In a Show of Support, Baker Visits Shevardnadze

The way Eduard A. Shevardnadze sees it, this is the toughest job he’s ever had in a long and varied career--harder than being a superpower foreign minister, more difficult than running a local Communist Party organization and more demanding than promoting democracy as the Soviet Union crumbled.

On Monday, Shevardnadze, now chairman of the State Council of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, received a personal endorsement from his old friend and negotiating partner Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who made a detour to visit Tbilisi before returning to Washington from diplomatic talks in Portugal.

“This is the most difficult stage of my life,” the white-haired Shevardnadze told reporters. “It is a small country with large problems.

“The economy really has become unhinged,” he said.

A few figures tell the tale: In the past year, national income has declined by one-quarter, annual inflation has increased from 5% to 80%, the output of the republic’s once-productive farms has declined by more than half, and the volume of industrial production is down more than 25%.

Shevardnadze also faces political problems. The former Soviet foreign minister was brought home here from Moscow to head the State Council after Georgia’s first freely elected president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, was deposed after a year in office marked by excesses that the U.S. government and much of the rest of the international community regarded as tyrannical.

But Gamsakhurdia, now in exile in the Russian enclave of Chechen-Ingushetia, is still a political force. No one knows what his supporters will do during parliamentary elections scheduled for October, but memories are fresh of the fighting that ousted him.

So Baker’s visit sends an important signal--the United States is backing Shevardnadze, the chief of government, against all comers, including a democratically elected, although autocratic, rival.

“The biggest support is the fact that the secretary of state is here on our land now,” Shevardnadze said.

Asked what the United States can do to combat Georgia’s increasing poverty, Shevardnadze said, “A great deal.” Then he added wistfully, “We probably can’t ask for too much.”