Baker Offers Baltics Promises, Not Much Cash : Diplomacy: Aides acknowledge that his whirlwind visit is mostly symbolic, the aid only stopgap.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III zipped through the three newly independent Baltic states on Saturday, promising their struggling governments that the United States will help remake their economies but bringing only minimal financial aid.

Baker spent three hours each in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, presenting each country’s president with one of the Baltic flags that hung in the State Department lobby during the half-century that the little republics were under Soviet rule.

Along with the flags, Baker brought news of $14 million in immediate U.S. aid to be used for a long list of needs, from medical supplies and agricultural advice to training in democracy, for members of the three Baltic parliaments.

But aides acknowledged that the aid is only a stopgap measure, and the purpose of the visit was as much symbolic as substantive: to associate the Bush Administration publicly with the Baltic countries’ hard-won victory and to assure their leaders that the United States will try to look after them even if it won’t spend much money.

Soviet dictator Josef Stalin seized the Baltic states in 1940, but the United States never acknowledged the conquest and insisted that the republics would someday regain their independence.

“I want to convey the great pleasure of the American people that something that we and the people of Estonia have long wanted has now been confirmed,” Baker told Estonian President Arnold Ruutel in his capital of Tallinn. He repeated the sentiment later in Latvia and Lithuania. “ . . . We want to do what we can to support (you).”

The Baltic leaders, who have become practiced at welcoming foreign ministers bearing gifts--one Estonian official said Baker was their 40th--responded in kind.

Even Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis, who earlier this year denounced the Bush Administration for giving too little support to his independence effort, had only kind words for Baker on Saturday.

“I am feeling, myself, very well” about U.S. policy, Landsbergis told reporters.

The Baltic leaders asked Baker to intercede with the Soviet government in Moscow to help speed the withdrawal of the Soviet Union’s remaining troops in the area, estimated by U.S. officials to number roughly 100,000. But Baker was unable to promise that he could speed the withdrawal before the Jan. 1, 1994, date that Soviet leaders have already suggested.

“We can discuss it (in Moscow), as we will,” Baker said. But he added that the United States has “limited resources” and would be unable to help pay any of the costs of moving the Soviet troops out.

Baker met a low-key reception and largely empty streets, except in Vilnius, where a crowd of perhaps 800 people waved American and Lithuanian flags--and tried to drown out a competing demonstration of ethnic Poles who were complaining that the new Lithuanian state has canceled the local autonomy that they enjoyed under Soviet rule.

In Tallinn, the hilly green capital of Estonia, a small crowd briefly applauded Baker as he arrived at the office of Prime Minister Edgar Savisaar, but they had gathered only because they were attending a funeral in the Russian Orthodox church across the street.

“It’s Saturday, and people are out picking potatoes,” explained Viivika Vool, a 21-year-old college student who happened to pass by.

In Riga, the businesslike seaport capital of Latvia, the inhabitants never even had a chance to see Baker, who sped from the airport to the gray stone Parliament building and then back again.

But in Vilnius, where Lithuanian nationalists had fought repeated battles with Soviet troops in pressing their demand for independence, local radio stations had broadcast the time and place of Baker’s meeting with Landsbergis. A cheerful crowd gathered among the concrete block barricades that still surround the president’s office.

“We rely on America,” said Aldona Ramanauskaite, a 67-year-old retired shop clerk, tears welling in her eyes and her voice quavering. “We are only little Lithuania. We needed your help before to win our independence, and now we need your economic help.”