TAKE THE ‘SECOND OPINION’! REJECT SHEVARDNADZE’S RX FOR SOVIET DEMOCRACY

(Washington, D.C.): As the United States Senate prepared to debate the wisdom of extending an additional $1.5 billion in taxpayer-subsidized agricultural export credits to Moscow, two interested parties tried to influence Washington’s decision. On the one hand, former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze engaged in what amounts to blackmail. He contended that "…A decision which will be taken in Washington will, to a large extent, determine the fate of reform and democracy in the Soviet Union. I want to stress this, that we have very little time."

Such statements mirror the Gorbachev line: Systemic change will be undertaken only insofar as the USSR is rewarded by the West with grants, credits, investment guarantees and high technology. If the United States and its allies are not forthcoming with economic and other forms of assistance as demanded by Moscow center, they can forget about reform; Gorbachev went so far as to threaten in an interview Sunday with Rupert Murdoch that the world could be plunged into a "cold" or "semi-cold" war.

In sharp contrast, Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis used his own appearance in Washington yesterday to argue that — far from being a catalyst for structural change in the Soviet Union — Western aid actually helps the Kremlin to stave off such change. Landsbergis counseled that "[Aid] shouldn’t be given to the Soviet Union to ‘prevent’ it from adopting a path of dictatorship. It should only be given after it demonstrates that it is going down the road of democratization."

The Center for Security Policy believes that historical experience validates the view expressed by Landsbergis — and rebuts the pump-priming approach advocated by apologists for the Soviet regime like Shevardnadze. Time after time, peredyshka (or "breathing space") afforded the central authorities in the USSR by the generous interventions of well-meaning Western governments and financial institutions has enabled the Soviet system to survive the pressure of the moment and defer adoption of needed democratic and free market reforms.

Fortunately, the Senate has an opportunity today to reject Shevardnadze’s coercive threats and to associate itself with Landsbergis’ pleas that the United States use such assistance as a quid pro quo for structural change in the USSR. That would be the unmistakable signal sent should the Senate defeat the pending resolution offered by Sen. Robert Dole (R-KA) in support of further taxpayer exposure to the Soviet Union. Additional arguments against the Dole initiative and recommendations for structuring any future U.S. aid to the USSR on more secure terms were published by Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the Center’s director, in today’s Washington Times. A copy of Gaffney’s op.ed., entitled "Trying to Put Moscow on the Dole," is attached.