President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev on Thursday directed their top diplomatic aides to meet next week to seek a post-summit agreement on the military face of a united Germany. A meeting between Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze was set for Tuesday in Copenhagen, after Bush and Gorbachev reached an impasse on whether a new Germany would be a member of NATO. A second June session, in Berlin, was tentatively scheduled for the two aides. Bush and Gorbachev exchanged what the Soviet leader called new approaches, and Marlin Fitzwater, the White House spokesman, said optimistically: ``The ideas presented amount to a way to meld the concerns of the United States and the Soviet Union.'' Later, a Bush administration official sought to play down any perception that there had been a breakthrough. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Bush would call West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl within the next day or so ``to reassure him that we have not changed our position'' on a united Germany. Bush is determined to secure NATO membership for the new Germany once it is created, while Gorbachev is equally intent on keeping the country out of the Western alliance or at least restricting the size of the German army. ``Both the U.S. side and the Soviet side put forth certain ideas and suggestions'' on Thursday, Gorbachev said. He gave no details, but a Soviet official told The Associated Press the Soviets wanted Germany's future taken up by the 35-nation European Security Conference. ``I hope that we understand each other's concerns better,'' Gorbachev said as he left the White House. ``This exchange of views now requires that our foreign ministers have a more in-depth discussion,'' he told reporters. ``I think it is not here that the German question will be resolved.''' Bush said later that ``certainly'' was the case. But the U.S. president, who appeared outside the White House shortly after Gorbachev left, added, ``When he said that differences had been narrowed somewhat, I'm taking some heart from that and we'll continue these discussions tomorrow.'' ``Fundamental positions have not changed,'' he said. Bush offered his own public assurances to Gorbachev that ``we can work together'' to reduce East-West tensions on a broad front. The two leaders aired their differences on Germany publicly at a morning arrival ceremony and then privately in the Oval Office. In addition to the Baker-Shevardnadze session in Copenhagen, U.S. officials said Baker also will meet separately in the Danish capital with West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who has been the point man for the West in trying to work out an accommodation with Moscow. Genscher, for instance, proposed keeping NATO troops out of what is now East Germany after the merger with West Germany. Baker, Shevardnadze and Genscher had all planned to be in Copenhagen to attend a 35-nation conference on human rights. A meeting also had previously been scheduled among the four World War II allies and the two Germanys in Berlin on the subject of Germany's future. Gorbachev told reporters in a White House driveway that Bush defended his viewpoint on Germany during their talks. ``I think dictation is unacceptable,'' the Soviet leader said, but he did not renew his accusation of the previous day that the United States was indeed trying to dictate to the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Germany and unrest in the Baltics dominated the meeting Baker held with Shevardnadze at the White House while the two presidents were in the Oval office, U.S. officials said. Just a few blocks away, meanwhile, top-level U.S. and Soviet negotiators held a fifth day of talks on what will be the summit's crowning achievements _ a declaration of basic accord to cut long-range nuclear missiles and a pledge to quickly launch negotiations for even deeper reductions once the treaty is finished. But Deputy Soviet Prime Minister Viktor K. Karpov and Under Secretary of State Reginald Bartholomew and their aides evidently were unable to make significant progress in arrangements for the withdrawal of tens of thousands of U.S. and Soviet troops and tanks from Europe. This ``is an area where we will probably not be able to reach specific agreement at this point,'' Fitzwater said. Gorbachev has slowed work on this parallel treaty partly out of concern that a strengthened Germany would be enrolled in the Western alliance while his own allies in the Warsaw Pact drift away from the Soviet orbit. U.S. and Soviet negotiators held three rounds of talks Thursday at the State Department. Baker, appearing on ABC-TV's ``Good Morning America,'' made plain there would be no retreat in the U.S. position. ``All of the Western allies, all of the countries of Western Europe, and, indeed, three countries of the Warsaw Pact, think that this would promote stability in Europe, that it's important that that happen,'' Baker said. ``So the Soviet Union is, to some extent, alone among the nations involved in this who have a problem with it. So our job is to see if we can better explain it,'' Baker said. Bush, in a White House arrival ceremony for the Soviet leader, hailed the impending unification of East Germany with West Germany as a milestone toward ``enduring cooperation in a Europe whole and free.'' But mindful of Gorbachev's reservations about a more powerful neighbor, the president assured him ``we can work together at this historic moment'' to reduce remaining East-West tensions. ``The trenches of the Cold War are disappearing,'' Gorbachev said in response. In a thinly veiled reference to his concerns about German unification and U.S. demands that the new country have NATO membership, the Soviet leader recalled the Allies' victory over Nazism in World War II and, earlier, the defeat of Germany in World War I. Gorbachev then pointedly expressed a hope that ``these horrible wars will forever remain a thing of the past.'' There were indications the two sides may be in a mood to compromise. U.S. officials are hinting at negotiations in the future to scale down both the German and Soviet armies in a tradeoff deal between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
