Speedy U.S. Aid to Soviet Union Urged by Kohl : Diplomacy: Bush agrees that food assistance must ‘go forward’ soon. But he says long-term help is ‘not ready yet.’

German Chancellor Helmut Kohl pressed President Bush on Monday to provide aid quickly to the Soviet Union, warning that later on “things will get far more expensive than they are now.”

Kohl’s remark at a White House press conference underscored the debate among Western nations over what to do about the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Bush, who prefers withholding full financial assistance until economic reforms are in place, said that he and Kohl agreed that food assistance must “go forward very soon in order to avert hunger.”

“Certainly there are some medical supplies that might be necessary to avert medical catastrophe this winter,” the President added. As for long-range economic assistance, he said: “We will move as expeditiously as we can, but we’re not ready yet.”

But he stepped back from statements made during the past several months that the United States and the Soviet Union cannot be allies if Soviet missiles remain aimed at targets in this country.

“The threat is far less today--far, far less than it’s been,” he said. “And let’s hope that the dramatic progress that has taken place over the past couple of weeks continues and we may not have that problem to contend with. Certainly, we don’t have it to contend with now as we did in the past.

“But clearly, if the missiles were not aimed at the United States, it would facilitate a lot of things,” he added.

Bush and Kohl spent nearly three hours together at midday, reviewing developments in the Soviet Union, proposals for Western assistance to the central government and the republics and, among other topics, the status of stalled international trade talks. Their meeting was their first since the failed attempt to overthrow Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev spurred dramatic economic and political reforms across the Soviet Union.

Bush Administration deliberations over the last four weeks have focused on the remaking of the Soviet Union and Western aid for the breakaway republics, and a steady stream of Administration officials has been commuting to Moscow.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III left the Soviet Union on Monday, and Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady leaves Washington today for a 48-hour visit there. After his session with Kohl, Bush conferred with Brady, who will focus on economic reform proposals, the Soviets’ financial situation and acceleration of proposed Soviet participation in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Despite his interest in seeing emergency aid speedily dispatched, Kohl said after the meeting that only when a “stable economic framework and economic development is launched” in the Soviet Union will the West be in a position “to actually help and assist the Soviet Union in its further development.”