Gorbachev Picks 9-Man Political Consultant Unit

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev on Wednesday announced the formation of a nine-man consultative team that includes many of his early advisers on restructuring the Soviet government, including former Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze.

The Tass news agency said that three members of the council will lead the Soviet Union’s coming negotiations over economic and other ties with the three Baltic states, which won their independence this month.

Tass said that Shevardnadze, who resigned as foreign minister last December, warning that the government had taken a conservative turn, will lead the negotiations with Lithuania. Leningrad Mayor Anatoly Sobchak will head the delegation to Estonia, and former Gorbachev adviser Alexander N. Yakovlev will head the Soviet team in Latvia.

The other members of the consultative council are Vadim V. Bakatin, the new head of the Soviet KGB security police; Moscow Mayor Gavriil Popov; Yuri Ryzhov, chairman of the Soviet parliamentary committee for science and technology; Yevgeny P. Velikhov, an academic; Nikolai Petrakov, director of the Institute of Markets at the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and Yegor V. Yakovlev, head of Soviet television and radio.