Bush Urges Chemical Weapons Reduction

UNITED NATIONS--Declaring the world "has lived too long in the shadow of chemical warfare," President Bush offered yesterday to slash U. S. stocks of such weapons more than 80 percent, provided the Soviet Union reduces to an equal level.

Bush's proposal, in his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly as president, was designed to spur a 40-nation conference in Geneva to ban chemical weapons entirely within 10 years.

He also used his appearance to salute "freedom's march" around the world--in Poland, Latin America and Africa--and to praise the Soviet Union for removing "a number of obstacles" in the way of treaties to reduce long-range nuclear weapons, and troops and tanks in Europe.

Bush noted progress on those issues and agreements on other matters--during talks last weekend between Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze--as well as a decision to hold a summit meeting with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev by early next summer.

"Let us act together--beginning today--to rid the earth of this scourge," Bush said in his comments on chemical weapons.

Shevardnadze said after the speech that the Soviet had "a positive view" of the plan but that it and other Bush proposals "will have to be studied additionally."

Brent Scowcroft, the president's national security adviser, said the Soviet had been given an outline of the U.S. initiative in advance and "they really have not responded."

He also told reporters at a briefing that Bush's proposal did not include biological weapons, which some experts consider as deadly as poison gas.

One year ago, during the first presidential candidates' debate, Bush had said, "I want to be the one to banish chemical and biological weapons from the face of the earth." The United States has in the past accused the Soviets of developing biological weapons.

Congress has passed legislation requiring the administration to destroy old chemical weapons by 1997 as more advanced weapons are stockpiled. Asked about any connection between Bush's proposal and the legal mandate to destroy a large percentage of such weapons, the White House official said that whether or not the new plan was "making a virtue of necessity it is certainly part of a major effort and a serious effort now."

Twice, as vice president, Bush blocked legislation to destroy U. S. chemical weapons by breaking a tie vote. In those instances, the cutback would not have required Soviet reductions as well.

To get down to the equal stocks that Bush proposed, the Soviet would have to make deeper cuts since they are thought to have more chemical weapons on hand. Only the two superpowers acknowledge having poison gas, but Bush said more than 20 nations either possess them or are capable of producing them.

Bush, who served as the U.S. permanent representative at the United Nations in 1971 and 1972, described his visit and speech as a homecoming. The delegates interrupted him twice with applause--when he proposed the chemical weapons reductions and when he reported progress in U.S. -Soviet relations.

At one point, he also mourned the slaying of Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, who was taken hostage on a U.N. mission in Lebanon in February 1988 and subsequently slain. He called Higgins "a man of unquestioned bravery and unswerving dedication to the U.N. ideal" and called on the General Assembly to condemn the murder.

As for superpower relations, Bush said he saw "signs of a new attitude that prevails between the U.S. and U.S.S.R." though he acknowledge serious differences remain.