U.S. Open to Talks With Soviet Party Dissidents

The Bush Administration will open a dialogue with Boris N. Yeltsin and other Soviet Communist Party defectors if they establish themselves as a genuine political opposition, Secretary of State James A. Baker III said Monday.

Baker said the Administration hopes to deal with Soviet dissidents just as it did with the democratic forces that ousted Communist regimes in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and East Germany.

“The way we have approached similar situations in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe is that we have taken care to touch base with the opposition . . . to make sure that we understand where the opposition is coming from and that they know where we are coming from,” he said. “I don’t think that is inappropriate just because it is the Soviet Union.”

In the past, U.S. officials have shunned Yeltsin and other dissidents while trying to work closely with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and his aides.

Baker spoke to reporters on a flight from Washington to Paris, where he will attend German reunification talks today.

In addition to the so-called two-plus-four talks involving the two German states and the four victorious powers of World War II, Baker will meet with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze on Wednesday.

Baker said it is important for Washington also to understand the objectives of Yeltsin and other radicals who broke with the Communist Party last week, during the 28th Communist Party Congress in Moscow.

Baker said that as a result of the congress, Gorbachev “once again strengthened his internal political situation.”

“The bad news for them is that there is a party split and there will be people pushing the agenda of another organization, whatever it turns out to be, and making the case with the Soviet people that the system has failed and that it’s the fault of the people who have been in charge,” Baker said.

“He (Gorbachev) will have to fend off political attacks from those (who) have left the party,” he added.

The third in a series of monthly two-plus-four talks is expected to concentrate on the German-Polish border issue.

U.S. officials said Washington expects the Germans and the Poles to settle the matter among themselves without the intervention of the four victorious World War II allies--the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France.

At the end of the war, vast tracts of what had been eastern Germany were ceded to Poland in partial compensation for about twice as much formerly Polish territory that was added to the Soviet Union.

Both East Germany and West Germany have sought to reassure Warsaw that a united Germany will not try to regain its lost territory. But Polish officials are demanding firmer guarantees.