Baker Analysis: Soviets Sincere, Reform Flawed

Secretary of State James A. Baker III said Wednesday he is convinced that Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev is committed to moving his country toward a market economy. But he said he is not sure that the Soviet government’s current economic reform plan can do the job.

Baker met for more than an hour with a team of Soviet officials who came to plead Moscow’s case for Western help in moving the reform program forward and indicated that the Administration is willing to work with the Soviets on the plan.

His comments suggested that the Administration, while remaining skeptical about the reform plan, is increasingly willing to consider economic aid if a new, more effective plan emerges.

“I am satisfied that the leadership of the Soviet Union has, as a fundamental goal, moving toward a market economy,” Baker told reporters at the State Department. “But I think we should not lose sight of the fact . . . that you have here a situation where a country is trying to change 70 years of political and economic philosophy and change it in a way that moves it in exactly the opposite direction. Now, that is not easy.”

Before the United States considers direct economic aid to the Soviet Union, he said, the Administration needs to be convinced that the Kremlin’s program can work--”that the program that is supported by that assistance will, in fact, move that economy to a free market status.” The Soviets agreed with that point, Baker added.

Baker’s remarks were characteristically cautious, but they went a step beyond some previous statements. In the past, he and other officials have said that it was not clear that Gorbachev is genuinely committed to transforming the Soviet economy from its current state-administered form to a market-based system.

The leader of the Soviet delegation, Gorbachev adviser Yevgeny M. Primakov, said that he sought no specific aid commitments from the Administration.

“We’re not talking about any specific numbers,” he said. “We’re talking about consistent cooperation between the two countries aimed at moving (the Soviet Union) toward a market economy.”

All the Soviet government intended to do this week, he added, was to present a draft program “which could evolve, which could be modernized.”

A Baker aide said that the plan is “an unfinished document” and so it has not been possible to judge whether it would be effective.

Soviet officials have said that their new proposals center on accelerated moves toward putting both agriculture and industry in private hands and freeing prices from state control--if they can obtain both Western aid and Western investments to ease what would be a painful transition.