U.S. Prepares Massive Boost in Soviet Aid

Responding to pressures from Congress and European allies, the Bush Administration plans a massive increase in food and humanitarian assistance to the Soviet Union to show support for President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s restored government, Administration officials said Wednesday.

President Bush, moving quickly to provide a gesture of political backing for Gorbachev and Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, is expected to announce in the next few days that he will lift the freeze on existing aid programs. He imposed it at the onset of this week’s failed coup.

The Administration also is preparing a new, significantly expanded aid package that is likely to include food shipments to help the Soviets through the coming winter, officials said. But the President is unlikely to announce that package immediately.

Despite the planned expansion of humanitarian assistance, officials said the Administration will not alter its basic policy on long-term economic aid to the Soviets. The White House has kept long-term commitments, such as big investments in Soviet industrial projects, to a minimum, arguing that such aid would be wasted unless the Soviets embark on more extensive economic and political reforms.

The proposed acceleration of humanitarian aid, being planned by senior White House officials, comes as Congress and the European allies are beginning to push for an expansion of Western assistance that was in the works before the aborted coup.

At an economic summit meeting in London in July, the Western powers had offered only limited economic aid to the Soviet Union. Critics charged that Gorbachev was weakened politically when he returned from London almost empty-handed.

On Capitol Hill, key Democrats, led by House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), are planning to advance their own package of increased aid. But Bush’s new program would almost certainly preempt that of the Democrats, depriving them of any political advantage they might seek from the Soviet crisis.

“The politics of Soviet aid have changed” overnight, said a senior Administration official. “So I think the likelihood that we will be more aggressive in terms of food and humanitarian assistance is very high.”

Administration officials said the President will seek to coordinate the expansion of food aid with U.S. allies through the Group of Seven, the organization of major industrial powers that tries to coordinate global economic policies. But a larger group of nations, known as the G-24 and including smaller Western countries, may join the effort. Eastern European nations--former satellites of the Soviet Union--also could provide humanitarian assistance.

While the Administration does not plan to propose new, non-humanitarian aid programs, some proposals already moving through Congress, notably a Bush plan to provide the Soviets with roughly $20 million in American technical assistance, may be speeded up.

But a senior Administration official said that “unless there is starvation in the streets this fall,” the United States will not try to expand long-term investments until Gorbachev and Yeltsin push through reforms that move the Soviet Union on a more direct path toward a market economy.

Some Administration officials are still concerned that a large-scale aid package that goes beyond simple food and humanitarian assistance would reduce incentives for the Soviets to convert their military-industrial complex to production of badly needed consumer goods.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III also cautioned that the Administration remains opposed to extensive long-term aid. “You are not going to see the Soviet Union succeed economically through the mechanism of check-writing on the part of others,” he said Wednesday in Brussels. “There have to be fundamental, free-market economic reforms.”

Another Administration official, however, stressed that “there may be some elements, like technical assistance, that can move faster.”

At this point, the White House does not plan to try to publicly pressure or jawbone U.S. corporations and banks to get them to invest more private funds in the Soviet Union, officials said. “The basic fact of the matter is that large-scale private investment in the Soviet Union will only follow economic reform,” said one Administration official.

The Administration’s internal planning to expand food and humanitarian assistance comes as pressure has built from European allies and from Congress to take action. European governments, notably Germany, are eager to show their support for Gorbachev, especially since they are so close to the Soviet Union and felt more directly threatened by this week’s coup.

On Capitol Hill, a debate began Wednesday over American aid, and leading Democrats made it clear that they will push Bush to move quickly.

The President has been criticized by liberal Democrats in Congress for failing to provide more assistance to Gorbachev before the coup, but Administration officials contend there previously was not enough political support for increased aid. And even congressional advocates of more Soviet aid acknowledge that the deficit-ridden U.S. government does not have enough money to provide the kind of massive assistance that Gorbachev had been seeking.

But the failed coup already has reopened the political debate over existing proposals, and leaders in both parties believe there now is greater bipartisan support for the kind of assistance package that Bush’s advisers apparently are assembling.

Gephardt, ridiculed by Republicans when he first proposed economic aid for the Soviet Union in early 1990, is expected to resume his efforts when Congress reconvenes after Labor Day, according to his aides.

“There will be a renewed debate over the proposals that Gephardt made in March, 1990,” predicted a source in the House Democratic leadership. “We now have a second chance to embark on a program of economic assistance. Let’s not blow this second chance.”

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), interviewed by phone from Warsaw where he has been meeting with Polish officials, predicted that a shift in U.S. public sentiment will enable Congress to approve increased aid. “It is in our interest that reform in the Soviet Union succeed,” he said. “The American people want reforms to succeed and will do what it takes for the reforms to succeed.”

Levin called on Congress and the Administration to provide agricultural credits, food aid and technical assistance on a “much larger scale” than was being done before the coup.

Despite this week’s dramatic events in Moscow, outspoken opponents of increased assistance in Congress seem unlikely to reverse their position, even if Bush offers a new proposal.

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), a leading critic of Gephardt’s proposals, said the coup is proof that the Soviet Union still cannot be trusted. “If there is one lesson to be learned from the coup attempt,” Dole said, “it is that America can never afford to drop its guard, no matter how things look on a given day.”

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of both the Senate Agriculture and Foreign Operations committees, said that while he does not rule out additional assistance to the Soviets, he agrees with the Administration that it must be conditioned on evidence of irreversible movement toward democracy.

“I think the biggest mistake the United States could do once this coup is over would be to feel that we must do something, no matter what it is, whether it is right or wrong,” Leahy said.