COLUMN LEFT/ THEODORE C. SORENSEN : Advice Is Nice, but the Soviets Can’t Bank It : Given our recent political and economic embarrassments, we should help, not preach.

Moscow today is full of U.S. government representatives offering not the food, fuel or funds needed for the coming winter months but free advice. “Fluttering around like butterflies,” as one amused Russian official described them to me, these well-meaning emissaries from Washington preach the doctrine of salvation through imitation. To replace the fallen idols of the U.S.S.R., they proclaim, adopt those of the U.S.A.

Clearly this country has wisdom to offer a nation struggling to emerge into the harsh sunlight of freedom. But much of our advice smacks of hypocrisy. The world’s leading debtor nation, which even owes unpaid dues to the United Nations, is telling the Soviet republics how to handle their international finances?

A government that drags its feet in shutting down even a handful of surplus Defense Department bases is lecturing the Soviets on converting from a military to a civilian economy? The same folks in Washington who permitted BCCI to flourish and countless American banks to languish are now counseling Russians on the establishment of a sound and reliable banking system?

If the Cold War’s demise justifies no more than a reduction of 5% per year for five years in U.S. defense spending, can we persuasively urge our former Cold War adversaries to cut much more much sooner? If we have not come close to balancing our own government budget and international trade accounts for more than a decade, can we tell Moscow how to do it? To prove that the privatization of Soviet agencies will increase their profitability and efficiency, to what example of our own do we point, the U.S. Postal Service?

The Soviets have no serious energy-conservation policy and no consistent outlook on environmental protection. Neither does the Bush Administration. But that has not deterred it from prompting the Soviets on both counts. Moscow’s lumbering state monopolies need to be broken up permanently with effective antitrust laws. But our inconsistent antitrust enforcement over the last 10 years offers no standard for others.

Of course, a football coach need not outperform his players, and on many topics the Soviets can profitably observe what we say, if not always what we do. Moreover, once the Soviets learn to distinguish hustlers from experts, they can purchase truly helpful advice from private U.S. consultants in banking, management, technology, agriculture and other areas. Such assistance is not free. But the Soviets are learning the old American adage that most free advice is worth about what you pay for it.

Our expertise should be volunteered without charge, however, in the one area of most importance to the newly independent Soviet republics--the principles and practices of democracy. The National Endowment for Democracy can be immensely helpful.

But those Americans with demonstrated skill in exploiting racial tensions in 15-second campaign commercials are poor teachers of the American way. A Department of Justice that supports mob rule in Wichita, a U.S. senator who resorts to unvarnished racial bigotry in New York, an intelligence officer who justifies lying to Congress, the motley crew of recently indicted federal officials who saw public service as a means of enriching themselves, should not now be selected to instruct ex-Communists about freedom.

If our next presidential election, like the last, is dominated by superficiality instead of substance, and by money and media manipulation instead of message, then the Russians might understandably look to some other democracy for their model.

A young Soviet bureaucrat who, upon hearing of the August putsch by radio, rushed to join the throng confronting Soviet tanks in front of the Russian Republic White House, told me he was not there to protect Boris Yeltsin. “Yeltsin may win or lose the next election. But if democracy had been lost . . . .” That young Russian needs no lecture on democracy from an Administration that views the guardian of our liberties, the Supreme Court, with utter cynicism.

My Moscow host last month pointedly recalled an old Russian folk tale about the poor shepherd pleading for a sheep from his wealthier neighbors, but receiving only free advice. The United States has earned the right to offer free advice, and will no doubt continue to do so. But we can afford to throw in a sheep or two and, of even greater importance, to live up to our own advice.