Bush Calls for Return of Gorbachev to Power : U.S. reaction: President denounces ouster as illegitimate, warns that economic cooperation may end.

President Bush, denouncing the ouster of Mikhail S. Gorbachev as a “coup backed by the KGB and the military,” called Monday for the embattled Soviet president to be restored to power.

“This misguided and illegitimate effort bypasses both Soviet law and the will of the Soviet peoples,” Bush said in a two-page statement issued after a series of crisis meetings in the White House.

“Accordingly, we support (Russian Federation) President (Boris N.) Yeltsin’s call for ‘restoration of the legally elected organs of power and the reaffirmation of the post of U.S.S.R. President M. S. Gorbachev.’ ”

Bush’s written statement was far tougher both in tone and content than his earlier remarks at a press conference in Kennebunkport, Me., where he warned the new Kremlin leadership that it would forfeit the chance for Western economic cooperation if it abandoned democracy and reform. But, at that time, he did not suggest that Gorbachev could be returned to power.

The President said that his Administration wants the reform process in the Soviet Union to continue. “We support all constitutionally elected leaders and oppose the use of force or intimidation to suppress them or restrict their right to free speech,” he said.

One source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that U.S. intelligence officials fear that the coup planners may have Yeltsin arrested to prevent him from rallying the public against the new regime.

An Administration official cautioned late Monday that the President’s tough new language calling for Gorbachev’s return did not reflect any new optimism that the ousted leader might be brought back to power.

Indeed, the official said the blunt warnings issued by Bush against any use of force in the Baltics stemmed from very real concerns that the new Soviet leadership, emboldened by its success, might now step up its military efforts to force the breakaway Baltic states back into the central fold.

In endorsing Yeltsin’s call for a return of Gorbachev to power, the official said, the Administration sought primarily to show support for the now-threatened Russian president--without at the same time embracing his more controversial agenda urging the further erosion of the power of the central government in Moscow.

Earlier, Administration officials had seemed almost to write off Gorbachev and to concentrate instead on discouraging the new leadership from launching a round of repression or trying to oust Yeltsin from his elected post as head of the Russian Federation, the largest and most important of the 15 constituent republics.

“I think you’ve got to remember this is an internal development in the Soviet Union and it is not something that we are directly engaged in. . . . It’s not up to the United States,” White House National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft told reporters aboard Air Force One on the flight back to Washington from the President’s vacation home in Kennebunkport. “The Soviet Union is going to have to work it out for itself.”

Bush broke off his vacation and returned to Washington for meetings with senior advisers as the Administration sought to sort out what the President termed the “momentous and stunning events” that ended the reign of the most Western-oriented leader in Soviet history.

The President, describing the eight-man committee that has assumed power as “hard-liners,” said that the West would “put things on hold” in relations with Moscow if the Kremlin seeks to reverse Gorbachev’s policies.

Bush also expressed strong objections to the method of the takeover. “I’ve indicated that business will not be business as usual,” he said, if the new Soviet leaders rule by “extra-constitutional means.”

“There’s a lot at stake here,” Bush told an early morning news conference before leaving the Maine coast ahead of Hurricane Bob’s anticipated arrival in the evening.

One Administration official noted that while Gennady I. Yanayev may hold titular authority as head of the new leadership committee, the United States believes that true power is held by other, even more conservative members of the group. The official named Defense Minister Dmitri T. Yazov, KGB chief Vladimir A. Kryuchkov and Interior Minister Boris K. Pugo as “the strongest guys” in the new leadership lineup.

In Washington, Soviet Ambassador Viktor G. Komplektov visited the State Department within hours of the announcement in Moscow, seeking to assure the U.S. government that the change in leadership should not dampen the post-Cold War relationship between Washington and Moscow. He also conferred at the White House with Deputy National Security Adviser Robert M. Gates.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that Komplektov delivered essentially the same conciliatory message that Yanayev delivered in a Moscow press conference.

“I stressed that we are going to continue the line of social and economic reform--political reform, too,” Komplektov told reporters after his quarter-hour meeting with Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger. “We are going to develop further the good relations with all countries and particularly with the United States.”

Boucher said that U.S. officials had detected no overt anti-American element in Monday’s events. He said that all U.S. government employees stationed in the Soviet Union had been accounted for and were safe and there were no reports of injuries to any U.S. citizens in the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the State Department suggested that Americans defer travel to the Soviet Union and that those in the country avoid large public demonstrations and keep in contact with the U.S. Embassy.

U.S. officials welcomed the tone of the Soviet messages, but said that the words did nothing to obscure the illegal nature of Gorbachev’s overthrow.

Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the Ronald Reagan Administration, said that the U.S. government should be skeptical of the Soviet reassurances.

“The Soviet Union is in an economic crisis,” Kirkpatrick said. “Any Soviet government must be concerned about its relations with Germany, the United States and the world generally.”

Administration officials said the decision to adopt the tough new language calling for restoration of Gorbachev to power emerged from a high-level strategy session of senior officials held in the Roosevelt Room of the White House across the hall from the Oval Office.

Among those gathered in the windowless room for the session were Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft; Eagleburger; Deputy Secretary of Defense Donald Atwood; Richard Kerr, deputy director of central intelligence, and White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu.

Earlier in the day, Bush had expressed reservations about accepting the official reassurances offered by the new Soviet leadership. “I don’t know whether to take heart or not from Yanayev’s statement that this does not mean turning back the reforms,” he told reporters in a small cottage on his 11-acre compound at Walker’s Point.

“I wouldn’t go forward with aid or assistance when you have this kind of extra-constitutional action taken by a handful of people backed up by the military there,” the President continued. “We know most of these people that are involved in all of this, and this is a fairly hard-lined, a very hard-lined, group that have elected to take matters into their own hands.”

Even before Bush left Kennebunkport, his advisers hurriedly conducted a series of urgent meetings to determine options available to the Administration.

Officials said that possible responses include holding back support for Soviet associate status in the International Monetary Fund, reducing credits for grain purchases and stepping back from a pledge to grant the Soviet Union “most-favored-nation” trade status. IMF associate membership would help the Soviet Union gain access to needed international loans, while most-favored-nation trade status would allow it to ship goods to the United States at the lowest possible tariffs.

Non-government experts on U.S.-Soviet relations, however, said that there is very little the Administration can do at this point.

“We should sit tight and see what is happening,” said former CIA Deputy Director George Carver. “The political genie of freedom is awfully hard to stuff back into the bottle once you let it out. But if they attempt to stuff it back, it could get messy.”

Former President Reagan, who developed a close personal relationship with Gorbachev, also denounced the coup.

“Like all Americans, I view with great concern and alarm the developments in the Soviet Union,” Reagan said. “So much remains unclear, and I await further information. However, I can’t believe that the Soviet people will allow a reversal in the progress that they have recently made toward economic and political freedom.

“Based on my extensive meetings and conversations with him, I am convinced that President Gorbachev had the best interest of the Soviet people in mind,” Reagan added. “I have always felt that his opposition came from the Communist bureaucracy, and I can only hope that enough progress was made that a movement toward democracy will be unstoppable.”

Bush said of Gorbachev’s removal: “I think throwing him out in this manner is counterproductive--totally.”

The President planned to meet at the White House this morning with Baker and the new U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, Robert S. Strauss, who is to be sworn in today.

Bush’s return to Washington had a rushed and gloomy feel, as his motorcade swept through the pre-hurricane downpour along Interstate 95 in an eerie, midday dusk, buffeted by blasts of wind. At Pease Air National Guard Base, in New Hampshire, the President made a rain-soaked dash onto Air Force One, which was rocked in the darkened skies on takeoff.

After speaking by telephone in the early morning hours with the leaders of Britain, France and Germany, Bush said that Gorbachev’s ouster did not signal a return to the Cold War.

But, just three weeks after signing the first U.S.-Soviet treaty to reduce the arsenals of long-range nuclear weapons, Bush warned: “We expect that the Soviet Union will live up fully to its international obligations.”

Failure to do so, Bush said, will produce “a whole new ballgame.”

Bush said that he still plans to submit the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty to the Senate for ratification because the pact remains in the best interest of the United States. But Capitol Hill sources and nongovernment experts said that it will be almost impossible to obtain approval for the treaty in the current climate.

Bush said he is uncertain of the motivation behind the change in leadership, but stated:

“Clearly, some of the hard-liners have been concerned about the rapidity of reform. They’ve been concerned about the demise of the Communist Party per se. And I think they’ve also been concerned about the Soviet economy.”

But the Administration nevertheless is reeling from the suddenness of the takeover, even though officials have been aware for months of the increasing anger of hard-line elements in the Soviet Union, whose frustration with the failing course of the Soviet economy and the fallen position of the Communist Party had made Gorbachev’s position tenuous.

Kempster reported from Washington and Gerstenzang from Kennebunkport. Times staff writer Douglas Jehl, in Kennebunkport, contributed to this report.