Advice From The Third Man

By Strobe Talbott/Washington

The two leaders who are planning to meet in Washington next month are already one of the great odd couples of history: Ronald Reagan, the septuagenarian American conservative with his high-noon view of the superpower competition, and Mikhail Gorbachev, the youthful Soviet reformer with his reassuring slogans about "new thinking" and "mutual security." If, as both hope, they hold a fourth summit before Reagan leaves office, perhaps in Moscow, they will have met more often than any of their predecessors. And if the intermediate- range nuclear forces treaty that they are about to sign leads to a strategic arms agreement next year, their relationship will have proved far more productive than anyone anticipated.

One little-known feature of their relationship has been the quiet mediation of a third man, the past master of summitry, Richard Nixon. The former President has taken it on himself to explain Reagan and Gorbachev to each other, coaxing them toward accommodation where possible. Nixon has found an attentive hearing in the White House and the Kremlin alike.

TIME has obtained a confidential memorandum that Nixon sent to Reagan in July 1986 after a session with Gorbachev in Moscow. The 26-page document captures the essence of Nixon's exercise in discreet diplomacy. It shows him trying to persuade Gorbachev that he can do business with Reagan precisely because Reagan is a conservative. And then, in reporting on the meeting, it shows him trying to persuade the President that he should seek a major strategic arms deal, which Nixon implied could be achieved with only minor concessions on Reagan's cherished Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), the Star Wars antimissile program.

Nixon wrote the memo when Reagan and Gorbachev were both riding high. Anatoly Dobrynin, the longtime Soviet Ambassador to the U.S., whom Gorbachev had recalled to Moscow, told Nixon that Gorbachev was "politically very strong, and President Reagan should seize the opportunity to deal with him." Nixon's memo implicitly endorsed Dobrynin's advice. Nixon said he found Gorbachev in person to be "either the greatest actor the political world has produced or . . . a man totally in charge with the power and ability to chart his own course."

Nixon's depiction of Reagan to Gorbachev was similar. The former President told the Soviet leader that Reagan was "enormously popular, with the highest public approval rating of any President in his second term." Therefore Reagan, unlike Jimmy Carter, "could get Senate approval of any agreement he made." Moreover, Nixon continued, "I told ((Gorbachev)) that after President Reagan left office, he would be enormously popular and would have great influence on public issues due to his incomparable communication skills. It was, therefore, very much in Gorbachev's interest that President Reagan have a stake in a new, improved U.S.-Soviet relationship which he would have initiated. This would ensure that he would strongly support his successor's efforts to carry out the Reagan initiatives. On the other hand, failure to reach agreement while President Reagan is in office might run the risk of developing a situation where President Reagan might become a powerful critic." Gorbachev seemed impressed. "I don't believe anything I said during the conversation had a greater impact on him," wrote Nixon.

For Nixon and Gorbachev, SDI was "the only major substantive issue we discussed." Nixon's memo summarized Gorbachev's forceful objections to the program in a way that seemed calculated to make it difficult for Reagan to dismiss them as unreasonable.

According to Nixon, Gorbachev "said it was simply a myth that the Soviet Union opposed SDI because they feared the enormous cost to their economy. He went on to say that his opposition to SDI was not based on his fear of its ((offensive)) military potential or of our technological edge. He said, 'We have our own space defense program and our research is making progress in different ways than yours is. In any event,' he added, 'we will be able to evade and overcome any SDI system that the U.S. might eventually deploy.' "

"His major objection to SDI," Nixon wrote, was "because he believed that if SDI went forward there would be a massive spiral in the arms race." Once again, Nixon's memo implied that he agreed with Gorbachev, and he urged Reagan to consider a strategic arms deal that would protect the U.S.'s right to continue "purposeful research" in SDI while trading restrictions on deployment for reductions in Soviet missiles.

The memo also contained a number of personalized grace notes that could only have been flattering to Reagan -- and therefore might have made him more receptive to Nixon's advice that he should deal with Gorbachev: "I sensed that Gorbachev's attitude toward the President and the First Lady was one of genuine affection. His last words to me as I was leaving his office in the Kremlin were, 'Give my warmest regards to President Reagan and to Lady Nancy.' "

But the hard edge returned when Nixon compared Gorbachev with two other Soviet leaders he had dealt with: "Unlike ((Nikita)) Khrushchev, he has no inferiority complex. He is totally confident, in command, and secure . . . Gorbachev is as tough as ((Leonid)) Brezhnev but better educated, more skillful, more subtle . . . Brezhnev used a meat axe in his negotiations. Gorbachev uses a stiletto. But beneath the velvet glove he always wears there is a steel fist."

The memo concludes with a pungent reminder -- to Reagan and to history -- that Richard Nixon, while priding himself on his pragmatism and statesmanship, yields to no one in his basic distrust of all Soviets, including Gorbachev. "He is the most affable of all the Soviet leaders I have met, but at the same time without question the most formidable because his goals are the same as theirs and he will be more effective in attempting to achieve them," Nixon wrote. "What we must always bear in mind in dealing with the Soviets is that while lying is an accepted practice in the art of diplomacy, there is a difference where the Communists are concerned. They believe their lies."