Yeltsin Takes Charge of the 'Nuclear Button' : Russia: He reassures the world there is nothing to fear in a transfer symbolizing Gorbachev's defeat.

By ELIZABETH SHOGREN

Dec. 26, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON — Just four years after Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev kicked Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin out of the halls of power, Yeltsin took the “nuclear button” away from his former boss and reassured the world that he is now in control.

Yeltsin, speaking in a relaxed, confident manner in an interview with the Cable News Network on Wednesday, said there is no need to fear a nuclear attack by what used to be the Soviet Union.

“The nuclear button today will be passed over to the president of Russia, and we will do all we can do to prevent this nuclear button from being used ever,” Yeltsin said. The interview took place shortly before the button was passed.

Leaders of the four former Soviet republics having strategic weapons within their borders--Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia--decided to empower Yeltsin with control of the nuclear arsenal because “they don’t want the international community to be worried,” he said.

In passing the “nuclear button to Yeltsin,” Gorbachev was symbolically admitting defeat after a four-year battle for primary influence over the fate of the country. In the end, it was Yeltsin’s vision for the Commonwealth of Independent States, and not Gorbachev’s plan for a single state of sovereign republics, that triumphed.

Yeltsin said he had disagreed with what he called Gorbachev’s repressive policies since 1987. That was the year when Yeltsin made a bold, critical speech before Communist Party leaders. It cost him his post as Communist Party chief of Moscow and as a Politburo member.

But Yeltsin refused to leave the political stage and in June became the first ruler of Russia’s 1,000-year history to be elected by the people. Now, he has succeeded in pushing his longtime rival out of his way, so he can pursue his own dreams for Russia without Gorbachev’s fetters.

Yeltsin admitted, however, that the path will be difficult.

On Jan. 2, for instance, price controls will be lifted across the commonwealth, a move that is likely to send the cost of almost all goods and services soaring. He predicted that living standards will continue to decline until at least the end of 1992 and called on the world to help Russia to shed its “nightmarish totalitarian inheritance.”

But Yeltsin gave assurances that a distribution system for international aid has been set up, and stressed that humanitarian assistance would be received by those for whom it is intended.

While acknowledging economic times would be tough, he stressed that there would be a turnaround. “So those who doubt as to the success of the commonwealth should be aware and not be so pessimistic,” he said. “We are sick and tired of pessimism, which we have had over the past few years. The people here are weary of pessimism, and the share of pessimism is too much for the people to handle. Now they need some belief at last.”

In his interview, he also warned that ultra-conservatives would try to use economic hardship as a means to gather support for the old totalitarian system. “The right-wing forces can use popular dissent and resentment during this period of time, therefore we have to be vigilant,” Yeltsin said.

But he stressed that they would fail, just as they did last August, when hard-liners attempted a coup. The Russian people have chosen to reject the past, he said, and they want to build a new country, regardless of the personal cost.

“The plotters were literally swept away by popular rage, by popular hatred for the former oppressive order which the junta sought to restore,” Yeltsin said in reference to the victory over the coup leaders. This experience should show the world that the “fledgling democracy of Russia has passed its test of maturity.”

In a rare glimpse into his personal life, Yeltsin spoke about his own faith, a sense of which has emerged in meetings with high-ranking church figures: “I am aware of a certain feeling inside of me, which I experience when I attend services in the church. It is a feeling of something very connected, very moral . . . but I don’t think I can refer to myself as a believer, because it would be sacrilegious for me to do so. I am not a complete believer; my educational background was too atheistic for me to be a genuine believer.”

Yeltsin appeared to be trying to tell the world that he, too, has passed his test of maturity and that he is ready to lead Russia into the future.

“I would like to read someday about myself that I was a sincere person, and where there were mistakes that I had made, they had to do with the difficulties that I was experiencing at that time,” he said. “And with the brand new objective that I was seeking to accomplish . . . because we, all of us here together, are seeking to build a new society, an unprecedented society given the history, which has gone through these seven decades of the Communist experiment.”

Meantime, the Associated Press reported from Tblisi, capital of the troubled Caucasus Mountains republic of Georgia, that President Zviad Gamsakhurdia pledged to hold out in the besieged Parliament building until death rather than yield to opposition demands that he quit.

New fighting broke out Wednesday night at Tbilisi airport between the neutral Georgian militia and elements of the opposition that mistakenly believed a plane arriving from the neighboring territory of Chechen-Ingushetia carried Gamsakhurdia supporters on board, AP said. Several people were wounded.

Elsewhere in the city, shelling subsided when rebel forces pulled back slightly after pounding the Parliament building, where Gamsakhurdia and about 1,000 loyal troops are holding out, AP said.

Gamsakhurdia has the support of the working class and of people outside the capital city, AP reported. Intellectuals support the opposition, a loose coalition of democrats, reformers, former members of Gamsakhurdia’s government and rebel national guardsmen who broke with the president in August.

Reached by telephone, Gamsakhurdia told AP that he and his supporters had enough arms to withstand the opposition siege. “I will hold until death,” Gamsakhurdia said. But he also called for dialogue with the opposition.