The Clinton administration is heading for a confrontation with Congress over legislation that would make it U.S. policy to deploy a nationwide defense against missile attack.

President Clinton is expected to sign the legislation as early as next week. Congressional backers say the measure will require missile defense deployment, but administration officials contend they are not required to do so.

Mr. Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin agreed in Cologne, Germany, on Sunday to continue talks this fall on possible changes to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The pact prohibits deploying missile defenses that protect either side's entire national territory.

White House National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger told reporters in Cologne that a U.S. national missile-defense deployment decision will not be made before June 2000.

Mr. Berger also said the administration softened its position on first requiring Russia's parliament to ratify the START II nuclear arms treaty before moving ahead with a START III pact. Negotiators will report to Mr. Clinton and Mr. Yeltsin by July 30 on a new arms pact.

As for Mr. Clinton and Mr. Yeltsin's ABM talks: "What they have agreed to is to consider possible changes in the strategic situation that have a bearing on the ABM Treaty," Mr. Berger told reporters.

Mr. Berger said that verbal formulation means, "in English," that U.S. and Russian officials will talk about a new strategic arms reduction treaty, or START III, and "modifications to the ABM treaty that may be occasioned by a national missile defense system, if we were to deploy one."

He said it was the first time Russia had agreed to discuss such ABM Treaty changes. In the past, Moscow has opposed any effort to modify the treaty. The president, too, has insisted the ABM pact remain the centerpiece of U.S.-Russia relations.

Robert Bell, a senior National Security Council aide, said the Cologne ABM discussion was "very significant" because the Russians for the first time recognized their obligation under the ABM Treaty to consider amendments. During the Yugoslav bombing, senior Moscow officials said they were adamantly opposed to any ABM changes, he said.

Mr. Bell said the United States has not yet drawn up specific ABM amendments to propose to the Russians when senior officials meet later this summer for the first round of talks.

"We're working hard on that," he said.

Treaty changes under consideration will go beyond modifying the central Article 1, which states that neither the United States nor Russia will deploy a defense of the national territory, Mr. Bell said.

Sen. Thad Cochran, a key sponsor of a bill that passed both the House and Senate that would require a missile defense system to be deployed as soon as possible, took issue with Mr. Berger's position.

"I wish the administration would be up front and candid with the Russians about the need to change the ABM treaty," said the Mississippi Republican. "Either change it, or we should withdraw from it."

Once the president signs the missile defense bill, perhaps as early as next week, "it will be the law of the land and a new policy will be in effect that says we have to deploy a national missile defense," Mr. Cochran said in an interview.

"That means, in my mind they should be discussing with the Russians immediately, and they are going to have to make some changes in the ABM treaty, or we're going to have to withdraw from it," he said.

Any delays or postponement of those formal negotiations "will seriously put in jeopardy our relationship with Russia," the senator said. "We shouldn't try to pretend this bill doesn't state clearly that deployment is required. It clearly does."

Instead of discussing possible changes, "we should be making the ABM treaty accommodate that decision," Mr. Cochran said.

Senior White House officials have said the missile defense bill does not require deployment because it lacks language about funding, and because of several minor amendments added by Democrats.

Rep. Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Republican and the key House sponsor of the missile defense bill, said Mr. Berger should not be interpreting the will of Congress as stated in the legislation.

"Until he runs for Congress, he's not the guy who interprets our legislation," Mr. Weldon said. "The interpretation is that it means deployment now. Our position is that it's the policy of this government to deploy a national missile defense now, when the president signs that bill."

As for Mr. Berger's view that the administration will not be bound to the deployment legislation, "he is wrong and we're not going to stand for it," Mr. Weldon said.

A Senate defense aide said Mr. Berger's suggestion that ABM Treaty changes may not be needed "is a demonstration of the administration's continued lack of seriousness" on national missile defense.

"There is no question that national missile-defense deployment requires changes to the ABM Treaty, beginning with Article 1," the aide said. That provision states that neither side will deploy a defense of their national territory or make preparations for one.

Also, the missile defense bill passed both the House and Senate by large majorities, stating that it will be U.S. policy to deploy a national defense "as soon as the technology to do so is ready," the aide said.

"The question of whether to deploy NMD is resolved, not withstanding Mr. Berger's statement," he said.

The Russian lower house leader, Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov, said in Moscow yesterday the prospects for ratification of the START II treaty are doubtful, despite Mr. Yeltsin's statement to Mr. Clinton that he is committed to passage.

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