Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 15, 1990 TAG: 9004150141
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: MOSCOW LENGTH: Medium
The official says the military has worked out plans much like those under which the Soviet Army occupied Prague in 1968.
They include a strategy of seizing the Lithuanian Parliament building, replacing the leadership that has declared independence, imposing martial law and installing other leaders who would rescind the republic's March 11 proclamation.
Word of the military pressure comes as Col. Gen. Vladimir Denisov, deputy chief of the Soviet General Staff, warned Friday in the Soviet newspaper Trud that "the carrying out of the policy of the present Lithuanian leaders for secession is pregnant with danger for the security not only of the Baltic republics and the U.S.S.R., but for all of Europe."
Secession by the Lithuanians would breach Soviet defenses and lines of communication to the West, the general said.
"If they don't listen to the voice of reason," he wrote, "events could have painful consequences for everybody."
The tough line is probably aimed at Western ears.
But it also coincides with assessments by American intelligence officials that the rapid deterioration in the Soviet security position in Eastern Europe and the poor domestic economy have strengthened the hand of the Soviet military establishment and narrowed support for Gorbachev's policies.
Pressure from the military may also explain the threat on Friday, signed by Gorbachev and Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov, to stop supplying Lithuania with essential raw materials if it does not repeal some of the measures adopted since March 11.
Soviet officials who support Gorbachev's course of economic and political change now tell their Western friends that his plans for transforming the economy could be threatened by the Lithuanian crisis and by the continuing collapse of Soviet strategic positions in Eastern Europe.
They know harsh measures against Lithuania now would end support and encouragement for Gorbachev's policies in the West. But as Gorbachev himself complained to a delegation of American senators here last week, all the West has done so far is lecture him on avoiding force.
One Communist Party official said if President Bush really wanted to help, he should call up Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis and urge him to make a compromise, like retracting or suspending the declaration of independence.
A Western diplomat said he would be surprised if Gorbachev or one of his political allies such as Aleksandr Yakovlev or Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze had not already made such a suggestion to Bush. But it would appear to have little chance of success.
Bush is under pressure from Congress to recognize Lithuanian independence formally.
The White House has said that is unnecessary because the United States, like Britain, has never formally recognized the Soviet annexation of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in 1940.
Some Soviet officials wonder what the U.S. or anybody else in the West would actually be able to do for the Lithuanians if there were a military crackdown, besides offering moral support.
They also complain the United States has not shown its appreciation for Gorbachev's rapid and continuing shifts on German unification.
A few weeks ago, the Soviet leader was insisting a united Germany be neutral and could not belong to NATO.
Last week, Shevardnadze suggested one way was belonging to both NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
"We didn't expect you to accept this idea whole," a Central Committee figure said after the White House rejected the idea on Wednesday, "But why don't you make some constructive counterproposal instead of rejecting ours?"
But some Western diplomats here think the right posture to take on Lithuania and Germany is simply to keep waiting to see how many more positions Gorbachev is forced to cede before holding out a safety net for him.
Others believe the longer the Lithuanian impasse continues, the more Gorbachev will be boxed in by his critics in the Communist Party and the military.
If Gorbachev is indeed under pressure from the military to do something on Lithuania, the situation will be aggravated by Lithuania and Estonia both urging young men to refuse to answer their draft calls next month.
Communist Party officials are emphasizing the importance of support for Gorbachev from the military, rather than from the Communist Party apparatus, because they say party support does not mean as much as it once did.
Earlier in the week, the Central Committee apparatus, with the open support of Yegor Ligachev, the leading conservative in the Communist Party Politburo, called for driving out radicals who want to move faster toward a free-market economy.
But the call was dismissed as mainly irrelevant by one of Gorbachev's aides.
by CNB