
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, July 17, 1990                   TAG: 9007170392
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/6   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

PRESIDENT PHONES GORBACHEV, KOHL

President Bush spoke by telephone with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev for 40 minutes this morning, a day after the Soviet leader announced Moscow would no longer oppose a unified Germany in NATO.

Bush also telephoned West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl to congratulate him on achieving that agreement Monday during his visit to the Soviet Union, said White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater.

Bush announced at a photo session with Republican congressional leaders that he had made the two calls.

He opened the Cabinet room meeting by apologizing for keeping the Republicans waiting. "I was talking to Mr. Gorbachev for about 40 minutes. I had a long talk with Chancellor Kohl before that," Bush said.

Fitzwater said he did not know if Bush and Gorbachev specifically discussed the German reunification question.

He said Bush had promised to call the Soviet president and fill him in on this month's NATO summit in London and the economic summit of industrialized nations in Houston.

"As the architect of the NATO document, he wanted to give President Gorbachev first-hand assurances of NATO's commitment to establishing a new relationship with the Soviet Union," Fitzwater said.

The spokesman said Bush congratulated Kohl on his successful visit to the Soviet Union, and "on the Soviet acceptance of a unified Germany in NATO. Chancellor Kohl was very appreciative of the leadership President Bush has shown" on the German reunification matter, and gave him credit for the "diplomatic initiative that brought all of this together."

On Monday, Bush issued a statement welcoming the announcement from Kohl and Gorbachev that, under specific conditions, Moscow would drop objections to a united Germany's membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. That eliminated one of the last major hurdles to unification.

Bush said in that statement that Gorbachev's decision "demonstrates statesmanship."

Gorbachev and Kohl agreed to limit the army of a united Germany to 370,000 men, and to give the Soviets a transitional military presence in East Germany, during which time NATO structures would not be imposed there.

by CNB