A-Weapons Under Control, Gorbachev, Yeltsin Insist

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin, in an unprecedented joint appearance on American television, insisted Thursday that Soviet nuclear weapons remain under firm control despite the country’s political upheaval.

But, despite their efforts to project an image of cooperation, the two hinted at continuing disagreements over who would actually have the last word in controlling the arsenal of what remains the world’s second-strongest military superpower.

They also disagreed over fundamental questions about the future shape of economic relations between the Soviet Union and the West.

And, in a moment that would have been unthinkable until recently, both publicly admitted that the Communist experiment in the Soviet Union had been a failure.

Yeltsin said communism had been a “tragedy for our people. And it was too bad it happened on our territory. It would have been better if had happened in some smaller country.”

Gorbachev agreed that the experience “has allowed us to say in a decisive fashion that the model has failed.”

On nuclear policy, both Gorbachev and Yeltsin insisted that official controls on the nation’s more than 25,000 nuclear weapons are “extremely rigid” and leave no cause for concern. The military control systems “exclude the possibility of any surprises,” Gorbachev said.

But Yeltsin, after noting that nuclear weapons currently are located in three of the Soviet Union’s republics, said that a process “will be under way” soon to move all such weapons onto the territory of his Russian Federation. Control over the weapons will be “territorial,” he added.

Then, as Yeltsin prepared to answer a follow-up question about the country’s military control system, Gorbachev intervened. “The supreme commander in chief is the president of the U.S.S.R.,” he said, then added that the details of nuclear control remain a military secret.

Gorbachev’s abrupt answer indicates that he intends to try to keep control of nuclear weapons in the hands of the central government, which he heads, rather than allowing the power to slip to Yeltsin’s Russian Federation, the largest of the republics into which the Soviet Union is divided.

On economic policy, Gorbachev also indicated a desire to retain a strong role for central authorities, saying that relations with the United States and other Western countries should be handled through his government. Yeltsin bluntly disagreed.

“The American leadership must bear in mind that it will be necessary to change” past practices, he said. In the future, foreign countries will have to use a “two-path system,” with matters of “principle” negotiated with the central government but all substantive issues handled “directly through the republics,” Yeltsin said.

Asked if he meant that his federation would try to establish its own economic relations with the West and let the other republics fend for themselves, Yeltsin replied, “You have correctly understood me.”

The exchanges between the two provided American viewers--as well as audiences in the Soviet Union and much of Europe--a firsthand look at relations between the two most prominent political figures in the Soviet Union. Answering questions on subjects ranging from the Olympics to their religious views--Gorbachev said he remains an “atheist,” Yeltsin said he sometimes goes to church but does not observe the “ritual aspects” of religion--the two generally tried to bury their often testy past relations.

As their questioners stood at microphones in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Miami, Houston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, Detroit and Atlanta, Gorbachev and Yeltsin sat side by side in armchairs behind a polished coffee table in the ornate St. George’s Hall of the Kremlin. Just over one month ago, the same hall was the site where Gorbachev welcomed President Bush to a superpower summit--hosting an official greeting ceremony that Yeltsin boycotted to avoid being upstaged.

“Our relationship has not been an easy one,” Yeltsin admitted at the outset of the program. Now, however, “we’re committed to common work.” Gorbachev, for his part, insisted that past differences are now “water under the bridge.”

Asked if he is in danger of becoming a pawn in a power game dominated by Yeltsin, Gorbachev said: “There has been a lot of talk about that--who is using whom. This is not entirely correct.”

He insisted that major decisions will be made cooperatively by the new State Council that was voted into being earlier Thursday.

And the two agreed on several subjects put to them. Both praised Bush and both insisted that the Soviet people are now prepared to embrace a free-market system--an assertion that many American experts on the Soviet Union doubt.

Similarly, the two agreed that anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union is declining and offered assurances that rights of minority groups will be protected in the future.

And both agreed that the Soviet Union will withdraw its military forces from Cuba, although neither offered a schedule for accomplishing that goal.