Take All--Gorbachev Urals Visit

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

## UNCLASSIFIED

will be needed is first of all a referendum. It is necessary to find out what people will say, and the Lithuanians are a very sensible people, a cultured and educated people. Let them give some thought as to which path to follow. In my opinion there is an increasing number of sober voices there now. People's thirst for an independent [samostoyatelnyy] Lithuanian state can also be satisfied within the framework of the relations of the federation. The important thing is to tackle all of these questions in a normal and constitutional form.

Thus, we shall not retreat from the mandate of the Third USSR Congres of Peoples Deputies.

A question has come in about the islands of the Kuriles ridge. We have no superfluous land. We shall adhere to the helsinki positions -- the recognition of postwar realities, including the inviolability of borders. There was the following question, too: Does the government study such phenomena as unidentified flying objects. The presidnet replied that as far as he was aware there exist scientific collectives engaged in studying such phenomena.

This question came in: Why, in your opinion, does Comrade Yeltsin enjoy great authority in the Urals and at Uralmash, but not with the government?"

M.S. Gorbachev replied: I have already been asked in the streets what my attitude is to B.N. Yeltsin. There was the time when I invited the first secretary of the Sverdlovsk oblast party committee and Central Committee member to transfer to work in the Central Committee. We needed somebody in charge of the construction department, and Comrade Yeltsin, besides his party experience, had experience of construction, for he is a builder by education. He agreed and got actively involved in that work. Then, when the need to tackle the question of the first secretary of the Moscow committee came up, the choice was for Boris Nikolavevich. I presented him and recommended him on behalf of the Politburo and tried to support him. He set about the job ardently at first, but events developed in such a way that the situation in the city party organization grew tense. In the summer, when I was on holiday, he raised sharply the question of his resignation from that post. I said: I'll come back and we'll have a chat. My aim was simple: to cool passions, so that Comrade Yeltsin could continue working. But Boris Nikolayevich did not heed this advise and insisted on being relieved, since he did not want to work in such an atmosphere. I do not think he had sufficient arguments. It was some kind of whim, strictly speaking, and that is just how the Central Committee saw it. But you have read all this -- we published the story of this matter in full.

I was convinced that he had to be kept and I tried to keep this process within the framework of party democracy and comradely discussion. I attempted to ask once more how he viewed the observations of comrades. No, he said firmly, I ask you to relieve me. Well, let it be. Subsequently I insisted that his experience should be used in a ministerial post and that he should continue his activity in the Central Committee.

There are all manner of turn-arounds in life. We took account of some of B.N. Yeltsin's qualities which had already been revealed when he was here -- you know his style better than I do -- but we thought that the Moscow party organization and the responsibility would "grind all that down" and the excesses would go. That did not happen. Then, in my opinion, he