Baker Note Insists Moscow Admit Cox Group to Lithuania

Secretary of State James A. Baker III fired off a telegram to the Soviet Foreign Ministry Wednesday, “insisting” that Moscow reverse its position and admit a congressional delegation to monitor Saturday’s elections in Lithuania, U.S. officials said.

Rep. C. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), one of four members of the observer delegation, said he was informed of Baker’s action Wednesday afternoon as he and his three colleagues waited in a West Berlin hotel for a resolution of the impasse.

“This has escalated to the very highest levels,” Cox said in a telephone interview. By the end of the working day in Moscow, however, Soviet officials had not changed their minds.

Meanwhile, officials said that the Soviet Union has told the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, informally known as the Helsinki Commission, that its delegates will not be admitted to monitor local elections in the Ukraine next month unless the commission receives an official invitation.

Created under the 1975 Helsinki accords to monitor human rights in Eastern Europe, the commission had been invited to send representatives to the Ukraine by local members of the Soviet Congress of People’s Deputies, a commission spokesman said.

“We’re in the process of trying to obtain an invitation through an official channel,” said spokesman Orest Deychak. The Ukrainian elections are scheduled for March 4.

Both developments indicate that Soviet officials are not eager to embrace U.S. representatives who propose to monitor the emergence of democracy within its borders, although Moscow has admitted official observers from Australia and Canada to watch the Lithuanian polling.

The four-member congressional group, appointed by House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) was dispatched at the invitation of Sajudis, a grass-roots independence movement in Lithuania.

Separatist sentiment has been growing in recent months in the Baltic republic, which was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 at the outset of World War II. Sajudis candidates are widely expected to win many, if not a majority, of the legislative seats at stake Saturday.

In addition to Cox, delegation members are Rep. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), chairman of the group; Rep. William Sarpalius (D-Tex.) and Rep. John Miller (R-Wash.).

“The Soviet refusal to issue visas is inconsistent with a pattern of broad contacts between legislators in both countries,” the State Department said. “The U.S. recently hosted a Supreme Soviet delegation for whom the U.S. provided all appropriate assistance.”

Cox said a State Department official told him that Baker “has directly cabled (Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A.) Shevardnadze with the strongest possible message of the United States’ displeasure, insisting that the (Soviet) position be changed.”

Cox added: “This will put the ball squarely in the Soviet’s court.”

Cox said Lithuanian contacts in the United States told the congressmen that Soviet officials had asked Sajudis to withdraw its invitation to the delegation, suggesting that a compromise is possible.

“It’s like a yo-yo,” Cox said. “We’re told there is a breakthrough, and then we’re told there’s no hope.” The delegation will remain in West Berlin at least through today, Cox said.