NBUUK Greenland - First, the French foreign minister jetted into this seaside capital, which currently has more humpback whales in the fjord (two) than stoplights (one). Then a knot of Washington officials, dressed in business suits and smiles, arrived for what one newsweekly here headlined in Danish as the American "Charmoffensiv."

This month, it was the turn of the Russian ambassador to Denmark who was out among the icebergs in the fjord, fishing for arctic char with Greenland's premier, Jonathan Motzfeldt.

What is at stake is Greenland's eventual acquiescence to the use of the American air base in Thule as part of a national missile defense system. Although Denmark, the old colonial power here, retains control over Greenland's foreign and defense policy, Copenhagen insists that the Greenlanders' wishes will be taken into account.

Whoever occupies the White House next year will probably find that public opinion is skeptical, bordering on hostile, in the two proposed North American partners, Greenland and Canada.

"No one in Greenland wishes to take actions that would lead to recreating the atmosphere of the cold war era," Mr. Motzfeldt said in an interview. "I am content that NATO has not greeted the N.M.D. plans with cheers." Even though the new defensive program would not involve placing weapons at Thule, Greenland's deputy premier, Josef Motzfeldt (no relation to the premier) attributed the missile plan to lobbying by "big shots in the weapons industries" and said in an interview, "The United States is very alone in the project."

Russia's ambassador, Nikolai Bordyuzha, charged here that the defense system would violate the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty. His Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, who visited Canada with similar warnings this month, told Danish officials earlier this summer that if they allowed Thule to be used for the American defense system, "Copenhagen will be responsible for pulling down the ABM treaty."

Mikaela Engell, a Greenland Foreign Affairs spokeswoman, said: "If you do a vox pop in the street, people will ask, `Why should we get involved in the American problems? Are we now going to get hit on the head with a great big bomb?' "

Certainly Markus Elias Olsen, a youth leader, was outside Parliament when it opened this month, leading a protest against the missile defense system. Not satisfied with President's Clinton's delay, he said: "In the case of ballistic missile wars, they will probably drop down on our heads, not on the Americans."

Although in the past Denmark has pointed to the Thule sites as helping fulfill its NATO obligations, Danish officials now insist that island opinion will be taken into account.

Denmark has yet to take a position on Thule's role in a missile defense system, but Gunnar Martens, the Danish High Commissioner here, stressed: "It should be in accordance with the ABM treaty. It should live up to international obligations between the United States and Russia."

Although Canada has been a partner of the United States for almost half a century in the North American Aerospace Defense Command, known as Norad and involving dozens of radars strung across Canada's north to detect Russian bombers or missiles coming over the North Pole, the loudest voices there oppose national missile defense.

"Put simply, the national missile defense system is a dumb idea," Canada's influential Globe and Mail newspaper editorialized, hailing Mr. Clinton's decision. It advised whoever is the new president to substitute "sense for macho posturing."

Canada's military establishment supports the missile defense plan. Although Canada and the United States renewed the Norad agreement last June for another five years, the Canadians fear, in the words of one general, that without participation in the new defense system they would be marginalized in Norad. Without directly contributing to the missile defense system, Canada is proceeding with a $430 million "joint space project," a military sensor program intended in part to free up American resources for missile defense.

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has not taken a position on President Clinton's delay. But his Foreign Minister, Lloyd Axworthy, has been blunt. "We certainly welcome the decision," he said. "It's something we've been advocating."

Last spring, Mr. Axworthy had criticized the plan as "a risk not worth taking," one that could precipitate a new nuclear arms race. In a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Canada's Foreign Minister said the Pentagon's plan "doesn't screen out cruise missiles, doesn't screen out drones, doesn't screen out terrorist operations or tramp steamers or whatever other - you know, Greyhound buses or ferries. And those are real security issues."

Vice Adm. Herbert Browne, deputy commander of the United States Space Command, was so irritated that he suggested that if Canada did not participate in the system, the United States would not waste missiles defending Canadian cities. If Ottawa came under attack, Admiral Browne told reporters, "Detroit would be next, and the United States would be reluctant to say, `Well, we've expended all of our ground- based interceptors protecting Ottawa.' "

In Greenland, American advocates of the missile defense plan want first to make $50 million worth of improvements to an existing early warning radar in Thule, and then build an expanded radar that would focus on threats from the Middle East and from the Korean peninsula.

"Thule is a basic element in the N.M.D. architecture," John D. Holum, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, said in an interview. Mr. Holum led the Pentagon and State Department delegation that briefed Greenland and Danish officials here, then traveled 1,000 miles north to visit the American base. In an attempt to assuage the fears of the 55,000 people living here, on the world's largest island, he said: "Greenland is not a target."

At the height of the cold war, Thule had 7,000 American soldiers and an array of nuclear-tipped missiles. It still has Greenland's largest road network and the island's northernmost airfield capable of accommodating jets, but the American presence has been reduced to 200 soldiers who maintain early warning radars.

Greenlanders say they are grateful for the network of airfields left by the Americans, who at the height of World War II had 17 installations here, but would like the military to come back and clean up the abandoned sites, including barrels of oil, and ammunition buried at Sondre Stromfjord, a base abandoned in the early 1990's.

In mid-August, a group of former employees at Thule charged that the Pentagon has covered up the loss of a nuclear bomb from a B-52G bomber that crashed and burned on sea ice seven miles from Thule on January 21, 1968. Based in Plattsburgh, N.Y., and loaded with four nuclear bombs, the airplane was flying over the area when it made an emergency crash landing, killing one crew member.

In response, Mr. Holum said: "There is no bomb remaining. They did a very comprehensive cleanup."

But, for some people here, the American military presence bears a legacy of mistrust.

For almost 40 years, American and Danish officials assured Danes and Greenlanders that Greenland was "a nuclear-weapons-free zone." Then in 1995, a 1957 memo came to light in which H. C. Hansen, then Denmark's Prime Minister, gave the United States secret permission for storage at Thule of nuclear bombs and warheads for Nike Hercules missiles. According to a recent investigation by a Danish government institute, all nuclear weapons were removed in 1965.

Dealing with another source of rancor, a Copenhagen court last year ordered the Danish government to pay to $3,500 to each of 53 Inuit villagers who sued over the forcible removal of their village in 1951 to make way for construction of the base at Thule.

Today, the mayor of Thule and many Inuit in the area "are scared and are unanimous in their opposition to N.M.D.," said Aqqaluk Lynge, a Greenlander who is president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, an organization based here that often speaks for the 150,000 Inuit of Greenland, Canada, Alaska and Russia.

"We don't like that superpower attitude that says, `We can do what we want with our air bases,"' said Mr. Lynge, who was a member of Greenland's Parliament in the mid- 1980's. "The Arctic has always been looked at as a desert, with a only a few Eskimos and polar bears. Well, we see ourselves as the guardians of the environment up here."