Secretary of State James Baker, in a first attempt by the United States to come to terms with the imminent breakup of the Soviet Union, said Wednesday the vast Soviet nuclear arsenal should stay under some form of central control.
Laying out the five-point program of U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union following last month's failed coup, Baker told a news conference he would travel next week to Moscow and almost certainly to the three Baltic republics.He stressed that change in the Soviet Union should be peaceful and respect internal and international borders, human rights and Moscow's existing international obligations.
Baker discussed at length the new possibilities for economic reform in the Soviet Union but also referred to the risks inherent in the current turmoil.
For example, he said the United States would prefer that all Soviet nuclear weapons be collected under a single command to prevent unstable elements winning control of them.
"I think that it would be probably on balance best, not necessarily that they ended up all in one republic, but that they ended up under one central command authority."
After the coup, U.S. officials expressed concern about who was in control of nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union.
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said in a TV interview at the time that, while there was no increased threat to the United States during the coup, there had been some concern about who actually had been in command of the Soviet arsenal during the three-day putsch attempt.
Baker will arrive in Moscow Tuesday for a European human rights conference and meet Soviet and republic leaders. He gave no details about any trip to the Baltics other than to say he would like to go, but officials said he would visit all three - Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.
The United States never recognized their forcible incorporation into the Soviet Union in 1940 and President Bush Monday joined the growing list of countries reestablishing diplomatic relations with them.
Baker also indicated his intention of returning to the Middle East, probably directly from the Soviet Union, to pursue efforts to convene an Arab-Israeli peace conference next month.
Underlying Baker's warm words about reform in the Soviet Union was clearly some anxiety that the road ahead would be hard and the pitfalls many.
"The transition will be painful. The Soviet peoples must know they have just embarked on a difficult road," he said.
Baker said he would discuss providing emergency food aid to help the Soviet Union survive the winter.
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'Town Meeting' a go?
ABC's "National Town Meeting" with Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin - which was postponed from Monday - looks like a go for tonight.
The president of the Soviet Union and the president of the Russian Republic will answer questions from Americans in 11 cities in a broadcast moderated by ABC's Peter Jennings.
KTVX-Ch. 4 plans to air the program on tape-delay at 10:35 p.m., after the local news. Plans are still a bit tentative, however - even ABC won't be sure of the broadcast until it's under way.