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Jon Rust has spent most of the past year and a half studying, working and traveling in the Soviet Union. His most recent stint there included representing the United States in a series of debates throughout the U.S.S.R. on the topic of trust and guarantees in the relations between East and West. The speech, debates, and question and answer sessions, which pitted Rust and two other American students against three different Soviets in each city, were conducted in Russian. Audiences ranged up to 2,500 people. In conjunction with the debates, Rust was featured on national Soviet television.

A year ago, when back in the U.S. briefly, Rust delivered a speech in Chicago to the international debate committee of the Speech Communication Association on the topic: What should the U.S. response be to current ethnic strife in the U.S.S.R.? In light of current events in the Baltics, excerpts of that speech are printed below.

His current assessment of the nationality and ethnic situation in the U.S.S.R. is printed in an accompanying article.

When I was small, every now and then my father sent me down to my great aunt and uncles in Arkansas to work on their farm. There I was supposed to learn how to work - don't do a job unless you do it right, my uncle told me. I was also supposed to learn how to be a gentleman - if you don't have anything kind to say, don't say anything at all, said my aunt. On their farm, I didn't leave the table until all was eaten. Sometimes that meant chewing on a dry hamburger for an hour while they made sure that I didn't spit any out.

I also learned to stop in on the neighbors every day after my chores were done to see if they needed any help.

The one thing that always confounded me about these work ethic summers, however, was my aunt and uncle's treatment of Northern city folk. I can remember one time weeding in the garden when this ~sleek, red sportscar zoomed by, spitting up a plume of dust behind it higher than the gingko tree that was the pride of my aunt's front yard. The driver, seeing my uncle bent over checking the tomatoes, whipped the car around, rolled the window down and yelled out.

"Hey old man. How do I get to Pine Bluff from here?"

"Where ya from?" my uncle replied.

"Chicago."

"Well, turn back 'round and go straight until you come to a stop sign. Then take yourself a left. In 'bout twenty miles, you'll see a sign."

Without saying a word, the man rolled up the window and spun away in his car, sending a cloud of dust over where we were working.

"Uncle Cecil?" I asked. "How come you told him to go left at the stop sign. You know as well as me that Pine Bluff is to the right."

My uncle looked at me and shook his head. "City slickers," he said. "Son, I pray you don't never become one. They think they own everything. Well, they don't. And if you do ever become one, by my eye, well then you better never forget how to address a stranger."

In thinking about what had happened afterwards, I figured "hey old man" wasn't the best way to greet a man in the country. And driving a bright red sportscar, spitting up a whole road behind probably wasn't very smart either. You see, we all have our pride.

What's funny is that I thought of this story for the first time in years when I was in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, two months ago.

It was about six in the morning. I had just gotten off the train and was trying to buy a return ticket to Moscow when this thin man in a black overcoat elbowed his way in front of me. I asked him what he was doing? He said he needed to buy a ticket on the seven o'clock to Minsk. I wasn't in a hurry, so I didn't say anything else to him. But when it became apparent that I wasn't going to do anything, everybody behind me started yelling at him.

"Hey what are you doing? We're trying to get tickets to Minsk, too. Get in line like everybody else."

The first man yelled back that he was in a hurry and that I had let him in.

"It wasn't that way," another man yelled. "You pushed your way in."

By this time the man in the overcoat was at the window. As he tried to slide his money under the glass, a man who was wearing a co-op sock cap that had the Adidas logo on it but read "Adias" (there being a secon~d "d" missing) brushed the first man's money from the window ledge and put his own down. As I watched, mesmerized by the speed in which everything was taking place, the man in the overcoat snatched the ticket that the teller slid out and tried to walk away. But soon he was facing three other men, big men, with square jars and steel-coil arms, as well as the one in the sock cap.

"That's not your ticket," one said. "You didn't pay for it."

Meanwhile, I was watching the whole scene with one eye and trying to buy a ticket to Moscow with the rest of me. As usual, I was told that, being a foreigner, I had to go to Intourist. So carefully, I slipped away from the middle of what was turning out to be a pretty heated confrontation, which, fortunately, never came to blows.~~~~

It was the teller who saved the day by saying that there were enough tickets for everyone, and the train would be a little late.

As tensions subsided, I realized something I had missed before. The first man, in the black overcoat, was Russian. The others were Lithuanian.

Later I asked a new Lithuanian friend about it all. He told me, "The Russians, they think they own it all. They think they should always have their way. They come here and build giant factories, pollute our rivers, and make us speak their language in our country....You almost got yourself into trouble without realizing it."

* * * * *

Now that, my friends, is my response to the question, how should the U.S. respond to the current ethnic strife in the Soviet Union.

Like me in Vilnius, the United States must be careful not to insert itself into the middle of a brewing fight. Succinctly, there is not much that we can do directly from 4000 miles away. And frankly, it is not our problem - though it is our concern ... just as the civil rights, dignity, and well-being of all people throughout the world should be our concern. No less. And only more in the sense that a violent destabilization of the Soviet Union would be a destabilization of Europe.

There are some general things we can do however.

The United States' sympathy for what the Soviet government under Gorbachev is trying to do must be made clear. There are real changes being made in the system (see nearby article for new, negative assessment of these changes). At the same time, we must also make our sympathy clear for what the ethnic and national fronts are trying to do. For they are struggling to gain rights our people and culture believe in highly, in fact, which we have in our constitution called inalienable: mainly, self-determination, the right to own property, and the right to freely control economic resources.

But there is an entity bigger than the United States - an entity which is actually the key to all of the Soviet Union's ills, including ethnic strife. That entity is economic well-being.

That entity is the Teller.

Just as she saved the day in Vilnius, it is she - and I would argue she alone - who can save the day throughout the whole of the Soviet Union.

Unfortunately, as we are all well aware, there are not enough tickets for everyone to go to Minsk right now. And although this week's events may have bought a little time, until there is full economic reform and not just half-steps, there is no keeping the train from arriving early.

How can the United States help the teller then?

First, we can do what we can to stabilize the international environment so that Gorbachev can focus the energies of his country on internal change.

Second, we can move forward with arms control, thus further reducing international tensions, and also helping to reduce the burden of Soviet defense spending.

Third, we can offer the Soviet Union whatev~er technical assistance we can. Although U.S. government money is not and ~will not be there, the U.S. can help facilitate the exchange of private economists and various government specialists.

Fourth, we can point out how important it is for the Soviet Union to implement the kinds of domestic economic changes that are critical in gaining international economic interaction. As long as prices in the marketplace are not allowed to show legitimate costs then the ruble will not be convertible. And if the ruble is not convertible, membership in organizations like the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, will not be possible.

Finally, we can speak to the spirit and the soul of the peoples who make up the Soviet Union. We can offer them our perspective through cultural exchanges such as this program.

Nobody likes conflict. Yet conflict often breeds the best solutions. The Soviet peoples' challenge is to realize that armed conflict, however, violent revolutions, have rarely succeeded in accomplishing what they started out to do. For now, we must encourage ethnic groups to work within a system that is becoming more and more responsive to them.

I've learned a couple of things in my life already. I pray that I will keep on learning for the rest of my life.

But some of the things I've learned is that my uncle is not alone when he says that he likes to be addressed with respect. The men and women of Lithuania, Moldavia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia and everywhere else in the Soviet Union, like to be addressed with respect too. Indeed, they are owed respect. From us. From their neighbors. From themselves.

I grew up in the Midwest with certain values. There are pros and cons to the way I live. I know this. And so I will not tell you how to live just as the United States should not tell the Soviets how to live.

We can make suggestions, but they must make the choices. For ultimately, the burden is theirs.

Strange, isn't it? How similar we can be from the tomatoe patches of Arkansas to the train stations of Lithuania.~