"You Americans Make It Difficult"

A Kremlin aide talks about Reagan, the MX and Afghanistan

Georgi Arbatov, 59, worked closely with General Secretary Yuri Andropov from 1964 to 1967, when, as a young research scholar, Arbatov joined the Central Committee's department in charge of relations with other Communist parties. Four years later, Arbatov founded the Institute of the U.S.A. and Canada, an influential policy-related think tank that studies all aspects of U.S. life. In an exclusive interview in his Moscow office last week with TIME Moscow Bureau Chief Erik Amfitheatrof and Reporter Felix Rosenthal, Arbatov predictably blamed the U.S. for fueling the arms race. He stressed the Soviet Union's opposition to the MX missile, but he indicated that there was a Soviet willingness to find a political solution to the presence of some 100,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Excerpts:

Q. Did the visit of Vice President Bush and Secretary of State Shultz to Moscow for Brezhnev's funeral, and their talk with General Secretary Andropov, strike Soviet leaders as an overture that could lead to better relations?

A. We have learned from all our experience with the U.S. not to come to hasty conclusions. One visit and some good words, while they were listened to carefully, did not give grounds for far-reaching conclusions.

Q. How does the new leadership feel U.S.-Soviet relations can be mended?

A. We are ready to improve relations with the U.S., but we don't think we owe you anything or that preconditions should be put to us by American leaders, including Secretary Shultz. We don't have to prove first that we are good boys, and only then will you be kind enough to talk about normalizing relations. You demand from us that we yield at the Geneva arms talks, at Madrid, over human rights, Afghanistan and Poland. We could make a similar menu of demands to the U.S. as a precondition, but we don't.

Q. Will Soviet foreign policy change under Andropov?

A. We have not had a change of government--nor a coup d'etat! The change of leader can have some importance, of course, but we have had a collective leadership in the Soviet Union for years. The Central Committee and the Politburo were the chief decision-making bodies under Brezhnev, and they will be under Andropov.

Q. The U.S. has been stressing regional issues like Afghanistan and Poland, and you put stress on the arms race. How can this difference be reconciled?

A. I would not make such distinctions. The major issue in Soviet-American relations is war and peace. The problem of survival. There was a time when the arms race was a consequence of bad political relations. But I think that now bad political relations have become a consequence of the arms race. As to Afghanistan and Poland, we don't expect Americans to have our view of events there. But whatever their views, I don't think Poland and Afghanistan must become a motive for an unlimited arms race.

Q. If Soviet leaders want a return to detente, as Andropov has said, why do they keep using terms like "the imperialist threat"?

A. Our concern over the threat from Western countries, of "imperialism," is a historic policy. And our history seems to have justified this concern. You also took part, after all, in the military intervention against us in 1918. We were invaded by Germany in World War II, at the cost of 20 million human lives. Then came the cold war. We have always lived under threat. In the nuclear arms race, we began as the weaker one. I can't remember a single important weapons system which was not introduced first by you and then by us. Right now, because of the Reagan Administration's rhetoric--and maybe it's more than just rhetoric--some of our military people and even some members of the Central Committee believe America is preparing for nuclear war. Even more widespread now is the view that your leaders are determined to change our system and, if that fails, to destroy it.

Q. How does the Soviet leadership view the MX proposal, which President Reagan sent to Congress last week?

A. The MX is the first outright violation of both SALT I and SALT II, which reads: "Each party undertakes not to start construction of additional fixed ICBM launchers." The MX is regarded here as a first-strike weapon because of its very big number of warheads, their accuracy and their power. If you build something of this kind when you already have 9,000 warheads that can cover all possible targets three or four times, then you must have something in mind. The most obscene thing about this weapon is that the Administration tries to depict it as a contribution to peace, to arms negotiations. They even call it the "Peacemaker," which is tremendously Orwellian. You know, there's a Russian saying: "People never lie so much as when they've been hunting." I would add: or during an arms race.

Q. The Administration defends the MX as a necessary response to the huge Soviet military buildup of the '70s. Don't you now have a strategic edge?

A. We now face lies about the balance of power. When we say there is military parity between the Soviet Union and America we are being tremendously generous to ourselves. A rough parity exists, but you have to understand we have 60% to 70% of your gross national product. If you put America and Western Europe together, we have about 35% of your G.N.P.

Q. Did Andropov's meetings with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Pakistani President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq and Afghan President Babrak Karmal produce any movement toward a settlement in Afghanistan?

A. I don't know the content of those talks, but the Soviet Union has constantly looked for a political solution to the Afghan problem. We think it should be solved by political means.

Q. Does Andropov believe a summit meeting with Reagan would be useful?

A. We are not going to beg for a summit. You Americans make it very difficult. The moment we express interest it becomes a sort of bargaining chip in Washington's eyes. As a statement of policy, however, the Soviet Union is ready for a summit. The door is open.

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