SOVIETS FIRE BACK ON RIGHTS

KREMLIN SAYS U.S. HAS OWN PROBLEMS

MOSCOW, APRIL 19 -- MOSCOW, APRIL 19 -- The Soviet Union escalated its human rights counteroffensive in meetings with U.S. officials here last week, responding to charges of Soviet human rights abuses with accusations that the United States harbors criminals and has its own problems with racism, sexism and poverty.

When Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and a congressional delegation gave Soviet officials a list of 1,400 to 1,500 cases of political prisoners and Soviet Jews who want to emigrate, the officials handed back a list of 14 Nazi war criminals they said the United States is protecting, Hoyer said in an interview.

When Rep. James Scheuer (D-N.Y.) and Hoyer pleaded with Soviet officials on behalf of Lev Elbert, a Soviet Jew who is on the 48th day of a hunger strike for permission to emigrate, the Soviet media increased their coverage of Charles Hyder, an American who says he is on his 209th day of a hunger strike in Washington for nuclear disarmament.

In apparent response to appeals U.S. officials have made for some Soviet citizens to be allowed to travel to the West for medical treatment, members of the Supreme Soviet used a human rights seminar with U.S. congressmen to request that Leonard Peltier -- an American Indian imprisoned for the 1975 murder of two FBI agents -- be allowed to come to the Soviet Union for medical care.

Peltier has maintained his innocence and has long been championed by the Soviets.

One senior American diplomat called the Soviet tactic "nonsense," and "cynical." Other U.S. officials here said they have conceded that the United States has had to work to improve its civil rights record, but told Soviet leaders that such tactical responses to widespread concerns in the West about Soviet human rights abuses will not gain them any points.

Asked by a Soviet journalist at a press conference about the request on Peltier's behalf, Hoyer said he could imagine how Moscow would respond if Washington asked that a Soviet convicted of murdering two KGB agents be allowed to come to the United States for medical care.

In meetings with Central Committee Secretary Anatoliy Dobrynin and other Soviet officials, Hoyer said he stressed that the West views a serious Soviet approach toward human rights offenses as a "litmus test" for the credibility of Soviet democratization and economic reform.

Under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union has sought to counter criticism of its human rights record with charges of abuses in the West. "We will do so that those who are dissatisfied with their country become satisfied with it," Gorbachev was quoted by the official Tass news agency as telling Secretary of State George P. Shultz in a Tuesday meeting. "I hope that the United States will also do something {so} that millions of your citizens are better off.

"As to actions which border on interference in the internal affairs of other states, especially when undertaken at the level of high-ranking people, they are rejected by us. They are doing nothing to resolve problems," Gorbachev said.

After arriving in Moscow last Monday, Shultz held a Passover seder with Soviet Jews, where he pledged to continue to struggle for their cause.

In the past week, Soviet officials escalated their counterattacks, U.S. diplomats and lawmakers said at the end of a week of high-level talks, perhaps because Shultz and visiting congressmen launched a sweeping appeal for the resolution of some longstanding cases involving dissidents, or "refuseniks," Soviets who have been refused permission to emigrate.

When he met with congressmen Wednesday, Gorbachev complained that "dissatisfied persons are sought out on purpose among Soviet people, and a falsified image of Soviet society is formed with their assistance," according to a Tass account of the meeting.

But the Soviets also have moved to resolve some key cases. Two weeks ago they informed Hoyer that 137 of the 400 cases he had appealed for last November had been resolved. Soviet officials also gave the Shultz delegation a list of about 70 cases they said would be settled, a senior American diplomat said here. Shultz had given the Soviets a list of about 200 outstanding cases involving divided families and Soviets who have asked to emigrate to the United States.

In a briefing Thursday, Foreign Ministry press spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov mocked the American appeals by saying that some of those the United States had named did not want to emigrate, one had died and one had left several years ago. Asked about the cases, a senior U.S. diplomat here said that the Soviets seemed to be responding to several lists presented by the United States over a period of years.

During a two-day working group discussion between U.S. members of Congress and Supreme Soviet deputies, Soviets raised examples of racism, unemployment and womens' rights, said Hoyer, who chaired the group on the American side. Supreme Soviet Deputy Yuri Zhukov used a speech to name Americans he said had been jailed for their political beliefs. According to Tass, Zhukov also said that "the whole world closely follows" the destiny of Peltier, whom he described as "an Indian leader."

There is often "talk in the United States about human rights in other countries," Tass quoted Supreme Soviet Deputy Stepan Chervonenko as saying in another speech, "but not in the United States itself."

U.S. congressmen seemed unruffled by the Soviet attacks, however.

Hoyer told Soviet officials that U.S. civil rights, unemployment and human rights were being improved.

Despite the fact that he was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1972 after meeting with two Jews who had been refused permission to emigrate, Rep. Scheuer made a house call on two refuseniks Friday night.

They were Alexander Lerner and Vladimir Slepak, the same two refuseniks he saw in 1972, who are still waiting for visas to leave.

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.