REPORT SAYS SOVIET ECONOMIC PLANS TOO OPTIMISTIC

  The Soviet economy has grown at an
  increased rate under Mikhail Gorbachev's leadership, but his
  goals may be too ambitious, according to a report from U.S.
  intelligence agencies.
      The report was prepared jointly by the Central Intelligence
  Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency for the
  Congressional Joint Economic committee, which released it.
      It said the Soviet economy grew by 4.2 pct in 1986,
  Gorbachev's first full year in power, twice the average rate of
  growth over the previous 10 years.
      Gorbachev's policies to improve worker attitudes, remove
  incompetent officials, reduce corruption and alcoholism and
  modernize the country's industrial equipment accounted for some
  of the gains, the report said.
      "Although many of the specific policies Gorbachev has
  adopted are not new, the intensity Gorbachev has brought to his
  efforts and his apparent commitment to finding long-term
  solutions are attributes that his immediate predecessors
  lacked. Nonetheless, Gorbachev's program appears too ambitious
  on a number of counts," the report said.
      Earlier this week, two U.S. experts on the Soviet Union
  said Gorbachev was likely to be ousted in three to four years
  if he continues his reform policies.
      "I don't think he can last four years," Marshall Goldman of
  Harvard University told a Congressional hearing. "He's moving so
  fast, he's stepping on so many toes."
      A similar comment came from Peter Reddaway of the
  Smithsonian Institution's Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian
  studies.
      The economic report said meeting targets for commodity
  output would require unrealistic gains in productivity and
  industrial output targets appear too high to allow time to
  install more advanced equipment.
      None of Gorbachev's proposals would change the system of
  economic incentives that has discouraged innovation and
  technological change, the report added.
      "The first significant resistance to specific policies,
  although not overall goals, surfaced (in 1986) in both the
  massive government and party bureaucracy, particularly among
  enterprise managers who complained that they were being asked
  to carry out conflicting goals -- such as to raise quality
  standards and output targets simultaneously," the report said.
      The CIA-DIA report predicted two to three pct growth in the
  Soviet economy over the next several years. It said the Soviet
  Union trailed the U.S. by seven to 12 years in advanced
  manufacturing technologies, such as computers and
  microprocessors.
  

