Soviet Union Trotting Out a New Roadshow

By Strobe Talbott

Presiding over the Communist Party congress last week, Mikhail Gorbachev reassured his comrades that he could improve the performance of the Soviet system without altering its basic tenets. Same ends, more efficient means. That seems to be the guiding principle of what will become known as the Gorbachev era. In Kremlin foreign policy, there has already been a noticeable change, not so much in goals and substance as in method and style. Deft and often deceptive flexibility rather than rigid continuity is now the order of the day.

No longer is the Soviet approach to the outside world epitomized by Andrei Gromyko, the man who made iron pants, stone walls and, of course, nyet so much a part of the vocabulary of diplomacy. Under Gromyko, Soviet foreign policy was much like WrestleMania's archvillain Nikolai Volkoff, whose technique consists of grappling his opponent to the mat and sitting on him. With Gromyko kicked upstairs to the largely ceremonial post of President and Gorbachev's protege Eduard Shevardnadze in charge of the Foreign Ministry, Soviet diplomacy now resembles Ivan Drago, the sleek and powerful Soviet boxer portrayed in the movie Rocky IV.

After decades of taking the initiative and then dickering patiently over meager and grudging Soviet concessions, the U.S. suddenly finds itself on the receiving end of a flurry of grand gestures and sly teasers. Last month Gorbachev released one of the Soviet Union's best-known prisoners of conscience, Anatoli Shcharansky, and promised Senator Edward Kennedy that 19 more refuseniks would be allowed to emigrate to the West. The Soviet leader thus multiplied the goodwill he had reaped for himself and also made sure that President Reagan would have to share credit with a leading liberal Democrat for this latest exodus of Soviet Jews.

On other diplomatic fronts, the Soviets are just as active. They are cultivating better relations with the conservative Arab states of the gulf, even as they whisper about the possibility of re-establishing full diplomatic relations with Israel. Turning eastward, the U.S.S.R. is looking for ways to build bridges to China and hinting that there might be a way to resolve Moscow's long-standing dispute with Japan over the islands the Red Army occupied late in World War II. The Soviets even made a bizarre eleventh-hour overture to Ferdinand Marcos, congratulating him on his "re-election" and seeking to capitalize on his estrangement from Uncle Sam.

Despite all Gorbachev's fancy footwork, his basic objectives show no signs of varying from those pursued by his predecessors. He is as adamant as ever about blocking the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars. But he has decided, it appears, to work around that challenge rather than meet it head on. Gorbachev seems to have learned a lesson from the Great Euromissile Debate of 1983. The Soviet Union was dead set against the deployment in Western Europe of U.S. intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF), which were intended to offset Soviet SS-20 rockets already in place. Moscow pronounced the new U.S. weapons unacceptable and subordinated all other East-West business to a test of wills with Washington on that one issue. American steadfastness and NATO solidarity turned out to be stronger than Soviet bullying. When the U.S. missiles went in, the Soviets had no choice but to walk out of arms-control negotiations. That outcome left them looking like Nikolai Volkoff sulking in his corner.

Now the Soviets are back in the ring, Drago-like, mixing jabs with diplomatic bobbing and weaving. Gorbachev tried before last year's summit to hold progress in all areas of the superpower relationship hostage to American concessions on Star Wars. Yet when Reagan stood his ground, Gorbachev shifted his. In January the Soviet leader put Reagan on the public relations defensive with a headline-grabbing scheme to eliminate nuclear weapons from the face of the earth by the year 2000. While the proposal was as cynical as it was utopian, it included an intriguing and far more practical offer that eases the terms for an INF deal.

The Gorbachev package is carefully designed for maximum appeal to the West Europeans, since Britain and France would now be able to keep their nuclear missiles even as the Soviets remove all their SS-20s from Europe. The U.S., on the other hand, would have to withdraw all its missiles from Europe, and the British and French would be forced to cancel plans to upgrade theirs. Then last month Gorbachev told Kennedy that contrary to earlier warnings, "there are no preconditions" to an INF agreement. The Soviet leader indicated that he and Reagan could sign an interim arms-control agreement at their expected summit later this year, regardless of a continuing impasse over Star Wars and strategic offensive weapons. The concession is almost certainly tactical. It does not mean Gorbachev is resigned to the inevitability of Star Wars. Rather, he has adopted a more subtle, long-term strategy for blocking what he calls "space-strike weapons."

By opening the door of the gulag a crack and blitzing the West with proposals of all kinds, Gorbachev is raising expectations in the West for this year's $ summit. If those high hopes are dashed, Reagan is likely to get the blame. The White House seems to be aware of the danger. Last week Reagan unveiled a counteroffer on INF that exempts Britain and France from restricting their forces and moves toward compromise on other sticking points. There is still hard negotiating ahead, and Gorbachev last week warned that there must be "concrete progress" on arms control for a summit to be worthwhile. For him, it was a tactical ploy: having offered inducements, he was now applying pressure. But U.S. officials believe there could indeed be an interim INF deal of some kind ready for signing this year. Such a success would feed even greater expectations in the West. As a result, the Reagan Administration would then be under greater pressure at the 1987 summit in Moscow to reach a more comprehensive agreement, one that would include curbs on Star Wars. Or that, at least, is what Gorbachev hopes.