Ouster of Gorbachev Seen in 3 to 4 Years

Two U.S. experts on the Soviet Union predicted Tuesday that Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev would be ousted in three to four years if he continued his reform policy, or the policy of openess called glasnost .

“I don’t think he can last four years,” said Marshall I. Goldman, associate director of Harvard University’s Russian Research Center. “I think Gorbachev himself recognizes how dangerous it is. He’s moving so fast, he’s stepping on so many toes . . . so my own prediction is he won’t last four years.”

Peter Reddaway, of the Smithsonian Institution’s Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, gave a similar assessment at a Capitol Hill hearing of the Helsinki Commission, created in 1976 to monitor Soviet compliance with the Helsinki Accords on human rights.