Tuned In, But Not Turned On

"Here they are, the first pictures of our cosmonauts!" With that exuberant introduction, Veteran Soviet Anchor Man Yuri Fokin, 50, Moscow's properly graying, avuncular counterpart of U.S. television's Walter Cronkite, began his commentary on the first live broadcast from the orbiting Soyuz. Fokin's enthusiasm was typical: no event in recent years had been so ballyhooed by the Kremlin as the Apollo-Soyuz linkup.

Soviet TV devoted five hours of air time to the mission on the day of the launch, carrying the Soviet space story from the late cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin to live coverage of the Soyuz liftoff. Day after day, large headlines splashed across newspapers, pushing the official line that the joint flight was, as one edition of Izvestia trumpeted, an ORBIT OF COOPERATION. In Moscow, sidewalk traffic tapered off noticeably before the Soyuz launch, the first Soviet launch its citizens have ever been shown live, as shoppers gathered before TV sets or display in stores and shopwindows all over the city. The crowds were quietly attentive during the countdown, and a lift-off applauded politely and called out "Molodyets, molodyets"--a Russian expression that is roughly equivalent to the American cheer "That's the way, baby."

Though almost everyone was tuned in to the televised spectacular, it was difficult to ascertain how many were really turned on by the mission. One woman who had ventured into the big GUM department store near Red Square at launch time to buy a TV set grumbled that the crowds kept her from the sales counter. Asked what he thought of Soyuz's successful liftoff, a stroller along Gorky Street replied: "Oh, has it all started?" A man absorbed in a chess game in a nearby park was just as blase. "Chess is more difficult," he shrugged and turned back to his board.

There were some notable non-viewers in the Soviet Union during the launchings. Troubled by a heart ailment, dissident Physicist Andrei Sakharov remained in bed. "My doctor has ordered no excitement," he explained. Elizabeth Taylor and other members of the cast of The Blue Bird, the first joint Soviet-American film production, were too busy to take time off from their filming in Leningrad to watch the liftoff. Instead, they sent a fatuous message to the spacemen: "If you meet in space our small bluebird of happiness, please take it with you and return it to earth."

With their usual savvy in separating reality from official propaganda, ordinary Russians seemed to recognize that the joint flight was as much a diplomatic exercise as a technological feat, and they were divided on its value. One launch watcher at the GUM store, Valery Gromov, a Moscow mathematician, suggested that the joint U.S.-Soviet mission might help "move aside the feelings of mistrust" on both sides. But another middle-aged Muscovite disagreed. "Everyone knows the political side of it," he grumped. "They have no need to talk about it."

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