Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 31, 1994                   TAG: 9403310105
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: KEVIN DANIELS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

EAGLEBURGER ENDORSES MILLER FOR SENATE

"I'm a Republican," Eagleburger said Tuesday at a news conference. "I would like to see a Republican who has been as aboveboard as possible. . . . Virginia needs someone who is above reproach both politically and professionally - [Jim] Miller."

Eagleburger, who has served every presidential administration from Eisenhower through Bush, was in Salem to participate in Roanoke College's evening lecture series, "The Second Russian Revolution." Eagleburger spoke about the future of U.S.-Russian relations and took the opportunity to criticize the Clinton administration's handling of foreign affairs.

"The foreign policy approach is very ad hoc. . . . There's no strategy," he said. Eagleburger used the concern over North Korea's nuclear capabilities as an example of how the administration haphazardly deals with potential crises:

President Clinton and his administration "have been too relaxed on the issue. They have failed to let the public know how serious the problem is," he said. Eagleburger also declared that if North Korea has nuclear weapons, there will be "tremendous pressure" on Japan to develop a nuclear arsenal.

Eagleburger advocated imposing economic sanctions on North Korea, warning that if the United States does nothing, it "provokes every other pipsqueak dictator" to join the growing list of countries with nuclear capabilities.

"The world is out there and it's going to bite us on the ear if we're not careful," he said. "The world system is messy, unstable, dangerous."

Adding to the unpredictable global situation is the confusion surrounding Russia's place in it. Eagleburger said that "if anyone says they can tell you the state of U.S.-Russia relations, they're either lying or they've been on the sauce."

But he was willing to try.

Eagleburger presented three scenarios that he believed were likely to result within the next few decades from the unrest in Russia:

If President Boris Yeltsin's reforms meet with success, Eagleburger predicts a democratic Russia with an open-market economic system that would enter a "productive and healthy relationship" with the United States. He added that there probably would be some competition between the two countries if Russia renewed its former expansionist policies.

A failure of economic and political reforms, combined with what he described as Russia's tendencies toward xenophobia and anti-Semitism, would bring an "authoritarian, dictatorial, expansionist regime." Eagleburger clarified his position, adding that Stalinist policies were not likely to be reinstituted.

In a worst-case scenario, Eagleburger foresees "the destruction of Russia itself." He compared the potential strife to the ethnic conflicts that erased the name of Yugoslavia from world atlases.

He said that regardless of what transpires, Yeltsin faces problems that his predecessors never could have envisioned. Eagleburger noted that Yeltsin has to deal with an elected parliament, a situation that may prove difficult. Yeltsin also suffers from not having established a political structure that informs the voters and brings them to the polls.

"He has a very tough political situation to maneuver his way through," Eagleburger said.

Keywords:
POLITICS