The Saltwater Summit

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

One President is riding high in the polls as he presides over peace and prosperity, yet he is hearing mounting criticism for his timid response to the stunning changes taking place overseas. The other President, though wildly popular around the world, is in serious trouble at home, threatened with civil war in the south of his country, a secessionist movement in the north and a collapsing economy that heralds a winter of fuel shortages and food riots. For all these differences -- and because of them -- George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev both stand to gain from a feet-up-on-the-table, let's-get-to-know-each-other chat. In a head-snapping acceleration of their relationship, the two leaders announced last week that they would visit each other aboard ships moored in the Mediterranean Sea Dec. 2 and 3 for a summ . . . oops, pardon, meeting.

Neither would call the session a summit; it is supposed to be too informal for that. To avoid an overcharged atmosphere at their first encounter, Bush and Gorbachev plan to talk without any specific agenda, avoid signing any agreements and part without even issuing a communique. The principal aim, said Bush, is to "deepen our respective understanding of each other's views."

Yet there is at least a potential for discord. Bush has approached this new step in U.S.-Soviet relations with his characteristic prudence. In a time of dynamic social and political upheaval in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union itself, Bush said, "I just didn't want to miss something, something that I might get better firsthand from Mr. Gorbachev." The Soviet President has been less patient. In late October, Gorbachev said privately that for months he had been exasperated with the Bush Administration's slow and uncertain response to the shifts in Kremlin policy. He was beginning to suspect, he said, that Washington believed if it waited long enough, the Soviet Union would simply disappear.

Only recently -- especially since Secretary of State James Baker publicly offered U.S. help for Soviet efforts at reform -- has Gorbachev realized that Bush is belatedly acknowledging the magnitude of the transformation he is trying to effect in the U.S.S.R. Gorbachev now says he has high hopes for the relationship.

Bush's aides also expect that the symbolism of a summit will help boost Gorbachev's faltering position at home. Said one: "The image of these two guys on cruisers in the Med, talking about the world, has to be a plus for Gorbachev." Yet Soviet officials say symbolism counts for little when their store shelves are empty and their restive nationalities are in turmoil. Last week alone Gorbachev got several doses of new trouble. Coal miners in Vorkuta, north of the Arctic Circle, struck in defiance of legislation that makes such walkouts illegal. Coal strikes earlier this year have cost the Soviet Union an estimated $4.7 billion of lost production that will be missed as the bitter winter nears. That some hard-liners would like to crack down on the internal unrest was demonstrated last week, when thousands of people held a candlelight vigil outside the Moscow headquarters of the KGB to mourn the victims of Joseph Stalin. When a few started a march toward Pushkin Square, riot police charged the demonstrators, knocking scores to the ground.

To Gorbachev, the most helpful thing the Americans could do would be to agree quickly to radical arms reduction. That would enable him to slash military spending and devote more resources to the staggering civilian economy. Some Soviets are already agitating for the U.S. to make this get- acquainted session more productive: several even assert privately that they could see the meeting producing a general framework for a START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) pact sharply reducing long-range nuclear weapons.

In Washington such talk raises memories of the Reykjavik meeting in 1986, which was also supposed to be an informal, no-agenda session. It turned into an intense negotiation during which Reagan came close to agreeing to a total elimination of ballistic missiles -- to the horror of U.S. allies, as well as George Bush, who feared they would then have no counter to presumed Soviet superiority in conventional arms. Washington is already letting Moscow know that a repeat of Reykjavik is the last thing it wants. Bush said last week he intends to conduct only a perfunctory discussion of arms control, if any; in his view, specific negotiation should be saved for a formal summit scheduled for early next summer. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater added that if Gorbachev does make some dramatic presentation, Bush will in effect reply, "Thank you very much for your views. We will consider these in due time."

Nonetheless, the Mediterranean meeting (immediately dubbed the saltwater summit) marks a long overdue shift in Bush's thinking. The President had initially adopted what he called a "show-me" attitude toward Gorbachev's political and economic reforms. His Administration engaged in a vigorous debate over whether the Kremlin leader intended a genuine and lasting transformation of Soviet society or only a strengthening of the U.S.S.R. for another round of confrontation with the democratic capitalism of the West. Whatever Gorbachev's intentions, Washington wondered whether he could maintain himself in power.

The debate, somewhat muffled, continues, but there is no longer any doubt which side Bush is on. He has concluded that Gorbachev really does want to transform the Soviet Union into a more democratic, less aggressive society but that the Soviet leader is in danger of being forced to renege on his reforms, if not actually toppled, and needs whatever help the U.S. can give.

Bush's conversion began in late May, when he attended a NATO summit in Brussels. There, and at a later Paris meeting of the seven largest non- Communist industrial powers, allies warned the President that he would be missing a golden opportunity to turn the world away from cold war if he did not move quickly to cement relations with Gorbachev. Some kept up the pressure. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher wrote to Bush a few weeks ago, counseling a meeting with Gorbachev, and Italian President Francesco Cossiga, visiting Bush in Washington last month, urged a gathering "very soon."

Critics at home meanwhile charged Bush with timidity in Soviet relations. The President and his aides began to fear that if Gorbachev fell and was replaced by a hard-liner, they would be blamed for having muffed an opportunity that may not come again. For once, Bush's innate caution counseled action; it seemed to hold less chance of damaging error than continuing to stand pat.

The precipitating factor was Bush's July trip to Poland, which later installed the first non-Communist government in a Soviet ally, and Hungary, which has scheduled free, multiparty elections. Lech Walesa, leader of the Polish Solidarity movement, and Hungarian reformer Imre Pozsgay both told Bush that future liberalization in their countries could well depend on Gorbachev's continuing in power. Says one U.S. official: "Walesa was probably the most dramatic. Here's the leading dissident in the Eastern bloc. It made a very telling argument when he said Bush needed to be supportive of Gorbachev."

Stopping in Paris on the way home, Bush chatted with Secretary of State Baker and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft on the veranda of the American ambassador's residence. The President told them, "I sure would like to meet with Gorbachev in some way that wouldn't become a circus." Over the Atlantic en route back to Washington, Bush penned a note to Gorbachev proposing an informal meeting and had it hand delivered by U.S. Ambassador Jack Matlock. Gorbachev accepted immediately. Negotiations on time and place began in deepest secrecy; on the U.S. side, only half a dozen officials initially knew that anything was up. Before they could set a time for the get- acquainted session, Bush ordered aides to commit the Soviets to a formal summit on arms control next year. Otherwise, he feared, the pressure to cut an arms deal at the Malta meeting would prove too great to withstand.

The Presidents will meet alternately on a U.S. and a Soviet warship anchored off Malta. Gorbachev will be on his way home from a visit with Pope John Paul II, the first meeting between a Pope and a leader of the Communist Party. One reason for a summit at sea is Bush's desire for informality. The usual retinue of aides, journalists and hangers-on will be left back on land. The choice of Malta seems harder to explain: the island nation of 350,000 people, lying just south of Sicily, is close to Libya both geographically (180 miles) and politically. It appears simply to be a convenient place, and U.S. officials are confident they can secure a warship against any possible terrorism.

Even without a formal agenda, discussion between the leaders of the rival superpowers will move quickly toward the substance of the U.S.-Soviet relationship and what each side wants from the other. When the two Presidents sit down in a stateroom, both will have their talking points.

WHAT THE U.S. WANTS

The Malta meeting demonstrates that Baker has become the Administration's foreign policy chief in fact as well as in name. The Secretary of State has prevailed over an abundance of Administration skeptics about Gorbachev, in part with the argument that if the Soviet leader is in danger of failing, the U.S. has all the more reason to push for arms-reduction agreements that can be locked in.

But not right away. Bush wants to delay substantive bargaining in part because his Administration is divided over how to modernize U.S. strategic forces and in part because some conservatives oppose any deal with the Soviets. Bush has cloaked this intramural problem by complaining that congressional cuts in the military deprive him of bargaining chips. But he announced this meeting last week even as Congress cut $300 million from the Strategic Defense Initiative, reducing it to $3.8 billion for 1990.

Meanwhile, White House officials insist that the boss wants to do more listening than talking. He intends to ask Gorbachev what he foresees happening next in Eastern Europe and the Soviet economy, and what the U.S. can do to help. Gorbachev is likely to repeat his numerous pledges to let Eastern Europe go its own way. He may ask Bush in turn to repeat assurances that the U.S. will not try to exploit the unrest in Eastern Europe in any way that would damage Soviet security interests -- such as, perhaps, trying to induce Moscow's allies to abandon the Warsaw Pact.

Bush would be happy to do so, though he would resist putting such a pledge in writing lest he be accused of presiding over "another Yalta" ratifying Soviet hegemony.

WHAT THE SOVIETS WANT

The troubles inside the Soviet Union are so severe that any help the U.S. could offer would have only marginal effects. Moreover, the Soviets will not ask for outright U.S. economic aid. Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, announcing the saltwater summit in Moscow, told reporters, "When people talk about 'helping the Soviet Union,' it offends our national pride." Shevardnadze, however, added that "fair and mutually beneficial economic and trade cooperation suits us." That leaves room for some U.S. assistance.

Baker has already offered to send experts to the Soviet Union to proffer technical advice on running a market economy, which nobody in the U.S.S.R. has experience in doing. The superpower Presidents could readily agree to expand such exchanges. Says one American diplomat in Moscow: "The best way we can be helpful is to build up training and consultation programs. There will be across-the-board exchanges in such areas as agriculture, education, marketing and management training."

Gorbachev is also likely to renew a Soviet request for access to the American market on a "most-favored nation" basis (meaning, actually, the same minimal restrictions that apply to almost every other country). The U.S. so far has insisted that the Soviets first write into law a lifting of restrictions on emigration. "The prospects are good in the near future," if not at the summit, says one American diplomat. The Soviets also want a relaxation of the U.S.-policed rules against export of "strategic" materials that would allow them to buy more urgently needed high-tech gear such as computers and copiers. U.S. allies want that too, and Bush might yield.

Finally, the U.S.S.R. wants to join such economic organizations as the International Monetary Fund and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which monitors world trade rules. The U.S. has said Moscow must move closer to a market economy, but Bush might at least define some conditions under which the U.S. would agree to, or even sponsor, Soviet membership.

The details of the discussion, however, will prove to be far less significant than the long-anticipated encounter between the two leaders. The eleven months that George Bush has required before he would come face-to-face with Mikhail Gorbachev is more time than it took for Ronald Reagan and Gorbachev to meet and overcome their mutual suspicion. The 1985 Geneva summit between Gorbachev and Reagan proved that a get-together need not end with formal agreements to produce important results. In their staterooms off Malta, the U.S. and Soviet Presidents may finally launch a partnership to deal with the difficult, dangerous and exhilarating challenges that confront them.

With reporting by Ann Blackman and Strobe Talbott/Moscow and Michael Duffy/Washington