Soviets to cut Armed Forces by 500,000 men

Press, 9 December 1988, Page 8

Soviets to cut Armed Forces by 500,000 men

NZPA-Reuter Y °rk The Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, grabbing the world peace initiative m one bold stroke, pledged to take a giant bite out of the Soviet military machine in a move that President Reagan said could be historic.

"I can only say that if it is carried out speedily and in full, history will regard it as important — significant,” Mr Reagan said after his fifth and final meeting with the Soviet leader.

Taking the diplomatic offensive as the United States prepares to change administrations, Mr Gorbachev unwrapped his “Christmas present” in an address to the United Nations General Assembly that drew thunderous applause. Mr Gorbachev said that within the next two years his Armed Forces estimated at 5.3 million soldiers would be reduced by 500,000 men in Eastern

Europe, the Soviet Union and in Mongolia bordering on China. “Today I can report to you that the Soviet Union has taken a decision to reduce its armed forces,” Mr Gorbachev said. He said the cuts were unilateral but should be considered “an invitation to work together, not only to the United States but to all other countries.” The American-led N.A.T.O. alliance has long argued that it is heavily outnumbered in conventional forces — soldiers, tanks, artillery and combat aircraft — by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies and has sought unilateral cuts by

the East bloc before embarking on negotiated mutual reductions.

A Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman, Gennady Gerasimov, told reporters on Wednesday night that Mr Gorbachev wanted to show that Moscow should not be considered an offensive threat.

“We are undermining the myth prevalent in the West of a Soviet threat...

By practical steps, we are showing there is no Soviet threat to Western Europe,” he said. “What you now see is a common position which is supported by the Soviet population ... because resources will be switched

to our economy, which is not in a very good state.” N.A.T.O. cautiously welcomed the “Christmas present” of unilateral arms cuts but individual responses from the West’s leaders showed greater warmth. The British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and West German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, Europe’s key figures in the Western military alliance, greeted the announcement quickly and positively. A spokesman for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in Brussels said the move was "a step in the right direction” but

the alliance would be seeking bigger reductions at the negotiating table.

Mr Gorbachev explained his announcement to President Reagan and President-elect Bush at a cordial two-hour luncheon at Governors Island in New York Harbour, a mini-summit that the Secretary of State, George Shultz, said included substantive topics as well as story-telling by the President.

Mr Reagan seemed moved by his last meeting with Mr Gorbachev, chief representative of a country the President once referred to as an “evil empire.’