Shevardnadze Named Foreign Minister Again

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev reappointed Eduard A. Shevardnadze, one of this nation’s most liberal, popular politicians, as foreign minister Tuesday in an effort to reassert the authority of the central government and rebuild his own political base.

Shevardnadze, 63, one of the architects of perestroika , resigned 11 months ago, warning of the danger of a dictatorship by die-hard conservatives. His return signaled Gorbachev’s renewed commitment to the sweeping political and economic reforms that Shevardnadze has long favored.

The appointment also reflects the Soviet Union’s widening search for foreign economic assistance, as Shevardnadze’s ministry will now deal with economic as well as political matters.

“In this very difficult situation, Gorbachev needs a team that he knows very well,” said Alexander A. Likhotal, a presidential spokesman. “Because of the years the president has spent with Shevardnadze, he is a logical choice for the job. . . .

“Shevardnadze has very good relations with our primary partners abroad,” Likhotal added, noting the Soviet Union’s need for economic aid to maintain its political stability. “His becoming foreign minister again will increase these countries’ faith in the Soviet Union.”

In Washington, President Bush praised the appointment, and State Department officials were openly jubilant. During his previous tenure, Shevardnadze forged unprecedented close links with Secretary of State James A. Baker III and his predecessor, George P. Shultz--ties that culminated in U.S.-Soviet cooperation during the Persian Gulf crisis last year.

“We know him well and have great respect for him,” Bush told reporters at the White House. “This is a matter for the Soviet Union to determine, but he has many friends in this country.”

Several officials said the Administration learned last week that Shevardnadze was to be reappointed--apparently from aides and associates of Shevardnadze. But there was no official advance notification, a State Department official said.

In a television interview that was recorded before his appointment but was shown after the announcement Tuesday evening, Shevardnadze said that the main danger the Soviet Union now faces stems from its own internal problems.

“New threats have emerged that are no less serious, and maybe even more serious and dangerous,” he said, dismissing as history the Cold War rivalry with the United States, the long confrontation between East and West in Europe and the conflict with China.

“These are our domestic problems and conflicts, which may become a source for serious and, I would say, major trouble,” he said. “Even tragic events are a possibility. This is the principal and major threat to the world, not only to the Soviet Union. I think, in fact, that an unstable Soviet Union, our unstable country, is the main threat to the whole world today. This may be a bigger threat than the nuclear, the ecological, the economic dangers.”

Shevardnadze will have the task of developing a foreign policy for this disintegrating superpower, conserving and using its influence where possible but adjusting to the fact that the nation he represents now is much different from the one he served earlier as foreign minister for five years.

“Where his focus may have been on relations with the United States and the need for disarmament, Shevardnadze must now be concerned with the breakup of the very state he represents,” a Western European ambassador said. “He has a major role in shaping what emerges to replace the Soviet Union. The challenge is tremendous.”

His initial impact will, indeed, probably be as a politician, rather than a diplomat, bringing Gorbachev greater credibility at home. With his dramatic resignation speech last December, Shevardnadze established himself as a democrat with an unquestionable commitment to reform.

“Dictatorship is gaining ground,” he told the Congress of People’s Deputies as conservatives hemmed Gorbachev in from all sides, slowing and even halting the country’s urgently needed economic transformation. “The reformers have left the stage. I cannot reconcile myself to what is happening in my country. . . . I resign.”

When the August putsch by conservatives proved him right, Shevardnadze was back in the center of Soviet politics. The Democratic Reform Movement, founded by him and other liberals, gained support as a potential base for a social democratic party; Shevardnadze was brought back into the Kremlin councils.

“The president needs him--not just his advice, not just his ability in foreign affairs, but his political support,” a Gorbachev aide commented. “He needs to broaden his power base or the center will not hold. Shevardnadze is a major figure from an important part of the political spectrum.”

A second element in Shevardnadze’s reappointment, Kremlin insiders said, was Gorbachev’s desire to strengthen those central ministries, including foreign relations, that will remain when most are disbanded after Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin cuts off their funds today.

“Eduard Shevardnadze will not be bullied by Boris Yeltsin,” a senior Foreign Ministry official said. “In such times of vast change, it’s important to have a foreign policy leader who is strong politically and honest personally.”

Although Yeltsin had called for radical changes in the Soviet Foreign Ministry and proposed that the Russian Federation’s ministry take over many of its functions, he strongly supported Shevardnadze’s reappointment, a spokesman said. “The president of Russia treats this man with great respect,” said Pavel I. Voshchanov, Yeltsin’s press secretary. “From Russia, Shevardnadze will not experience opposition--only support.”

Likhotal added: “Shevardnadze has shown that he understands that now the central leadership and Russia must decide the fate of the country together. If they play one against the other, both will fail. They’ll only win together.”

Boris D. Pankin, foreign minister since August, goes to Britain as ambassador, replacing Leonid Zamyatin, who had backed the coup. Gorbachev is also replacing the ambassadors to France, the European Community and five other countries in a post-coup shake-up, the Soviet news agency Tass said.

Shevardnadze, who became foreign minister in 1985, returns to a much-changed Foreign Ministry--largely purged of KGB agents and conservatives, cut by more than 30% under budget crunches and preparing to close perhaps as many as 30 embassies, its headquarters staff merged with that of the Foreign Trade Ministry and now responsible to the Soviet Union’s constituent republics, not just the Kremlin.

“We must do everything possible to preserve the best workers of this collective,” Shevardnadze said in the TV interview. “They are the ‘national property’ of all the people, all the sovereign states, and we must protect and save it.”

The genial white-haired Georgian was an original member of the Gorbachev team that began perestroika in 1985. With little experience in foreign affairs, Shevardnadze impressed Western officials from the start as a shrewd, intelligent politician, and during years of tough but pioneering negotiations, he became close friends with U.S. and other Western leaders.

He presided over Soviet foreign policy during some of the most rapid, sweeping changes in modern European history. Communist regimes collapsed throughout Eastern Europe, and Germany was reunified after the disintegration of Moscow’s chief satellite, East Germany. Soviet troops began a steady withdrawal from East European bases they had held since 1945.

Times staff writers Doyle McManus and James Gerstenzang in Washington and researcher Andrei Ostroukh contributed to this story.

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Biography: Eduard A. Shevardnadze

Born: Jan. 25, 1928, in Mamati, village in southern Georgia

Education: Graduated from school of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia. Earned a correspondence degree in history from Kutaisi Pedagogical Institute about 1959.

Family: Married, has a son and a daughter.

Interests: Told Budapest Radio in 1981 that he kept bees and tended a private vineyard in his spare time.

Career Highlights: Became a member of the Communist Party in 1948; rose through ranks of district Komsomol, or Communist youth league, and in 1957 became first secretary of the Komsomol of Georgia. Advanced in Georgian Communist Party as well as in MVD, the civilian police, and became the republic’s minister of internal affairs. Named head of the Georgian party in 1972. Named to Central Committee of national Communist Party in 1976; named a non-voting member of the ruling Politburo in 1978. Appointed a Politburo full member in July, 1985; quickly nominated to succeed Andrei A. Gromyko as foreign minister. Resigned in December, 1990; quit the party in July, 1991, and with eight other leading liberals formed a new democratic movement. Reappointed foreign minister Tuesday by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Sources: International Who’s Who 1991-92, 1986 Current Biography Yearbook, Reuters