Soviets Seeking Aid Likely to Receive Only Sympathy : Diplomacy: Officials of the major industrial nations will consider Moscow’s pleas this weekend.

The Soviet Union will make its case for aid this weekend with top economic officials of the leading industrial nations, but it is unlikely to come away with anything more bankable than sympathy and encouragement, U.S. officials indicated Thursday.

“I wouldn’t look at this particular meeting as a watershed,” U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told reporters traveling with him. Instead, Greenspan said, it is part of “an ongoing . . . intensive exploration of the economic evolution of the Soviet Union and the types of problems that are emerging.”

Saturday’s session will mark the first time that Soviet officials have met with the so-called Group of Seven, which includes the capitalist world’s key economic policy-makers.

The seven nations’ finance ministers and central bankers will hold their session as a prelude to next week’s annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank--institutions the Soviet Union hopes to join. Thus far, the Soviets have been granted only a “special associate” status, which gives them access to the expertise of the IMF and World Bank--but not their lending.

The G-7 meeting with Moscow officials--unthinkable only a few months ago--will be emblematic of the transformation that swept the Soviet Union after the failed August coup. At the same time, it is likely to underscore the serious difficulties confronting the Soviet Union as it seeks to transform a failed Communist system into a free-market economy.

The most pressing concern to be discussed is a possible Soviet payments crisis. By some estimates, the Soviets may be facing a shortfall of more than $5 billion as they struggle to keep up payments on their debt of more than $60 billion. If they fall behind, bankers will be even more leery of lending to them at a time when the country needs credit to stave off food shortages and other hardships this winter.

“There is a rough consensus that some alleviation of the short-term debt problem is going to have to take place,” a senior U.S. official said. “There is less agreement on when that might occur.”

In part, the split over Soviet aid reflects the different priorities and motives of the G-7 governments--the United States, Germany, Japan, Britain, France, Italy and Canada. More formidable a problem, however, is the continuing inability of the Soviet central government and its 12 one-time republics to reach an agreement on an economic union.

Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady publicly played down concerns about the halting progress toward an economic union, saying at a news conference in Tokyo that such complex issues often must be resolved by going “one step forward and then two steps back.”

Yet one official traveling with Brady and Greenspan said that the situation has made it “geometrically more difficult” to resolve the immediate difficulties that confront the Soviets.

Without an economic union treaty, Western officials have no assurances that any deal they strike with the central government would be honored by the former republics. Nor are they guaranteed that the republics would not undermine any rescue effort by piling up debts of their own.

One possibility is a bridge loan, but for the United States to participate, President Bush would have to certify the Soviets’ credit-worthiness--which their continuing economic deterioration calls into question.

Also, the Administration might face considerable opposition in Congress, if it suggests putting U.S. funds at risk so that the Soviets can repay debts owed in large part to German bankers. Only about $1 billion of the Soviet debt is owed to the United States.

Another option would be for creditors to declare a temporary standstill on at least part of the debt repayment. That option, too, presents many difficulties.

Still a third choice might be an arrangement under which the Soviets put some of their oil or gold up as collateral for a short-term loan. The Soviets have offered contradictory estimates of the amount of their gold holdings in recent days. Many Western analysts have come to believe that the Moscow government itself has no precise figure--and that is only one of the many critical pieces of information that Western governments lack as they deliberate on aid.

In some respects, the situation is similar to a home buyer applying for a mortgage but being unable to provide the bank with the amounts he has in savings or his earnings.

Still, Greenspan praised the Soviets for their new willingness to share what economic information they have--traditionally, one of their most closely guarded state secrets.

“Now they have a wholly different attitude,” Greenspan said. “They’re telling us things I never expected them to tell us. . . . We’re learning increasingly how the system works with the type of detail that basically enables us to diagnose what’s happening.”