No More Jamming, Shultz Urges Soviets : He Calls for Dismantling Transmitters Used Against Broadcasts

Secretary of State George P. Shultz, paying a rare tribute to human rights progress in the Soviet Union, on Sunday called on Moscow to dismantle the powerful transmitters that were used to jam foreign radio broadcasts and to take other steps to guarantee that there will be no backsliding.

Talking to reporters on a flight to Vienna, where he will attend the ceremonial close of the latest European security and human rights conference, Shultz said the Soviet Union and its allies “have a long way to go (on human rights), but it’s better now.” The plane stopped in Shannon to refuel.

New Round of Talks

The Vienna conference, which ends Tuesday after little more than a year, set the stage for a new round of talks on limiting tanks and other non-nuclear arms in Europe and reinforced the human rights standards originally established in 1975 at the first European security conference in Helsinki.

“At Helsinki, in a way, the diplomacy was way ahead of the reality,” Shultz said. “Gradually, the reality has moved toward what we have set out as objectives. It has a long way to go, but we see a process of movement.”

For instance, the Soviet Union and its allies late last year stopped jamming broadcasts by the U.S.-backed Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, complying at last with the Helsinki ban on interference with foreign shortwave radio broadcasting.

“Jamming has stopped,” Shultz said. “Well, we don’t want to see it resume. The facilities by which you jam ought to be dismantled so you can’t start it up again.”

The Vienna conference has scheduled a series of follow-up meetings, including a 1991 conference on human rights in Moscow. The United States agreed to the Moscow meeting despite the misgivings of critics, including some close advisers to President-elect Bush, who consider it a travesty to hold such a conference in Moscow.

Shultz, noting that Washington had obtained Soviet promises of additional human rights progress as the price of agreeing to the meeting, said the issue was becoming “a wasting asset” and little more could have been gained by continuing to hold out.

He said the conference will “bring the human rights message into the heart of the Soviet Union.”

Shultz, making his last foreign trip as secretary of state, said he anticipates a smooth transfer of the department to Secretary-designate James A. Baker III.

Shultz said he had met several times with Baker, including a 2 1/2-hour session Saturday, and he said the department has prepared comprehensive briefing books for Baker and his aides.

“I’ve read them, and I’ve learned a lot,” he said with tongue in cheek. “I said, ‘I wish you’d told me this earlier.’ ”