U.S. Envoy Arrives Early for Talks in Rebel Lithuania : Baltics: Consul general in Leningrad says he will attend today’s funeral of seven slain border guards.

VILNIUS, Soviet Union —  An American diplomat brought forward his visit to the rebel Soviet republic of Lithuania on Friday after President Bush urged the Kremlin and its restive republics to settle their differences through negotiations.

Jack Gosnell, U.S. consul general in Leningrad, arrived here for talks with Lithuania’s separatist leader Vytautas Landsbergis two weeks earlier than originally scheduled, Lithuanian officials said.

Washington does not recognize the 1940 Soviet annexation of the Baltic republics, but Bush was careful during his two-day summit visit to Moscow this week not to appear to be forcing Soviet President leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s hand on the issue. Instead, he urged the Kremlin and its restive republics to settle differences through negotiations.

After he arrived in Vilnius, Gosnell said he would attend the funeral today of seven border guards who were shot execution-style at their guard post Wednesday.

The guards were forced to lie on the floor of their customs post at Medininkai, 25 miles from Vilnius, and shot in the head at close range by unidentified gunmen.

Six died instantly, one died of his wounds Friday and an eighth guard remains in critical condition. One of the slain men was to have been married today.

Crowds of mourners gathered outside the sports palace in Vilnius where the bodies of the guards were lying in state. Mourners placed bouquets of red gladioli and yellow roses nearby. Across the Minsk-Vilnius highway, two men dug a hole to hold a 30-foot wooden cross engraved with the words “Forgive Them, God.”

“The cross is our only weapon,” said Gediminas Radzevicus, referring to Lithuania’s peaceful fight for independence from Moscow. “The only thing left for them to do is kill us.”

Investigators called the raid a professional job but have no concrete leads to the identity of the killers. Footprints found near the border post suggested there were at least two assailants involved, they said.

Most Lithuanian officials suspect the black-bereted OMON troops of the Soviet Interior Ministry, who have been blamed for several previous attacks on Baltic customs posts. No one was killed in the earlier raids.

The Baltic republics erected the border posts, which Moscow says are illegal, to further their claims to independence. Moscow denies ordering attacks on any of the installations, and commanders of the commandos in Lithuania and neighboring Latvia have disclaimed any part in the killings.