Baker Offers U.S. Technical Aid to Kremlin
Secretary of State James A. Baker III offered Wednesday to provide American technical assistance to help the Soviet Union rebuild its crumbling system for transporting and distributing goods.
A senior State Department official said Baker gave Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze a paper outlining possible U.S. aid to Soviet economic reform during a 2 1/2-hour meeting.
The Bush Administration has ruled out costly financial aid to Moscow, but it has long been ready to give the Soviet Union the benefit of its technical expertise. President Bush made such an offer to Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev during their summit meeting last year in Malta.
The State Department official said the paper that Baker gave Shevardnadze on Wednesday spelled out the details of the Bush offer. In addition to transportation, the report suggested U.S. help in establishing a Soviet banking system and in improving its housing stock.
Baker and Shevardnadze cut short their Paris meeting to permit the Soviet foreign minister to keep an appointment with French President Francois Mitterrand.
Baker said he and Shevardnadze will resume their dialogue Aug. 1 in the Soviet city of Irkutsk.
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