TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/111389/11138900.058

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                                                                                NATION, Page 32

The Saltwater Summit


Bush's agreement to meet Gorbachev off Malta marks an overdue
shift; now the U.S. wants to prop up a Soviet leader

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.


-- Ann Blackman and Strobe Talbott/Moscow and Michael
Duffy/Washington