Soviet Union Is No More, Baker Declares

President Bush was told that Russia, Ukraine and Belarus had formed a new commonwealth when Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin telephoned him with the news on Sunday, and Administration officials said that the move is another step in the demise of the Soviet Union.

“The Soviet Union as we’ve known it no longer exists,” Secretary of State James A. Baker III had declared earlier Sunday, before Bush received the call from Yeltsin.

Until recently, Bush, Baker and some other top Administration officials were reluctant to acknowledge that the central government of the Soviet Union was giving way to a collection of independent republics, each with its own government. The reason: Bush still feels loyalty to Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

On Sunday, top U.S. officials declined to discuss what the new commonwealth means for Gorbachev’s future.

But Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East, noted: “This leaves him in a precarious position. It’s difficult to see where his power now rests.”

Bush, who clearly favors dealing with a central Soviet government, may be able to play a key role in determining what happens to Gorbachev under these new circumstances.

Harley Balzer, director of Russian studies at Georgetown University, noted that Bush can help to sustain Gorbachev by continuing to funnel U.S. aid through him. “If George Bush continues to deal with Gorbachev, they (the new commonwealth) will be more likely to do so, too,” he said.

William Harlow, a White House spokesman, said that Bush and Yeltsin discussed the creation of the new commonwealth for about half an hour after the Russian leader telephoned the White House. He said that Yeltsin promised to provide the President with additional details later.

Neither Harlow nor State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler would comment on the announcement, but officials who declined to be identified said that it demonstrates the truth of Baker’s observation that the Soviet Union is disintegrating.

In fact, the agreement between Yeltsin and the other two Slavic leaders, Ukrainian President Leonid M. Kravchuk and Belarus leader Stanislav Shushkevich, came as no real surprise to U.S. officials, who were aware of the scheduled meetings and have watched closely the unraveling of the Soviet Union since the failed coup attempt against Gorbachev in August.

Nevertheless, it heightened the desire of U.S. officials for assurances from Moscow that the independent republics would maintain some form of central military command, particularly over nuclear weapons.

Baker, in an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” said he believes that “there will continue to be efforts to maintain some sort of a center.”

The three Slavic leaders were reported to have pledged to keep a central command over the nuclear weapons and to destroy them under international supervision. U.S. officials declined to speculate about what type of central command would be developed.

About 80% of the Soviet strategic nuclear weapons are in the Russian Federation, with the rest deployed in the republics of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Tactical nuclear weapons are distributed more evenly across the Soviet Union.

U.S. officials are known to fear that one of the republics might fire tactical nuclear weapons at another in the event of a civil war or that a rebel group might threaten the outside world by capturing control of a strategic nuclear missile aimed at the West.

Further, these officials fear that economic hardship might cause some former Soviet officials to sell either the weapons or their nuclear expertise on the black market.

“While there’s opportunity, there’s also great danger associated with these transformations . . . ,” Baker said. “We really do run the risk, in my view at least, of seeing a situation created there not unlike what we have seen in Yugoslavia (but) with . . . nuclear weapons thrown in, and that could be (an) extraordinarily dangerous situation for Europe and for the rest of the world; indeed, for the United States.”

To prevent a nuclear tragedy, the Bush Administration recently provided $400 million for the dismantling of nuclear weapons deployed in Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Bush also has moved to permit the delay of Soviet debt payments and provided $100 million for food, $1.5 billion in grain credits and $165 million in direct food aid.

Baker described these as “big ticket items” designed to maintain the peace.

“I can’t think of anything that is more in the national security interest of the United States than using some of our defense dollars to get the Soviets to eliminate their nuclear weapons,” he said. “What could be more in our interest?”

Hamilton said it is in the interest of the United States that some form of unity or cooperative association be maintained among the Soviet republics, but he added that Bush must accept the dissolution of the Soviet Union and begin to work with the separate republics.

At the same time, Hamilton said he is not persuaded that Yeltsin and other Slavic leaders are up to the task of forging a commonwealth under current conditions.

“They’re untried,” Hamilton said. “My impression is in each case they have proven their political skills in rising to the top of the leadership in their respective republics. What they have not proved, at least, to me, is their ability to govern. It’s a challenge.”