SOVIETS EASE STAND ON MISSILE CUTBACK.(Main)

Byline: Gary Lee Washington Post

In a major policy shift, Kremlin leader Mikhail Gorbachev said Wednesday that Moscow is prepared to drop its demand to retain 100 Soviet nuclear-missile warheads in Asia as part of a treaty to eliminate all Soviet and American intermediate- range missiles deployed in Europe and Asia.

Gorbachev, in an interview with an Indonesian newspaper that was distributed by the official Soviet news agency Tass, offered the concession contingent on the United States renouncing its right to deploy 100 warheads on its territory. The United States, which has solicited such an offer, already hasagreed to do so if the Soviets consent to remove the 100 warheads from Asia.

"In an effort to accommodate the Asian countries," Gorbachev said, "the Soviet Union is prepared to agree to eliminate all of its …