Conventional Forces

West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed an agreement here Tuesday calling on the United States and the Soviet Union to seek a 50% reduction in strategic nuclear missiles. The two leaders also urged a new "balance of conventional forces" at a lower level in Europe and a worldwide ban on chemical weapons. They agreed that the goal should be to reduce armaments to a level sufficient for defense "but not for attack." "Above all," the declaration said, "the two sides consider it necessary to rule out the capability of armed forces for launching surprise attack and initiating large-scale offensive action."

Michael S. Dukakis declared today, "We don't need SDI" but should instead help Europe by improving conventional military forces. Speaking to the private Atlantic Council at the State Department, the certain Democratic presidential nominee said he's committed to "a NATO so strong and so united that no nation will be tempted to begin a war against us."

The top staff member of the Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau has been forced out by the board of the nonprofit booster organization, it was announced Friday. The contract of Bill F. Miller, the 46-year-old president of the bureau, has not been renewed, said Lloyd Axelrod, vice president of public relations for the bureau. Miller joined the bureau in June, 1988. Axelrod said the board's executive committee did not reveal the reasons for its decision, which was made Thursday.

SEOUL -- In one of its most candid statements yet about its nuclear program, North Korea said Monday that it is developing atomic weapons to reduce the size and cost of its conventional armed forces. The statement, distributed by the North's official news service out of the capital, Pyongyang, was unusual in that it alluded to the economic difficulties of the isolated Communist state and included an unequivocal admission of its nuclear program. When U.S.

Last week, peace activists around the world commemorated the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, arguing that nuclear weapons should be abolished so that such destruction will never be repeated. Their call for peace through disarmament has traditionally been a rallying cry of the left. In fact, the peace sign, that ultimate icon of 1960s war protests, is actually a rendering of the semaphoric symbols for the letters "N" and "D": "Nuclear Disarmament." Conservatives, by contrast, have put their faith in "peace through strength," an ancient notion made fresh during the Cold War by Ronald Reagan.

Leaders of the new Commonwealth of Independent States decided Monday to break up the 3.7 million-member Soviet armed forces, the world's largest, allowing each state to have its own conventional military force. But they agreed to retain a unified command, effectively headed by Russia, over the massive nuclear arsenal that the commonwealth inherited from the Soviet Union.

It was near the end of President Vladimir V. Putin's reelection campaign early this year, and two days of high-profile military exercises highlighting his role as Russia's commander in chief had been marred by failed tests of submarine-launched missiles. But with a few cryptic words, Putin dispelled the gloom. The exercises, he said at a news conference, confirmed that Russia would soon possess intercontinental nuclear weapons capable of maneuvering in flight to evade antimissile defenses.

U.S. special operations troops in Afghanistan have stepped up a campaign to kill or capture insurgent leaders, senior U.S. officials say, an effort that began in March and is likely to expand as Army Gen. David H. Petraeus looks for ways to show progress. Senior U.S. military officials said the raids by special operations troops have killed or captured 186 insurgent leaders and detained an additional 925 lower-level fighters in the last 110 days. That would mark a rare success for American troops in a war that has otherwise gone poorly in recent months.

Russia's lower house of parliament voted unanimously to suspend a key arms treaty limiting conventional forces in Europe, saying the United States and NATO were using the pact to undermine Russia's defenses. Ignoring appeals from the United States, the State Duma approved a law allowing Moscow to halt compliance with the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, seen by the West as a cornerstone of European security. The suspension will take effect Dec. 12.

The United States today swiftly rejected a Soviet proposal to begin fall negotiations on reducing superpower short-range nuclear missiles. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater declared that the Administration agrees with the position taken by NATO and believes that such talks should be held off until after an agreement is reached on reducing conventional forces in Europe.