Gorbachev may offer Soviet troop cuts

Press, 8 December 1988, Page 8

Gorbachev may offer Soviet troop cuts

NZPA-Reuter New York Mikhail Gorbachev, making the world his stage in a commanding display of personal diplomacy, will unveil his latest global security proposals today at the United Nations and an unprecedented United States-Soviet summit.

The Soviet leader, preceded by a swirl of rumour as to exactly what he had in mind, swooped into Manhattan for a three-day visit yesterday in the robust, theatrical style that is becoming his hallmark. He proclaimed on arrival that his talks with President Ronald Reagan and President-elect George Bush would invigorate American-Soviet relations. The Soviets succeeded in putting the world on tenterhooks as to whether Mr Gorbachev might have a “Christmas surprise” to spring. An unconfirmed Dutch radio report ricocheting around Western capitals said that he might offer to cut Soviet troop levels by 30 per cent in a peace gesture. The report fuelled a rally in American financial markets and saturated broadcast news reports as Mr Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, sped west on a Soviet Ilyushin jet. Mr Gorbachev, aged 57, the first Soviet Communist Party leader to address

the United Nations and dazzle hard-shelled New York since Nikita Khrushchev in 1960, kept the truth to himself. He will speak to the United Nations General Assembly and meet Mr Reagan and Mr Bush on Governor’s Island in New York harbour. That two-hour encounter, with the Statue of Liberty and Wall Street skyscrapers as backdrop, will mark the first time in the 30 years of post-war super-Power summitry that a Soviet chief met the President and Presidentelect at the same time. That, too, was a Gorbachev touch — this was his idea, proposed three weeks ago — and inserted him into the power transition between Mr Reagan, aged 77, retiring after two four-year terms, and Mr Bush, aged 64, who will be inaugurated on January 20. Mr Gorbachev set the stage by saying, in opening remarks in a snapping December wind at Kennedy Airport, that he looked forward to the talks “with great joy” and

knew they would be a great success. “I think we can already say beforehand that the talks and the meetings will without doubt promote the dynamism of our dialogue and cooperation between our countries,” he said. “The talks bear witness to the active nature of the United States-Soviet political dialogue ...” He said the agenda for the Governor’s Island meeting was completely open and flexible. Soviet spokesmen have said the topics could include strategic arms control, human rights, and regional issues such as the Middle East and problems besetting the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. The Russians have also said repeatedly that Mr Gorbachev wants more than symbolic chit-chat and predicted he would offer some concrete “initiatives,” perhaps in the field of arms control. Such talk has been greeted warily by the Americans, caught in an awkward in-between

phase in the changing of their guard, and they have tried to minimise expectations from the outset.

Mr Reagan, who has met Mr Gorbachev four times before and joined him to ratify a treaty eliminating most mediumrange nuclear missiles just last June, insists this was mainly a sentimental visit and not really a business "summit” at all. Mr Bush, too, says the American side is in no position to do any serious negotiating right now and any Soviet effort to do so will merely get a polite hearing. “The Soviets know how our system works and they know that I become President on January 20,” he said at a summit-eve news conference in Washington. “I don’t want to raise hope and I don’t want to dash hope but I’m not going to be prepared to go in there and start negotiating details of any kind.”

Despite Mr Bush’s protestations, the reality of the shifting American power equation was illus-

trated as Mr Gorbachev crossed the Atlantic when the President-elect named five new selections to senior positions in his Administration. They included the United Nations Ambassador-designate, Mr Thomas Pickering, and Mr William Webster as holdover chief of the Central Intelligence Agency. Diplomacy apart, the Soviet leader also meant to get a big-time tourist’s taste of Christmas-lighted Manhattan — and give Manhattan a taste of him.

That potentially chaotic bit of fun began immediately as his 45-car motorcade swept him to his quarters at the Soviet United Nations mission on the upper East Side, blocking half a dozen intersections at a time. With security enforced by a 6600-man force of New York police plus American and Soviet security men, Mr Gorbachev planned to take in such sights as the 110storey World Trade Centre, Wall Street and Times Square before leaving for Cuba on Friday.