What Mikhail Gorbachev would like from this week`s Washington summit is to win the blessing of the American public for him and his policies. What he needs is to show his countrymen that those policies have a genuine place on the world stage.
But in the end, Western and East bloc analysts say, he will settle for signing the INF treaty banning intermediate-range missiles.
Barring an embarrassing gaffe or a surprise negotiating gambit that fails, Gorbachev`s first visit to the United States already is shaping up as a success, diplomats in Moscow agree.
But Kremlin-watchers quickly note that a triumphant return from Washington, by itself, will not be sufficient to quell resistance to Gorbachev`s program of domestic economic restructuring as it moves into a new and critical phase Jan. 1.
The third Reagan-Gorbachev meeting convenes at a time widely described by diplomats from both NATO and the Warsaw Pact as a historic juncture in U.S.-Soviet affairs.
And never has it been clearer that Vladimir Lenin, father of the Soviet Union, knew exactly what he was saying 70 years ago when he told his Kremlin colleagues: ”There is nothing more nonsensical than the separation of international from domestic policy.”
Gorbachev is driven by a complex combination of internal needs and foreign concerns. He will, however, attempt an act of political judo to further one primary mission-grounding the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative-by clever use of the knowledge that Reagan, too, is operating under similar constraints.
Interviews with analysts from NATO nations, the East bloc and the Soviet Union produced the following agenda, both formal and hidden, for Gorbachev`s three-day summit at the White House:
First, the Soviet leader will portray the ritual signing of a treaty ridding the world of shorter- and medium-range missiles as the result of Kremlin concessions and evidence of Moscow`s desire to further mutual security between the U.S. and the USSR.
Under the treaty, the Soviet Union scraps 441 SS-20s, a triple-warhead missile; 112 SS-4s, an older single-warhead system, and 130 SS-12s, a shorter- range weapon.
The U.S and NATO will dismantle about 250 ground-launched cruise missiles stationed in Britain, West Germany, Italy and Belgium, and 108 Pershing 2s in West Germany. Seventy-two shorter-range Pershing 1As in West Germany also will go.
Second on Gorbachev`s agenda is his scheme to ”go over the head” of the White House to take his message directly to the American people.
His strategy includes a postsummit news conference and meetings or receptions with legislators, business leaders and ”ordinary people”-all of which are expected to receive ample media coverage.
The Soviet Union has, with careful calculation, polished its reputation since Gorbachev came to power in March, 1985. His personal image is a winning ticket that has helped raise Soviet prestige in the U.S., Western Europe and around the world.
To expand and cement those sympathies during this week`s summit, Gorbachev must further project an ideal portrait of the reasonable, humane and trustworthy leader.
Western Sovietologists believe the USSR`s ”new look” is recognized as a national asset even by those in the Kremlin elite who are uneasy with Gorbachev`s pace of reform.
Should the collective leadership vote to limit cultural openness or retrench in its plans to unfetter the centralized economy, Gorbachev`s personal position will be secure as long as he continues to represent the Kremlin consensus, analysts say.
Georgy Arbatov, director of the Soviet Institute on the USA and Canada, said one of Gorbachev`s goals in Washington will be to break out of the White House schedule for some personalized public relations.
”He plans to meet with a representative section of the American public,” Arbatov said.
While spokesmen for the White House and the Kremlin publicly deny there will be an ”image war” during the summit, it is clear that both Gorbachev-young and energetic-and Reagan-dubbed ”the great communicator”-will be competing for the mantle of most respected.
”There is going to be an image war,” said a senior Kremlin adviser on press relations, speaking on condition of anonymity. ”Both sides will be smiling. But our smile will be bigger.”
A veteran Western diplomat in Moscow, who has extensive experience in Washington diplomacy, predicted that Gorbachev ”is going to make a good impression. He comes across as personable, very articulate. He has a direct style. You Americans like that. I think he will be very effective.”
As for Gorbachev`s third summit objective, setting back Reagan`s hopes for the ”Star Wars” space-based missile defense, he will continue to link 50 percent cuts in superpower strategic arsenals to ”strengthened” compliance with the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. One job for the two leaders at the summit is to define just what that might mean.
The maximum potential success for Gorbachev would be a summit concluding with the leaders of the world`s two greatest powers agreeing to abide by the ballistic-missile treaty and drafting guidelines for negotiators to halve their strategic arsenals.
But if Reagan stands by ”Star Wars,” Gorbachev can always fall back into the safety net he wove after the 1986 summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, when he accused Reagan of harboring a passion for an arms race in space that is smothering chances of radical reductions in nuclear arms.
As part of his strategy, Gorbachev is expected to point out artfully that the Strategic Defense Initiative may be doomed, anyway, by cost-conscious congressmen responding to American public will.
Rhetoric from the Kremlin on ”Star Wars” has been evolving over the past two years, from demanding an outright ban to conceding that Soviet scientists are conducting research on a system that matches the American one. Behind the Kremlin`s deep objections to ”Star Wars” is a fear of America lengthening its technological lead. Also, an expensive arms race could deny the USSR the fiscal breathing space needed to kick-start its stalled economy. It is clear that Gorbachev`s No. 1 priority-domestic reform-requires peace and quiet abroad.
”Why are we so persistent in raising the question of a comprehensive system of international security?” Gorbachev recently asked in a Pravda article that laid out his ”new thinking” on foreign affairs.
”Simply because it is impossible to put up with the world situation on the eve of the third millenium-under the threat of nuclear annihilation, in a state of constant tension, an atmosphere of suspicion and strife, spending huge funds and the work and talent of millions of people on increasing mutual distrust and fear.”
While Gorbachev`s aura of international peacemaker may have been glowing ever brighter abroad, he has seen his domestic economic restructuring, called perestroika, suffer troubling setbacks.
Thus, his most important goal is to earn sufficient success to convince Soviet citizens and his comrades in the collective leadership that the USSR, under his guidance, is at last back on the right path-despite the worrisome social dislocations and painful personal sacrifices required by reform.
It has been a bad stretch for Gorbachev.
The growth of industrial production is down since last year. Meat and coffee have largely vanished from the shelves of Moscow stores, causing a near-panic during the otherwise festive Nov. 7 anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Strikes and slowdowns have been reported at auto factories and bus depots. Airports in Siberia were closed for lack of fuel-and the USSR is the world`s largest producer of petroleum.
Senior Kremlin spokesmen openly speak of midlevel bureaucrats sabotaging reform. A loosening of political restrictions, or glasnost, has sparked unprecedented activism by ethnic minorities. All coincide with Gorbachev`s perestroika entering a new, daring-and certainly discomforting-period on Jan. 1, when 60 percent of Soviet industry will be forced to make a profit or suffer government wrath, including threats of foreclosure.
Kremlin economists also are drawing up plans to end the wasteful policy of food subsidies. The Soviet propaganda machine already is preparing its citizens for painful price hikes.
But what really took the swagger out of Gorbachev`s reform drive was the ouster of Boris Yeltsin, the brash, hard-driving boss of the local Communist Party unit in Moscow, who complained about the slow pace of reform.
The Yeltsin affair indicated lingering confusion over what restructuring should entail, and certainly was not the kind of signal likely to encourage the bold initiative and risk-taking that will be required to make the Jan. 1 reforms succeed.
Thus, a strong showing for ”new thinking” at the summit will go far in strengthening Gorbachev`s hand as he prepares for a potentially historic Communist Party conference next June. At that conference, the first since 1941, Gorbachev must turn his rhetoric on reform into lasting legislation and must bring fresh, supportive faces into the policy-approving Central Committee.
Despite the domestic uncertainty, veteran Kremlin-watchers see little evidence that Gorbachev will not be vested with the full authority of the collective leadership when he meets with Reagan. East bloc representatives in Moscow predict that no unexpected proposals-or tricks-will mar the scripted diplomacy of the summit.
And veteran Western observers believe that the timing of the meeting is unusually propitious.
”It is a fairly rare time that we have it,” said American Ambassador Jack Matlock, who has sat across the table from Gorbachev during previous rounds of top-level U.S.-Soviet negotiations.
”We have at times these windows, where domestic situations and the foreign policy of both countries bring us within hailing distance, at least on some issues,” Matlock said.
”More often than not, we are out of sync. For one reason or another, it is just politically impossible to come to significant agreements. I think the prospects for negotiations are more favorable than they`ve been for a long time.”
