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

DATE: FRIDAY, February 15, 1991                   TAG: 9102150041
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

U.S. BLASTS SOVIET CONSPIRACY CHARGE

The State Department on Thursday dismissed as "ridiculous" a Soviet charge that Western and Soviet banks had engaged in conspiracy to destroy the country's financial system.

"The story is a transparent effort by Soviet authorities to blame foreigners for economic and financial difficulties that result primarily from the Soviet Union's own domestic policies," spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said.

The allegation was made Tuesday by Soviet Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov, who said the conspirators, whom he did not identify, had been plotting to overthrow President Mikhail Gorbachev.

He said the plotters had planned to flood the Soviet economy with billions of rubles but that the scheme was thwarted by recent monetary measures.

Ed Hewett, an expert on the Soviet economy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said Pavlov was searching for a scapegoat because he got in trouble on his first major policy step, the sudden recall of all large ruble notes.

While rejecting Pavlov's conspiracy charge, Hewett said the grain of truth in the new prime minister's claim was "that in the chaos of the present system, there are possibilities for Westerners to get hold of large chunks of rubles and try to do something with them."

But Pavlov, he said, "is just looking for someone on the outside to blame. Certainly for Western investors it has to put a chill down their backs."

An American lawyer who helps arrange business deals in the Soviet Union agreed the claim of a Western bank conspiracy was groundless but added there is "a lot a horsing around with rubles."

The lawyer, speaking on condition of anonymity, cited one case in which a Soviet bank was seeking a partner in a bank-to-bank deal involving 50 billion rubles to be exchanged at 20 rubles to the dollar. That would be a small fraction of their official value of about 0.62 rubles to the dollar.

by CNB