Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 9, 1990 TAG: 9007090138
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: HOUSTON LENGTH: Medium
Disclosing this on the eve of the three-day economic summit meeting here of the leaders of the Group of Seven industrial countries,the White House officials emphasized that Bush continued to oppose a move for large financial aid to the Soviet Union, as proposed by West Germany and France.
Bush's view is that the allies should agree in principle to help President Mikhail Gorbachev bring about economic changes in the Soviet Union, but that each should act individually.
"Each country has different political imperatives," one official said. "The president is happy to have each one help the Soviet Union in complementary ways."
Whatever their differences,the leaders were determined to avoid a shouting match over Soviet assistance,a top American official said Sunday. The leaders do not want to increase pressure on Gorbachev because the news from the Communist Party congress in Moscow convinced them that the Soviet leader is even weaker politically than they had thought.
Consequently,aid to the Soviet Union is likely to take a back seat to other matters when this first post-Cold War economic summit meeting opens today, officials from the United States, Japan, Britain, West Germany,Italy, France and Canada said.
Bush will find himself at odds with the leaders of the industrial allies on central points involving international trade and protection of the environment,and this could set off some fireworks.
As a result, the tone may be in sharp contrast with the NATO meeting in London last week, where the allied leaders basically adopted the course Bush charted for military policy and East-West relations.
Here, the president seems likely to fail in what his aides describe as his primary mission - to persuade the other countries to abolish or at least limit their farm subsidies.
Bush maintains that worldwide economic growth depends on the successful completion of the current round of trade talks and that those talks are doomed unless agriculture policies in the industrial countries are changed.
And Bush is, as a Canadian diplomat here said, "all alone" in his reluctance to adopt an international strategy for dealing with global warming.
On aid to the Soviet Union, Marlin Fitzwater,Bush's spokesman,said Bush did plan to discuss with the other leaders the letter he received from Gorbachev last week requesting economic assistance from the allies. The letter was seen by top diplomats as underscoring Gorbachev's political difficulties.
Fitzwater said the letter repeated topics raised in discussions Bush and Gorbachev had in Washington this spring and did not "raise any new issues or requests."
The leaders understand that they have different domestic political needs when it comes to dealing with the Soviet Union, the officials said.
For his part, Bush wants to avoid the fire from the right wing of the Republican Party that he would surely receive if he asked for money for the Soviet Union when that country was continuing to aid Cuba.
On the other hand, Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany,who has pledged more than $3 billion to the Soviet Union, is eager for Soviet acquiescence in a unified Germany's membership in NATO.
And President Francois Mitterrand of France wants to build a special relationship between Paris and Moscow.
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney of Canada opposes direct financial assistance to the Soviet Union, but he broke slightly with the United States on Sunday by saying that Canada might support some forms of credit for Moscow.
Neither the agriculture nor the environment issue is likely to be settled this week.
"Detailed and complicated negotiations cannot take place at summits," said Henry R. Nau, a professor at George Washington University,who was Ronald Reagan's personal representative at several summit meetings in the early 1980s.
But the three days of talks will focus such attention on the disagreements that Bush, the host of the meeting, will be hard pressed to maintain the harmony of London.
by CNB