Deny Economic Aid to Moscow, Baltics Ask U.S.

Leaders of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia went to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to ask lawmakers to deny more export credits or other economic aid to the Soviet Union until Moscow starts negotiations on independence for the three Baltic republics.

Acting partly in deference to their request, the Senate temporarily set aside a resolution that would conditionally endorse $1.5 billion in additional export credits for Soviet purchases of American grain.

The chief sponsor of the resolution, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), said he may modify the measure before it comes to a vote in the Senate to reflect some of the Baltic leaders’ concerns about efforts by Moscow to stifle the independence movements.

Earlier, Dole said that former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze strongly favors additional U.S. export credits to help continue the process of reform started by Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Several senators, however, said they would oppose grain sales on credit to the Soviet Union in the absence of concrete assurances of repayment or ratification of any export agreement by the nine Soviet republics that have entered into a power-sharing agreement with Moscow.

Others, including Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.) and Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), indicated they would not support export credits to Moscow because of the Soviet regime’s repression of independence movements in the Baltic republics.

Meantime, in a highly unusual series of meetings with Senate leaders and testimony before a congressional commission, the three Baltic visitors made their case for independence from the Soviet Union.

Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis, Estonian Prime Minister Edgar Savisaar and Latvian Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis said that only active Western involvement on their behalf would get Moscow to negotiate terms of their withdrawal from the Soviet Union.

They will get a chance to make their views known directly to President Bush when they visit the White House today.