Bush to Call for Deeper Troop Cuts
WASHINGTON — President Bush will make a surprise call for deeper cuts in Soviet and American troops in Europe in his State of the Union address tonight, Administration sources said today.
The proposed cuts would go beyond a troop reduction plan that Bush offered in 1989 and that is still under negotiation, said the sources, who demanded anonymity. Last year’s proposal would cut troops on each side to 275,000, which would require a 30,000-person reduction in U.S. combat troops and a 325,000-person reduction in Soviet forces in Eastern Europe.
Bush, who has been under pressure from domestic critics and some Europeans to speed disarmament with the collapse of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, was said to have decided on a revised proposal to limit American and Soviet troops in Europe to 195,000 for each side.
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