Didn’t Order Vilnius Raid--Gorbachev

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev said today it was not he but a local military commander who ordered the assault that killed 14 civilians in the breakaway republic of Lithuania. But the Soviet leader left little doubt that he supported the action.

The weekend raid to seize a key radio and television station in the Baltic republic’s capital, Vilnius, was widely condemned abroad. Some Western critics said they were anxious to know if it was directly authorized by Gorbachev.

In his comments to reporters during a break at the Supreme Soviet in Moscow, Gorbachev did not identify by name the military leaders who ordered the assault. Nor, during his 10-minute conversation with reporters, did he express regret for the deaths or explain why he waited until today to comment on the violence.

“The manner of defense was decided by the commandant,” Gorbachev said of the assault. “I learned only in the morning, the early morning, when they got me up. When it happened, no one knew.”

Lithuania’s foreign minister, who is in Poland with instructions to form a government in exile if Moscow takes over the republic, said the army is taking control in the Soviet Union.

“In Vilnius, the Soviet army is the enemy, and nobody knows who is commanding it,” said Algirdas Saudargas.

Gorbachev said Sunday’s assault came after a group of what he called “workers and intellectuals” had asked the military commander in Vilnius to “give us protection.”

He appeared to be referring to opponents of Lithuanian independence who have formed a National Salvation Committee.

Sunday’s deaths were the first in the 10-month-old standoff between the Kremlin and the republic of 3.7 million people, which was annexed by the Soviet Union at the start of World War II.

The other Baltic republics--Latvia and Estonia--braced today for possible crackdowns. In Latvia, Communist Party and military officials demanded today that the republic’s separatist government resign or face a repeat of the events in Lithuania.

Ojar Potreki, the ideological secretary of the pro-Moscow Communist Party, demanded that the Latvian legislature “repeal all laws not conforming with the Soviet constitution”--that is, Latvia’s declaration of independence last spring.

Citizens set up barricades in the streets of Riga, the Latvian capital, and gathered to protect telephone and radio buildings. Latvia’s Parliament met through the night.

In Lithuania today, the streets were quiet.