Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 9, 1990 TAG: 9007090252
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: BARRY SCHWEID ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: HOUSTON LENGTH: Long
The risk of saying no could be the failure of perestroika - the ambitious restructuring of the Soviet system - and Gorbachev's downfall. But saying yes has itsperils, too, since it would mean pouring billions into an economic morass that has resisted five years of Gorbachev reforms.
But "Where would we be if he were chucked out?" Brian Mulroney, the Canadian prime minister, wondered aloud on Sunday as he and leaders of the six otherrichest nations gathered for their annual economic summit. Still, Mulroney himself isn't ready to provide direct help just now.
Even more skeptical is President Bush, who received Gorbachev's plea for help in his role as summit host. The president questions the wisdom of assisting the Kremlin while it provides $5 billion a year to Marxist Cuba, spends about one-quarter of its budget on the military and has put few free-market procedures into play.
As the summit opened today, the issue was completely up in the air. There was no decisive majority for or against helping Gorbachev to overcome an ossified economic system that makes the Soviet Union an unpopular trade partner and faint source of relief to deprived and depressed consumers.
West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, with a strong assist from French President Francois Mitterrand, wants to put together a $15 billion aid package for Gorbachev. They are the strongest advocates of direct assistance.
Bush has "big problems" with the concept, he said at the NATO summit meeting last week in London. So does Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu of Japan. He reiterated last Friday it would "not be possible" for Japan to participate in economic assistance to Moscow until the Soviets resolved a 45-year territorial dispute over four islands in the Kuril peninsula.
The split is fundamental. According to a well-placed U.S. official it is so deep the seven governments have not even decided whether to deal with aid to Moscow in their summit-ending declarations later his week.
Decisions on virtually all the other items on the summit agenda await only the leaders' pro forma approval. They have been worked over by experts since the last summit in Paris. But aiding the Soviet Union is the vexing exception.
It isn't the first time in the 16 years of economic summits that a solution to a tough issue had to be hammered out in hard bargaining at the summit itself.
In 1983, the last time the United States played host, President Reagan held out at Williamsburg, Va., for a declaration demanding the Soviets negotiate the withdrawal of their intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Asia as well as Europe.
Japan, of course, backed Reagan, and the president prevailed. Four years later, he signed a treaty with Gorbachev for the destruction of all U.S. and Soviet medium-range missiles - in Asia as well as in Europe.
At the Tokyo summit in 1987 a strong declaration against terrorism emerged from heated debate among the leaders. The decision was not pre-cooked by the aides, known popularly as "Sherpas." It was taken by the leaders themselves.
And last year, tough bargaining at the table in Paris produced the decision to set up a group of 24 nations to channel assistance to Poland and Hungary, which were shaking free from the Soviet orbit.
Only last week in Paris, the 24 countries decided to expand their program to Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.
At this point, said the U.S. official who discussed the issue on condition he not be identified, the three most likely ways of resolving the Soviet aid problem at the summit are these:
Declaring each of the seven nations can decide for itself whether to help Gorbachev. That would mean Bush and Kaifu would not stand in the way of Kohl and Mitterrand while maybe helping the Soviets in less dramatic ways, such as with technical advice.
Appointing a panel to study the issue. That would give the leaders possibly a year to make their minds up while monitoring how Gorbachev proceeds with his experimentation with capitalistic ways.
Setting out conditions in the declaration for direct aid to Moscow. They could include requirements for less military spending and a reduction or cutoff of aid to Cuba.
Only a few months ago, when Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., proposed a package of direct U.S. aid to rescue Gorbachev, the congressman was ridiculed by administration officials and some of Bush's strongest supporters, such as Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo.
But now, it is a real possibility, causing Bush to think hard about the consequences if the Soviet leader falls.
Canada's Mulroney stressed that theme, saying: "If he were chucked out by some of the extreme right influences we see at play in the Soviet party conference that is ongoing in Moscow today, I think we would be at an infinitely worse position than we are today."
And yet, Mulroney called Soviet aid to Cuba "profoundly unacceptable" and an obstacle to Western aid.
He said Canada was willing at this point to provide trade credits, not direct assistance.
Meanwhile, Douglas Hurd, the British foreign secretary, left no doubt where the Margaret Thatcher's government stands.
The summit's message to Moscow, he said, should be "mend the hole in the pants before you fill the pockets with dimes and cents."
But no one doubts that a lot more than small change is at stake.
by CNB