United States Foreign Aid Ussr

Virtually unnoticed among the many superpower negotiations, the United States and Soviet Union are trying to settle U.S. claims of more than $1 billion on debts that predate the Bolshevik Revolution, including old czarist bonds bought by Americans. Recent U.S.-Soviet commercial talks have focused on Soviet efforts to obtain most-favored-nation trading status, which would enable the Soviets to get the U.S. government credits and loans they need to resuscitate their economy.

HOPE FOR IDLE HANDS: The Bush Administration, worried that Soviet weapons experts facing unemployment will sell their services to the highest Third World bidder, is working on a plan to find alternative jobs for them. Officials are considering creating a Western-financed fund to subsidize research projects for the specialists in such fields as energy, the environment, space and transportation.

The last time Richard Connelly left for the Soviet port of Murmansk, the Nazis sank his supply-laden ship in the North Atlantic. Last week, the retired Long Beach merchant seaman set out again, this time to honor his fellow mariners who died transporting war materiel to the frigid Soviet port during World War II.

The United States and Western Europe toned down their bickering over aid to the former Soviet Union on Saturday, but they remained hopelessly deadlocked on sputtering international trade talks. At the semiannual meeting of top-level U.S.

The Bush Administration, trying to keep up with the American mood of euphoria over the courage of the Soviet people, offered the first hint Sunday that it might ease its tough stand on economic assistance to the Soviet Union. Secretary of State James A. Baker III said the United States and its Western allies would require no more than a firm commitment toward reform before considering an aid package. In the past, many U.S.

Prodded into action by an insistent Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Bush Administration has accepted the idea that the West must help the Soviet Union reform its collapsing economy but is campaigning to ensure that no Western country offers significant financial aid to Moscow without demanding tough conditions in return, senior officials say.

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev announced Wednesday that he has decided to begin withdrawing Soviet troops from Cuba, winding down a 32-year military alliance with the Western Hemisphere's only Communist regime. Secretary of State James A. Baker III hailed the move as "a very substantial gesture" that would help Gorbachev win economic aid from the West.

Warning that global stability is at risk if his reforms fail, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev appealed to the West on Tuesday for aid to cement the building of a "great Eurasian democracy." In his first address to an international forum after three tumultuous weeks that have reshaped the map of Europe and the future of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev praised Western leaders for rushing to his side "at a crucial moment"--last month's aborted coup against him.

President Bush said Wednesday that he is willing to discuss new European proposals to provide massive Western aid to the Soviet Union but warned that he will not be ready to support such an effort until Moscow makes needed economic reforms and ends its aid to Cuba.

The Bush Administration's call for an international conference on aiding the Commonwealth of Independent States--the supposed centerpiece of a more dynamic American approach to the crumbling Soviet Union--has failed to catch fire and could become a minor embarrassment, U.S. officials and foreign diplomats said Wednesday. Many of the allied governments that will be asked to attend have been polite but unenthusiastic. A few have been openly critical.

Soviet and American military transport planes left the United States on Sunday carrying emergency stores of medicine and other relief supplies to three Soviet republics, the State Department announced as Secretary of State James A. Baker III began meetings in Moscow with leaders of the Kremlin and the republics. Among his missions there is the coordination of American aid efforts. The first two U.S.

The United States, expressing concern that Soviet nuclear weapons could be sold to hostile forces overseas, has made "very, very concrete proposals" to four nuclear-armed Soviet republics on ways to block any unauthorized exports of weaponry or technology, a senior State Department official said Friday.

Amid fresh warnings from the U.S. ambassador to Moscow that food shortages have reached the crisis stage in the crumbling Soviet Union, American officials said Tuesday that the newly formed Slavic commonwealth might help speed the delivery of Western aid to the Soviets. "I think the food situation in certain areas is worse than you read," Ambassador Robert Strauss said. "In Moscow, the lines are getting longer for bread, and the bread costs more. There is an anger that I haven't seen before. . .

House Democrats, faced with a sharp division in their ranks, decided Wednesday to defer immediate action on a tax cut for middle-income Americans but prepared to vote on a series of tax bills early next year by scheduling extensive hearings in December. As Congress raced to go home for Thanksgiving, the House easily deflected a Republican tax-cut package endorsed at the eleventh hour by President Bush, voting, 248 to 144, along party lines not to allow a vote on the plan.

House and Senate negotiators approved a $500-million aid package to help reduce the Soviet nuclear arsenal and feed the Soviet republics this winter. The package, which trimmed $200 million from a measure passed by the Senate, was included in a supplemental appropriations bill that lawmakers were rushing to complete before Congress adjourns for the year.

President Bush, moving swiftly to infuse the Soviet Union with badly needed aid, signed an executive order Saturday allowing Moscow to receive up to $1 billion in U.S. credit guarantees for American food and other agricultural goods. The Soviet Union faces a severe food crisis this winter amid political turmoil and a collapsed food distribution system. The President's move was announced at the White House as he vacationed at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md. Promised by Bush on Dec.

With their 41-year-old alliance on the verge of being overtaken by history, leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization unveiled on Friday a dramatic new blueprint for the future that President Bush said charts a "new course" for a long-divided Europe and "extends the hand of friendship" to old adversaries. "NATO has set a new path for peace," Bush declared as a two-day summit of alliance leaders ended. " . . .

The Senate, breaking a political impasse, overwhelmingly authorized President Bush on Monday to use up to $700 million from the U.S. defense budget to help reduce the Soviet nuclear arsenal and to send humanitarian aid to starving Soviet republics this winter. In the first of two startling reversals, senators voted 86 to 8 on legislation to allow Bush to divert up to $500 million from the U.S. defense budget to help the Soviets dismantle the bulk of their tactical nuclear weapons.

A bipartisan group of 15 influential senators sought Thursday to persuade Congress to provide up to $500 million to help the Soviets control and dismantle 15,000 nuclear weapons spread over Russia and three other independence-bound republics.