Gorbachev Hints at Force in Lithuania, Kennedy Says

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev indicated today the Soviet Union might be prepared to use force in breakaway Lithuania if lives are threatened, but stressed his commitment to a peaceful solution, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said.

Kennedy told correspondents after a meeting with Gorbachev that the Kremlin leader had spent most of their 90-minute session discussing Lithuania, which declared its independence March 11.

“President Gorbachev indicated to me that the position of the Soviet Union is that there will be no use of force unless lives are threatened,” Kennedy told a news conference.

Kennedy said Gorbachev stressed his “commitment to a peaceful resolution to the issues which divide the people of the Soviet Union.”

The senator said he warned Gorbachev that U.S.-Soviet relations will be damaged if the Kremlin uses the military to subdue Lithuania.

Gorbachev’s remarks came as Soviet military officials refused to pull out paratroops from key points in Lithuania.

In the continuing war of nerves between Lithuanian leaders and Moscow, the Kremlin sent troops to seize a number of public buildings, including the Communist Party headquarters.

Meanwhile, Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis today accused Moscow of trying to undermine him to stymie the Baltic republic’s drive for independence.

“They want to make a split even at the top of our government,” Landsbergis, founding father of the Sajudis independence movement, told Parliament.

Despite Landsbergis’ election as president by Parliament on March 11, Moscow has been having high-level contacts with the man he defeated for the post, Algirdas Brazauskas.

Brazauskas, head of Lithuania’s now independent Communist Party, is currently a deputy prime minister in the new non-Communist government dominated by Sajudis.

Observers believe Brazauskas is the only Lithuanian politician with whom Gorbachev will talk to resolve the crisis on the future of the republic.