to receive the Charlemagne Prize in the western border town of Aachen, the 8th century monarch’s imperial capital. Clinton is the first U.S. president--and only the third American after former secretaries of State George C. Marshall and Henry Kissinger--to be so recognized for furthering European unity.

Clinton also is expected to meet with reclusive former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, an apparent signal that the White House still holds him in high regard for his role in unifying Germany and fostering a more integrated Europe despite his involvement in a political funding scandal.

Before departing for Russia on Saturday, Clinton will take part in a 15-nation “Modernization Summit” in Berlin about the role of government in steering technology and globalization.