America the Baffling: How the Soviets See It

While intrigued by American freedoms, political plurality and cultural diversity, the Soviet leadership is unable to comprehend fully the mechanism of the U.S. political system. There is little grasp of the relationship of American Congressmen to their constituencies, the real role of public opinion and that worst bugaboo, freedom of information, which they see as a threat to security. The idealism of the American Revolution, carried over into both domestic and foreign policy more than 200 years later, the Soviets perceive as crippling naivete. Its manifestations sometimes make them doubt American seriousness. Because such institutions are nonexistent in their own country, the Soviets are simply baffled by the American system.

It puzzles them how a complex and little-regulated society can maintain such a high level of production, efficiency and technological innovation. Many are inclined toward the fantastic notion that there must be a secret control center somewhere in the U.S. They continue to chew on Lenin's dogma that bourgeois governments are just the "servants" of monopoly capital. Is that not the secret control center? The great gap in Soviet understanding of U.S. policies and practices sometimes means that even experienced message carriers and advisers of the Politburo like Anatoly Dobrynin, the longtime Ambassador in Washington, do not necessarily convey accurate information. Americans would be astonished if they knew how little Gromyko, who has lived in America and visits regularly, knows about day-to-day life in their country. One of Dobrynin's important functions has been to correct the limited and distorted picture Soviet rulers have of America. On a visit to New York, Gromyko, spooning honey into his tea, remarked that American bees were turning out a distinctly poor product.

The mission, in fact, had served the Foreign Minister the cheapest available honey, as I explained to him. He immediately wanted to know the price, which he thought was high, and then the cost of other goods--better honey, shirts, Manhattan apartments. As Dobrynin and I answered his questions, Gromyko expressed surprise at the expense of each item. He had never visited American stores and knew barely anything of the costs or real standard of living in the U.S.

Dobrynin tried to enlighten him in a broader way. To please Gromyko, he agreed that prices were high (though he knew they were not, compared with the portion of their salaries Soviets must spend for food and consumer goods). But he also added that the variety of items available in American markets was extensive. Gromyko wrinkled his nose in a characteristic gesture of distaste for an inconvenient truth. "Maybe you're right," he admitted, "but they have so many problems too. Poverty. Massive unemployment. Race hatred."

"Of course there are those things. No one denies that." Dobrynin sugared the pill he wanted Gromyko to swallow. "But it seems to me that Soviet correspondents tend to overemphasize that side of things. They create a mistaken impression of the situation here. You know, when I go home to Moscow, people ask me about America as though they thought it was about to fall apart." He laughed loudly. "Our people should think more realistically. They ought to have more accurate information, not just the exaggerations of hack writers."

Gromyko mulled this for a bit before conceding that Soviet propaganda would be sounder if it came closer to reality and that Soviet journalists were too likely to report what they thought Moscow wanted to hear. In practical terms, however, the lesson was wasted.