Hart Warns of Soviet Economic Progress

Former Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart, in his first public speech since withdrawing from the campaign last spring, said Thursday that Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev is moving toward making the Soviet Union “a more relevant superpower” while President Reagan is mired in the past.

Hart told a sold-out Philadelphia World Affairs Council dinner that, “for the first time in many years, the preeminent Soviet leader is younger than the American President. More importantly, while the current American President seeks to recapture a mythical time in America’s past--whether the 1920s or the 1950s--the new Soviet leader is clearly anticipating the 21st Century.”

Time to Test Gorbachev

The former Colorado senator said it was time to be testing Gorbachev instead of testing weapons.

For Hart, the former front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, the speech was the opening bid of an attempt to put his stamp on the 1988 campaign.

It was delivered just two days after an extraordinary appearance on national television in which he apologized for the behavior that drove him from the race and said he would not re-enter the campaign. Hart withdrew after the media reported his relationship with Miami model Donna Rice.

But he promised during the TV appearance that “I am going to give speeches and I am going to have an impact.”

25 Speeches Scheduled

So far, Hart is scheduled to make between 15 and 25 policy speeches before college crowds, business groups and general audiences by the end of the year, said Bill Leigh, president of the firm that schedules Hart’s speaking engagements.

In his foreign policy speech, Hart said Gorbachev is trying to restructure his country away from nuclear build-up and towards economic development.

“What if America awakens one day with a larger nuclear stockpile, but the Soviet Union has better laboratories, steel mills, machine tool factories, schools and research centers, agriculture production, biomedical innovation, superconductor technology and public services for its citizens?” he asked.

“Consider, if you will, that the U.S. might continue blindly on its present course of excessive nuclear armament, traveling alone and pointlessly down a blind alley of history and ending up militarily muscle-bound, uncompetitive in industry, agriculture or technology, irrelevant to the world of the 21st Century--and broke.”

Arms Control Shift Urged

It is time to shift the emphasis of arms control away from efforts to limit the numbers of weapons to the prevention of the use of weapons, Hart said.

Negotiations should focus on the weapons each side fears most, he said. For instance, the United States should limit Reagan’s proposed space-based anti-missile shield in exchange for reductions in the Soviets’ force of large intercontinental ballistic missiles, he said.

He called also for a comprehensive test ban agreement, improved verification, a freeze on the production of plutonium and all weapons-grade nuclear material, eventual elimination of first-strike weapons on both sides and binding non-proliferation agreements.

Aside from efforts to reduce the nuclear threat, Hart said, the United States and the Soviet Union should engage in joint scientific ventures, such as biomedical research, space exploration, efforts to eradicate world malnutrition or combating terrorism and halting nuclear proliferation.

Joint Youth Corps

“Why not an American-Soviet Youth Corps in the Third World--young teachers, doctors, agronomists and engineers, who would teach, heal, cultivate and build instead of establishing military bases and weapons that kill,” he said.

Hart’s speech was received politely. But, for most of the crowd of 750, more than three times the normal attendance, it was Hart’s celebrity that seemed to pique interest.

“Outside of two sitting presidents (Reagan and Jimmy Carter), Hart has generated more excitement among our members than any other speaker we’ve had,” said Craig Snyder, program director for the organization, noting that the speech had been sold out for a week.