The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 5

TC Friday, August 23. 1991 1 1 IF. INC INNATI FNQl A-5 SOVIET CH30S3 oviet envoy explains actions MM1'-' 3 1 4m WASHINGTON: Viktor Komplektov, Soviet ambassador to Washington, was aglow Thursday in the aftermath of the failed coup and warmly welcomed the return of Mikhail Gorbachev. For three Notebooks however, Komplektov had appeared to represent the eiaht-man iunta that attempted to seize power in Moscow. Komplektov told reporters Thursday that with only two cables from Moscow and no contact with his boss, Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander Bessmertnyh, his first priority was to assure that continuity prevailed in U.S.-Soviet relations.

Gorbachev tells of three foes At his news conference in Moscow on Thursday, President Mikhail Gorbachev drew laughter and applause when he talked of world reaction to the failed coup. He said he had talked with The Associated Press Muscovites lay flowers Thursday near the Russian Federation building where countrymen died. Former Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze said the dead should be buried at the Kremlin. THE! HPRITir.R He was referring to Col. Moammar Gadhafi, of Libya, President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, and Alfred Rubiks, the hard-line Communist Party boss Latvia who was facing arrest Riga for his role in supporting to speed more Soviet aid President Bush and the leaders of France, Germany, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, Japan, Italy, and Egypt.

He added: "Other than Gadhafi, and Hussein, and Rubiks, they all agreed with me." Germany calls for of in From Hart Heritage Collection. Futlqueen headboard trame, mirror double dresse Gorbachev urged 298 fTTTT TTTTTTTTTTTi Bush says Soviet leader should capitalize on HCack "Brass Utrou black lacquer. Includes dresser, mirror, full or queen headboard frame mm i vr iYZTnrarci mm sjw Touch Lamps Buy MEL 21 $0 1 99 249 reflect tot Nightstandj. West would review its aid programs to Moscow. But he told Independent Radio News that the Soviet Union needed advice and assistance, not "stacks of cash." Saudi Arabia was resuming $1.5 billion in loans, according to the Saudi ambassador in Washington, and Japan prepared to unfreeze aid including $100 million in food aid.

Britain lifted a freeze on assistance worth $83 million and the European Community resumed more than $1 billion in aid. Officials in Germany, the Soviets' biggest financial and political backer, said the coup was proof that a go-slow approach is dangerous. Germany has committed $35 billion to the Soviet Union in direct grants and other aid and officials say there is no more that Bonn can do. German officials have privately said they think the Americans and the Japanese could do more. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS LONDON Western nations lifted a freeze on aid to the Soviet Union Thursday, but Germany was the only economic power to call openly for more assistance to bolster Mikhail Gorbachev following the failed coup.

Hours after his return to the Kremlin, Gorbachev told Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti that the West must now "aid me even more," according to the premier's spokesman, Pio Mas-trobuoni. But while most Western powers pledged increased cooperation with Moscow, most opposed a further opening of their coffers: "Unless the system is changed, our money would be like a drop of water on a hot stove," said Foreign Minister Hans van den Broek of The Netherlands, current president of the 12-nation European Community. British Prime Minister John Major said the mm the coup. Newsrooms cry, American newspapers broke out their big type to herald the collapse of the coup, and some published extra editions. Cries of "Extra! Extra!" rang out at the Iowa State Fair after the Des Moines Register printed 8,500 copies of an eight-page extra Wednesday.

Managing Editor David Westphal said it was the first extra edition since the assassination of President Kennedy. Next vacation, try Michigan DETROIT: Rather than get tied up elsewhere, Mikhail Gorbachev should consider Michigan for his next vacation, according to a downtown billboard. "Welcome Back, 'Gorby," reads the Gannett Outdoor Advertising sign. "Next Time Vacation in Michigan." ENQUIRER NEWS SERVICES reforms failure of foes as freeze is lifted may be hesitant to move toward reforms as quickly as hoped. "The first steps, if they are indicative at all, the first steps have been cautious," the official said.

According to press reports, Moiseyev was on vacation away from Moscow during the staging of the coup. It was not clear whether Moiseyev planned to be out of town to avoid any retribution if the coup failed. Bush's comments came at a press conference Thursday afternoon at his summer home here. Before the news conference, Bush conferred with Secretary of State James Baker and a team of domestic policy advisers. WELCOME i Fidelio collection KNIGHT NEWS SERVICE KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev should capitalize on the failure of his hard-line opponents by accelerating economic reforms and granting independence to the Baltic republics, President Bush said Thursday.

With the coup defeated, Bush said he would resume previously suspended technical economic assistance for the Soviet Union, but refused to offer new financial aid to Gorbachev to help bolster his standing. The Bush administration has adopted a wait-and-see attitude toward altering U.S. relations with the Soviet Union as events in that nation continue to unfold and Gorbachev makes jiis next moves. A senior Bush aide told reporters Thursday the administration would like to see Gorbachev, now free of the need to appease conservative old-guard critics, move boldly to improve ties with the West and work closely with reformist Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian Republic. If Gorbachev pursues economic reforms, the official said, "it may be possible to accelerate it (economic assistance) significantly," the official said.

The administration now views economic assistance to the Soviet Union the same way it did last month during the Economic Summit in London, where Western leaders adopted a plan of limited technical assistance and no direct aid, the official said. There was a split Thursday in L. 1 I i si. 1 I 11 Sell it today with a classified ad In The Enquirer Call 421-6300 the administration's assessment of Gorbachev's vulnerability to a further coup attempt and his choice of Gen. Mikhail Alekseyevich Moisey-ev to head the nation's armed forces.

Bush said he thought that the hard-line opponents of Gorbachev had learned they could not turn back the clock in the Soviet Union. "Anybody attempting another coup from the right would be out of their minds," Bush said. But a senior administration official briefing reporters a few hours before the Bush press conference said that the Soviet Union was still a "society in revolution" and warned that the attempt to oust UUIIII Kiesewetter i i Television The revolution was televised; Gorbachev was listening in RAYMOND WEIL GENEVE Gorbachev "may not be the last." In a similar division of opinion, Bush voiced no objections to Gorbachev's choice of Moiseyev to head the military and noted that the United States had worked with Moiseyev in finalizing the details of the recently negotiated arms control agreement on long-range nuclear weapons. But the senior aide said that Moiseyev "to put it generously was ambivalent" about the coup attempt. "I wouldn't want that guy behind me in a dark hall now," the adviser bluntly said.

The official expressed concern that Gorbachev's selection of Moiseyev could indicate Gorbachev your principles. Stay with your reforms. Stay with your commitment to democratic process and constitutional law. Stand shoulder to shoulder with Yeltsin, as you have been, in seeing the evolution of democracy and perestroika and glasnost in the Soviet Union." For the networks, and local TV stations, the coup couldn't have come at a better time. Things were quite slow during the dog days of August until the conspirators announced Gorbachev's coup flu Monday.

And the bungling Bolsheviks provided a welcome gold mine of humor, not all of it intentional. (NBC's David Letterman has been on a roll this week, with a "Top Ten List of Things Overheard At The Coup," and jokes about the latest TV news lexicon (Didn't he once live next door to a family named Coup-plotters in Indiana?) When asked why the coup failed, Bush told reporters that the conspirators "underestimated democracy and freedom, and that you can't put it back in the box You can't put freedom and democracy back in the box and keep it contained." And it's just as difficult to snatch the free flow of words and video filling the air, or shove a fax back into a machine, or erase the videotape captured by TV news organizations around the world. DOWNTOWN 4 West Fourth Street Monday thru Saturday 9:00 5:00 421-6080 Big Brother was watching. The rest of the world was watching, too or at least listening in as dramatic events unfolded in the Soviet Union this week. Even Mikhail Gorbachev tuned in.

Although his captors had severed his telephone lines, Gorbachev said Thursday he was able to keep abreast of the abortive coup attempt this week from foreign broadcasts, including the BBC and Voice of America, received on a makeshift radio set up by his personal Ruards. He kept in touch, as we did, with the free flow of free press information which the hard-line conspirators could not stop. The latest Russian revolution was short-circuited by the '90s technological revolution. The hard-liners' Red Army tanks were no match for an arsenal of fax machines, cellular phones, copying machines, personal computers, independent radio and TV stations, and satellite uplinks which instantly deliver news around the world. A generation that still marvels at live pictures from the Moon two decades ago has seen history unfold with stunning rapidity this year.

First came the 100-hour Persian Gulf war. Now a 60-hour Russian coup. Suddenly we're measuring world-altering events in minutes, not years or months. Television viewers worldwide hardly missed a single picture. They saw tanks rolling through Moscow; Russian Republic President Boris Yeltsin barricaded inside his Parliament building; live transmissions of the nightly Soviet newscast; and scenes of a triumphant Gorbachev returning to Moscow.

The turbulent week concluded Thursday with Gorbachev conducting a press conference broadcast live by the three U.S. networks and beamed worldwide by Cable News Network. "I picked up one of the telephones I have and it wasn't working. I picked up a second, a third, a fourth everything was cut off," Gorbachev said. So he turned to a jerry-rigged radio.

Meanwhile, halfway around the globe, a reporter was asking President Bush what message he had for Gorbachev, if he could send one to the Russian President. Now we know it's possible that Gorbachev heard Bush's encouraging words to "stay with r. Triumph In Dignity And Styling Stunning Swiss Handcrafted Masterpiece 18 Goldplated Expansion Clasp Water Resistant to 90 ft A pede jewelers ot distinction since 1877.