Baker on Tour to Sell Public on Aid to Russians

WASHINGTON —  Secretary of State James A. Baker III, better-known as an inside deal-maker than a magnetic public speaker, launched an unusual barnstorming tour Tuesday to whip up public support for billions of dollars in aid to the former Soviet Union.

“This is not just more foreign aid,” Baker told the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations as he began his campaign to pressure a reluctant Congress to approve the Bush Administration’s aid proposal. “It is instead a hardheaded investment in our security. . . . Either we take hold of history or history will take hold of us.”

Baker noted that even the Marshall Plan, the U.S. aid program that rebuilt Europe after World War II, was unpopular when it was first proposed in 1947.

But the plan’s author, then-Secretary of State George C. Marshall, traveled the country to build support for his idea and won the backing of skeptical Republicans in Congress, a Baker aide said.

Now Baker hopes to duplicate that feat.

President Bush, who once proclaimed foreign policy his strongest asset, is publicly emphasizing domestic issues in his reelection campaign.

Partly as a result, a State Department official said, “Baker’s going to have to be the guy who sells this thing.”

The aid package, unveiled earlier this month, calls for $24 billion in aid to Russia from several Western countries, much of it funneled through organizations like the International Monetary Fund. The plan called for no new appropriations of U.S. tax funds.

Baker framed his appeal in Chicago in terms of America’s national interest in fostering a democratic Russia. “Real democracies do not go to war with each other,” he said. “And while democracy will support our security, free markets . . . will support global and American prosperity.”

He attacked Republican challenger Patrick J. Buchanan and other “isolationists,” saying: “The so-called ‘America firsters’ prefer to avoid the challenges of our times by pretending they do not exist. But that is the greatest risk of all.”

“We’re trying to demonstrate that there is public support for this (Russian aid proposal)--a ground-swell,” a Baker aide said.

“There really is a remarkable degree of support,” he added. “It just had to be tapped and led.”

But on Capitol Hill, conservative Republicans have opposed the aid as too expensive in the face of budgetary problems and the economic recession.