‘100-Billion’ Remark by Gorbachev Is Clarified

Confusion has arisen about the extent of economic assistance the Soviet Union is seeking from the West to underwrite its reform program, as the result of a slightly abridged translation of President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s remarks by the official interpreter from the Soviet Foreign Ministry.

Noting the importance of perestroika for the world as a whole at a press conference here Wednesday, Gorbachev argued that, if the West could find $100 billion to resolve a regional crisis, alluding to the Persian Gulf War, then supporting Soviet political and economic reforms is even more worthwhile.

“No matter what aspect you consider--strategic, military, economic--it is all very serious,” he said of the implications of the current Soviet crisis for the world. “If 100 billion could be found to settle a regional crisis, then the question of cooperation with the Soviet Union to carry out perestroika, through profound reforms opening up the country, turning it to the individual domestically as well as to the world--then I think that game is worth the candle.”

An edited text of his remarks, which was published by the Communist Party newspaper Pravda on Friday and from which the above translation is drawn, made clear that Gorbachev was indeed appealing for a colossal amount of Western assistance, but that the $100 billion referred to the cost to the West of the Gulf War rather than to a specific Soviet plan, as the official translation had suggested.

According to U.S. economists helping the Kremlin draft an integrated reform and assistance program, however, Moscow is likely to need from $15 billion to $20 billion in aid each year for five years, and one top American specialist puts the total as high as $150 billion.

Gorbachev, who just before his press conference had met with Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, pushed hard for a chance to present his case to the Group of Seven major industrialized democracies at its summit meeting in London in mid-July. Andreotti supported Gorbachev’s request, and President Bush said later that he is discussing the proposal with other leaders.

Meanwhile, Gorbachev’s chief foreign policy adviser met Friday with the U.S. ambassador here to discuss the Soviet Union’s needs for Western economic aid.

Yevgeny M. Primakov, who will travel to Washington on Monday as Gorbachev’s special envoy, met with Ambassador Jack F. Matlock Jr., the official Soviet news agency Tass reported, and discussed the aid that the United States and other industrialized Western countries could provide for the next stage of Moscow’s reforms.

A team of senior Soviet economists Friday continued its weeklong meeting with American advisers at Harvard University in Cambridge in an effort to pull together a detailed program that would match Western assistance with specific steps in the radical transformation of the Soviet economy.

Primakov and Vladimir Shcherbakov, the deputy premier overseeing the country’s economic reforms, are scheduled to meet with Bush and senior U.S. officials for two days of intensive talks in Washington next week.