Scowcroft sees Soviet peril // Says crisis threatens arms talks

WASHINGTON President Bush's national security adviser said Mondaythat Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev was "in deep trouble" and"very unpopular" at home and that the current pullback from reformcould trigger a new period of "sterile relations and some hostility"between the superpowers.

Brent Scowcroft assessed the crisis in the Soviet Union inexceptionally blunt terms as he also renewed the administration'swarning that it would not sign a strategic arms reduction treaty, orSTART, with Moscow until disagreements over the interpretation of thenew conventional arms accord are cleared up.

In a speech here to the European Council of the AmericanChambers of …