Soviets Double Request to West for Food Aid

The Soviet Union, warning that it faces potentially severe food shortages as another bitter winter approaches, Thursday doubled the amount it is asking for emergency food aid from the West. Moscow’s $14.7-billion request, almost six times what the European Community initially had estimated the Soviets would need, clearly caught Western leaders off guard.

The latest aid request renewed potentially troubling questions about precisely who will assist the Soviets and how that will be done. Doubts also persist about the accuracy of official projections of the extent of possible Soviet food shortages.

Yuri Luzhkov, deputy chairman of the Soviet Economic Management Committee, told EC officials in Brussels that billions of dollars in aid are needed to offset what could be a drop of as much as 30% in Soviet food production this year.

He proposed that the 12-nation EC provide $7 billion, with the rest to come from the United States, Canada, Japan and individual European countries.

But a senior U.S. official said the figure seems to be “a high number.” An EC official told the Associated Press that the request needs “a lot more clarification.”

The Soviet government first made a request for $7.25 billion in EC food aid last week in a letter to EC Commission President Jacques Delors, who had earlier estimated that Moscow needed only about $2.4 billion in such assistance.

In Moscow, U.S. Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady played down the prospect of massive food aid. Brady, who has been meeting with Soviet leaders for two days, said that Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev made no specific requests for aid during a nearly two-hour meeting with Brady and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

What the Soviets need most, Brady said, is Western expertise in accounting, business law and other basic tools of capitalism--”the types of skills we teach in our business schools.” He said President Bush is considering establishing a sort of capitalist peace corps, with a campus in Moscow where U.S. experts could teach basic business practices.

At the same time, Brady said, the United States is ready to do what it can to help the Soviets through what could be an extraordinarily difficult winter. He noted that the U.S. government pledged $2.5 billion in the past two years.

U.S. officials with Brady and Greenspan said Soviet leaders repeatedly expressed concern about the approaching winter. But they said the U.S. team did not receive clear signals on the size of the need for food aid.

“There are those who are more concerned and those who are less so,” one senior member of the U.S. delegation said. Some Soviet policy-makers believe that because food shortages have been widely anticipated, many people have squirreled away food and fuel. “The mere concern that everyone has exhibited may be part of the solution,” the official said.

One complication is the Soviet food distribution system, which is not up to the task of getting aid to those who need it. Donors also are unsure whether the aid should be sent to the central government or the increasingly independent republics.

Brady said Soviet officials repeatedly assured him that any problems could be worked out, possibly by arranging the distribution through the Red Cross or another international agency.

In Washington, other Administration officials said they now believe that the Soviets will not face widespread famine this winter but may be confronted with spot shortages of food.

Despite that assessment, Agriculture Department officials, just back from the Soviet Union, said the United States still plans to provide food aid and may send teams of American experts to distribute it to key points throughout the country.

An Agriculture Department official who briefed reporters in Washington on Thursday said the Soviets told the U.S. team they are primarily interested in shipments of wheat, soybean meal, corn and other feed grains. The wheat would be for human consumption, while the feed grains would be used to feed livestock being raised for meat and dairy products.

The U.S. officials, who visited six cities throughout the country, said food shortages seem worst in northern urban centers and the vast stretches of the Russian Federation from the Urals to Siberia, as well as in Armenia, which has been torn by ethnic strife.

But food supplies seem to be much better in the Central Asian republics, where private markets and private food distribution channels seem to be functioning well.

The Administration official said that Soviet leaders, as well as republic officials, have widely differing opinions on the severity of the nation’s food shortages, which may explain why some Soviet leaders are still publicly warning of famine, while others are privately agreeing with U.S. officials that the food situation is not that severe.

In Moscow, the Soviet news agency Tass reported that the Soviet Ministry of Agriculture does not expect a winter famine, although “shortages of foodstuffs, especially bread and flour, may occur in certain regions of the country.”

Brady and Greenspan conclude their Soviet visit today with a stop in Kiev, where they will get an assessment of the economic situation from Ukrainian officials.

In Brussels, Frans Andriessen, the EC commissioner for external affairs, showed signs of frustration at the potentially huge task of trying to assist the Soviets, Reuters news service reported.

Andriessen, who visited the Soviet Union earlier this month, said he does not see himself in the role of world coordinator of aid to the Soviet Union. Addressing European Parliament members Wednesday evening, he warned that it might take on responsibilities it does not have the resources to fulfill, Reuters said.

He cited great difficulties in organizing the distribution of a much smaller amount of $300 million in food aid agreed upon by the EC’s Rome summit last December and still mostly unspent.

Tumulty reported from Moscow and Risen reported from Washington.