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

DATE: THURSDAY, April 18, 1991                   TAG: 9104180178
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From The Baltimore Sun/ and the Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: TOKYO                                LENGTH: Medium

GORBACHEV MAKES PLEA FOR WORLD'S AID

Seizing the opportunity presented by his first public speech outside the Soviet Union since last fall, when he began a series of widely criticized and sometimes bloody steps against opponents, Gorbachev was unsparing in the dire picture he painted of political and economic conditions at home.

Addressing a joint session of both houses of the Diet, Japan's Parliament, he spoke of "disintegration of the national economy" and "mounting social instabilities."

"A bitter political struggle has got under way," he said, and opponents on both his right and his left had adopted a "no holds barred" approach.

In a morning summit talk with Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu, he went further, directly issuing what a Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman later called "a plea for understanding on the part of the international community" if even stronger measures are needed to head off collapse.

In exchange for that understanding - which seemed by implication to include reviving stalled proposals for big injections of economic aid - he promised in his Diet speech that he would press on with fundamental transformation of the Soviet economy and society and stick to cooperation and even partnership with the United States.

The Soviet leader also unveiled proposals Wednesday for a continentwide security framework for Asia, to begin with a "Big Five" conference involving the superpowers.

As a first step, a five-nation conference, to be attended by the United States, Soviet Union, Japan, China and India, would precede the convening in 1993 of a previously proposed meeting of foreign ministers of all countries of Asia and the Pacific.

Other parts of Gorbachev's Asian proposal include:

U.S.-Soviet-Japanese consultations "to remove suspicions and build confidence through concrete agreements."

Creation of a "zone of cooperation" in the Sea of Japan and northeast Asia, which would link the resource-rich but undeveloped Soviet Far East and Siberia to "the emerging economic complex of Asia and the Pacific."

> A formal dialogue between the Soviet Union and Japan on military matters.

Before coming to Japan, Gorbachev unveiled in Moscow a one-year "anti-crisis program" of special powers to help him deal with relentlessly spreading strikes that threaten to cripple the already-crumbling economy, with republics that are demanding independence from the central government, and with political challengers like Russian Republic President Boris Yeltsin.

Those proposed powers - and the often-bloody steps that preceded the proposal - have induced ever-greater caution among Western countries that seemed poised last summer to pour in billions of dollars to help keep Gorbachev in power and his reforms on track.

Gorbachev urged the outside world to understand that he needs decisive powers because his country's condition demands strong leadership.