Stepping Out

Who is the superpower leader with an eye for a photo opportunity and a knack for communicating with the folks out there? A surprising answer could be found last week on Vremya, the Soviet nightly news program, when photographs of Mikhail Gorbachev suddenly filled the screen. There was the 54-year-old General Secretary of the Communist Party, strolling around Moscow, laughing heartily with workers, shaking hands. Now he was sharing a cup of tea in a young couple's apartment, now vigorously pressing the flesh in a factory, now touring a hospital, a classroom, even a supermarket. In all, Gorbachev spent about eight hours last week on photographed walkabouts through the highly industrialized Proletarsky (Proletarian) district of southeastern Moscow, extolling the virtues of hard work and the rewards of initiative. Past Soviet leaders have made similar rounds, but. Western diplomats noted, few have brought so much vigor to the task.

That same decidedly Reaganesque social ease made a great impression on the four Congressmen, including Speaker of the House Thomas (Tip) O'Neill Jr., who were invited to a meeting with Gorbachev in the Kremlin two weeks ago. One of the visitors, Republican Congressman Silvio Conte of Massachusetts, made detailed notes about the Soviet leader that make him sound remarkably like Washington's own Great Communicator. Gorbachev's greeting to his visitors, noted Conte, was almost fulsome. He had been well briefed by aides, and spoke through an interpreter from color-coded typed notes. He made his points firmly, often with emotion and at times with humor and a trace of sardonic wit; Conte recorded that he even hit the table with his fist for emphasis. One of the charmed visitors called him quite an actor. The meeting ran on for almost four hours, even though it was only scheduled for one.

The Soviet leader appeared to Conte to have an impressive familiarity with things American. Gorbachev said that he had studied U.S. law, and he claimed to have read a 600-page Hoover Institute book, adding, "I noticed many ideas that this Administration is taking." He was not impressed, he said, with the men surrounding the President, calling them "narrow-minded" and benefiting "them selves and not the national interest."

Again and again, reported Conte, Gorbachev urged America to deal with the world as it exists and not to attempt to reshape the Soviet Union. "If the evil empire exists," he said, "let it exist." He also repeated what he said he had told Mrs. Thatcher during his visit to Britain last December: "I have no hope of turning you into a Marxist," implying that his listeners had no hope of turning him into a non-Marxist.