
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 7, 1990                   TAG: 9003071696
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Short

GEPHARDT PROPOSES U.S. AID TO SOVIETS

House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., said Tuesday that the United States should offer direct aid to the Soviet Union and abandon President Bush's "timid posture" toward political changes sweeping the Soviet empire.

The congressman's remarks came under immediate fire from Republicans, who pointed out that the Soviets had not yet requested U.S. assistance. Many of Gephardt's fellow Democrats expressed discomfort with his remarks and sought to downplay them.

"The Cold War as we have known it for four decades is over," Gephardt said in an address to the Center for National Policy, a liberal think tank in Washington. "America must think creatively and act boldly.

"We should be investing in our own self-interest, and stability, democracy and a market economy in the Soviet Union are in America's strong self-interest.

"A stronger Soviet economy will facilitate the process of peace," he said. "How can the Soviets pull Red Army troops out of Eastern Europe if they have no jobs and no homes for them to return to in Russia?"

Gephardt also complained about the way Bush had responded to the events in Eastern Europe, accusing him of spending billions on a military plan to defend the United States from "communists who don't want to be communists any more," while ignoring their economic needs.

White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater dismissed Gephardt's comments as part of a long-running "political war" against the Republican administration.

by CNB