Moscow Should Free Baltic States, Nixon Asserts

Former President Richard M. Nixon said Friday that the Soviet refusal to free the Baltic states is hurting relations with Washington and that the Kremlin should move swiftly to grant independence.

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev should move “expeditiously to respect the wishes of the people of the Baltics, which were overwhelmingly clear when they voted for independence,” Nixon said.

Speaking to the Institute of World Economics and International Relations, Nixon said his call for Baltic independence could be interpreted as interference in Soviet internal affairs, “but when internal problems affect foreign policy, then it is everyone’s business.”

He said Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, were illegally incorporated under a Hitler-Stalin pact.

“The United States has never recognized the legality of Soviet domination over these nations,” Nixon told institute members.

The Soviets have admitted that the Baltics were “forcibly annexed” but said a later vote by the people on whether to stay in the union was not forced on them.

All three Baltic states have recently held non-binding referendums on independence, with the vast majority of voters calling for freedom from Moscow.

Nixon praised Gorbachev for his political reforms but said his economic policies have failed because the Soviet leader ignored two basic tenets: “There is no halfway house between a command economy and a free economy, and there can be no successful private enterprise without private ownership.”