What Nixon Brings Home from Moscow

DOWN a red-carpeted stairway came the two men, walking to a simple table beneath the giant gilt chandelier of the Kremlin's St. Vladimir Hall. Protocol aides laid blue and red leather folders before them. One of the men joked about the number of times he had to sign the documents. Then Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev rose. Handshakes, champagne, toasts. With some variations, the scene had become familiar, even repetitive, by the time the summit ended.

The particular document signed and sealed with such pomp was the most notable in a series of agreements that the President brings back from the Soviet Union this week: the long-expected undertaking to limit nuclear weapons, not an end to the costly arms race but still a sign of hope and good sense. Other, lesser agreements had come with similar ceremony almost every day. It had all been stage-managed carefully and the accords had been worked on for months or even years. Theoretically, they could have been revealed to the world without the Kremlin spectacular. Yet the way in which they were signed and sealed gave them special import.

Many of those who watched the week unfold in Moscow concluded that this summit--the most important since Potsdam in 1945 and probably the most important Soviet political event since Stalin's death--could change world diplomacy. It was all the more impressive because it seemed not so much a single, cataclysmic event but part of a process, part of a world on the move.

The summit certainly has not transformed the Soviet Union, or wiped out the problems and animosities between the U.S. and Russia. But when Richard

Nixon returns home this week after visits to Teheran and Warsaw, he will bring back a set of significant new facts--or a confirmation of facts that are gradually emerging.

-- The meeting underscored the drive toward detente based on mutual self-interest--especially economic self-interest on the part of the Soviets, who want trade and technology from the West. None of the agreements are shatterproof, and some will lead only to future bargaining. But the fact that they touched so many areas suggested Nixon's strategy: he wanted to involve all of the Soviet leadership across the board --trade, health, science--in ways that would make it difficult later to reverse the trends set at the summit.

-- For better or for worse, the meeting reaffirmed that there are still only two superpowers, despite all the recent talk of a multipolar world. The Russians seemed bent on showing that Moscow is the joint capital of world power, sharing superpower status equally--and only--with Washington. They wanted to demonstrate that Richard Nixon's phenomenal week in Peking was simply that--a phenomenon, while in Moscow the hard realities of arms, technology and billions of dollars were being settled or shaped. To say that Nixon had succeeded in playing China off against Russia and vice versa would be putting it far too crudely, and would be premature at that. But U.S. policy has more room for balance and maneuver--a situation of some risk but considerable opportunities.

P:The summit obviously furthers Brezhnev's ambition to draw closer to Europe and to confirm the status quo at a European Security Conference. It caps Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik, designed to improve West Germany's relations with its Communist neighbors. That may bring relaxation in Europe, but it may also bring new tensions and rival ries between the U.S. and Russia there.

The portents, though, are for an era of more treaties and agreements, more realism and less rampant ideology.

P:The summit was highly significant for what it did not say. Whatever the leaders might have mentioned in private probably would not become clear for a long time. By week's end it was still possible that some statements or signals would emerge on the Middle East or Viet Nam. But even if that did not happen, it would constitute a message.

At present, Nixon and Brezhnev seemed agreed only to continue disagreeing on the Middle East. On Viet Nam, by do ing nothing to respond to the Ameri can mining of Haiphong and other ports, Moscow had indeed done some thing of major proportions.

By welcoming Nixon in Moscow despite the mines and bombs, the Russians suggested that Viet Nam could be put into perspective as a relatively minor theater of conflict--something that Washington has for too long refused to acknowledge--and that the major business of the superpowers could proceed. There was something cold and slightly brutal about this way of dealing, amid champagne and caviar, over the heads of the Vietnamese dead. Hanoi was furious. Assailing Russia as much as the U.S., it called Nixon's trip to Moscow "dark and despicable."

This was the background against which the prize packages of the various agreements were unwrapped. Some were important in themselves, especially SALT (see story, page 18). Others were mainly important as symbols and to capture the imagination of the two countries and the world.

Scientists in both countries have been urging joint space ventures to save money and pool information. That now becomes a reality as plans go forward for a 1975 rendezvous in orbit of American and Soviet space ships (see story, page 19). The two countries agreed to pool research and resources in the medical and environmental fields. Though the U.S. no doubt has more to offer, Russia has apparently made strides in producing experimental anti-cancer drugs and in coping with urban sprawl. The U.S. and the U.S.S.R. also agreed to stop harassing each other's fleets on the high seas--a kind of shadow warfare that has grown into a dangerous sport.

Negotiators had the most trouble over trade. Russia wants lots of credit to buy badly needed grain from the U.S. It also wants to share in American technological advances. The U.S., on the other hand, insists that Russia first pay back $800 million it still owes America in Lend-Lease debts. Unable to reach an agreement on the issue, the negotiators established a joint commission that will continue to dicker.

Ritual Words. As important, in a way, as the agreements was the atmosphere of the summit. The Russians were determined to be good-humored and to keep their guests in good spirits as well. Nixon's picture appeared every day on page 1 of Pravda, and unlike the usual Soviet caricature of the President, he looked pleasant.

A note of restrained cordiality was struck from the moment Nixon landed Monday at the Moscow airport. On hand to greet him were President Nikolai Podgorny, Premier Aleksei Kosygin and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. Brezhnev was absent, but that was not unusual or slighting. The route to Moscow had been cleaned up for the President's visit. U.S. flags waved alongside Soviet banners on lampposts. In the soft glow of twilight, the glittering domes of the Kremlin churches seemed cheerful and inviting as the limousines crossed the Moscow River and swept into the fastness of the Kremlin.

The Nixons were put up in an elegantly furnished seven-room suite that had been searched for electronic bugs by U.S. security agents before their arrival. But the President had barely settled in when he got an invitation to chat with Brezhnev--a parallel to the Peking journey, when Mao Tse-tung also invited him to an early, unscheduled interview. Facing each other across a long green felt-covered table, the two leaders conducted what were described by the White House as "frank and businesslike" talks. Those words were regularly, almost ritually used to describe the meetings for the rest of the week.

At the welcoming banquet in the Grand Kremlin Palace some 100 guests proceeded from one sumptuous setting to the next until they arrived at their destination: the Hall of Facets, where Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great had once celebrated their military victories. In Podgorny's speech there was neither bullying nor appeasement. While not forgetting the differences between the two great powers, he pointed to the number of times they had successfully cooperated in the past. Said Nixon in reply: "The courage of the Russian people, who generation after generation have defended this city from invaders, makes this vivid point: the only way to enter Moscow is to enter it in peace." From then on, the summit was all business, conducted quietly and secretly within the Kremlin.

Good Mood. The talks amounted to a "constant flow," a White House aide remarked. Once Nixon and Brezhnev came to some agreement, lesser officials headed by Henry Kissinger on the American side and Gromyko on the Soviet negotiated the details. Secretary of State William Rogers talked trade. Kissinger seemed more solemn than usual, a bit more preoccupied.

Throughout the week, two essentially incompatible social systems got a close look at each other. The Russians were impressed by the smoothly functioning, youthful White House staff. The openness of the operation, the freewheeling ways of the press astonished Soviets accustomed to older, more staid bureaucrats. The Americans, on the other hand, got a glimpse of decision making in the Kremlin: the constant need to consult, the subtle jockeying among lesser leaders to get closer to the center of power, Brezhnev.

The Americans seized their opportunity to scrutinize the Soviet leadership. Bluff and hearty, Brezhnev was obviously doing his best to make his guests feel at home. At their initial meeting, the first smile crossed Kosygin's face when Nixon rather pointedly mentioned that "I have a reputation as a longtime anti-Communist." Brezhnev's wife Viktoria told the press that her husband had "been in a good mood lately and that's not always the case."

When President John Kennedy met with Khrushchev in Vienna in 1961, the Soviet Premier did his best to intimidate his rival. Brezhnev made no such effort. Russians speculated that he might well be awed by Nixon's skillful use of power. "He has impressed our leaders by his seriousness and concentration," was the word. "They are still deciding if they can trust him."

While the President was confined to quarters in the Kremlin, Pat Nixon was free to sample the wonders and pleasures of Moscow. Her activities, very much a part of the summit atmosphere, were serious and significant in their own way; they seemed designed to show that Americans can admire the achievements of the Russians, an essential point in the psychology and the relationship the summit was trying to create.

Pat Nixon managed a colorful change of garb with only one gray suitcase and a plastic dress bag that she packed with 15 outfits, including a few that could be worn in any weather--a prime consideration for a woman traveling from Moscow to Teheran. Wherever she went, she was accompanied by wives of top Soviet officials, who are normally withdrawn and formal. They joined her for tea in the czarist family apartments in the Kremlin or posed gamely for incessant picture taking in front of statues in Red Square.

Always poised, invariably smiling, she expressed delight at everything she was shown--which pleased Muscovites, who have a nagging sense of inferiority about all things Russian. Visiting a secondary school, she held Mrs. Brezhnev's hand and gave it an occasional pat. In an art class, she was delighted by an eight-year-old girl's painting of the sun. "Oh, I have to have it!" she exclaimed. "I love it. When the sun shines, everybody is happy." She hugged the budding artist and kissed her on the cheek. Leaving the school, she observed pointedly: "The students are better disciplined here."

That Guy. She descended to the subway--clean and imposing but overrun with sweating, squabbling newsmen on top of the normal Russian crowds. Jostled as she was, she never lost her cool and she even found something to admire: "I'm impressed with the fact that there are no advertisements like in New York." To be sure, there were posters outside extolling a noncommercial institution, the Communist Party. Then from the depths to the heights: the 32nd floor of the city's tallest building, Moscow University. The First Lady managed to descry a church in the distance. She asked who attended it. "None of those present," her Communist guide conscientiously assured her. "I would love to go," she said--to a rather studied silence. It was definitely not on her itinerary.

Next stop was the state-run GUM department store, biggest in Moscow. Pat nibbled on a vanilla ice-cream cone, and bought scarves for "the girls." She had to keep calling for "my banker," an aide who bustled up with rubles. Asked how much she had spent, she replied with a laugh that she did not know. "Not much," offered Mrs. Gromyko, wife of the Soviet Foreign Minister. Pat walked across Red Square and posed for pictures in front of St. Basil's Cathedral. Asked if she had seen the President recently, she replied: "Listen, I haven't seen that guy. He called me up yesterday and said, I'm going to be late.' "

After the glitter, the ceremonies, the maneuvering and the hard work of a summit, there is usually some letdown, a return to a kind of normality. Both Nixon and Brezhnev have domestic matters to deal with. The President will find skeptics on the left pointing out that the Viet Nam War is still not over; skeptics on the right are already questioning the new amity with the Communists, including the SALT agreement and what it does to American security. But on balance, the summit can only be a vast political asset for Nixon.

Brezhnev's problems may be more complicated. He will be strengthened against the Kremlin hard-liners who oppose his policy of detente. Not wasting any time, he demoted Pyotr Shelest before the summit began. As the party chief of the Ukraine, Shelest had once crushed an apple in his hand to demonstrate how he thought Czechoslovakia should be treated. He is said to have consistently opposed any steps toward coming to terms with the U.S. and he reportedly urged military action to break the blockade of North Viet Nam. He opposed Brezhnev on domestic matters as well. But the hard-liners in foreign policy will not simply melt away, and they will continue to constitute a potential check on Brezhnev.

In domestic policy Brezhnev himself is a hardliner. He will probably still deal harshly with dissenters: on the eve of the summit, five Jewish leaders were arrested, and Writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn was once again denounced as an "opponent of Soviet reality." Many Americans have long hoped that an opening to the West and a better life for the Soviet consumer would bring about a more liberal political climate in Russia. But detente with the West does not necessarily mean detente within Russia. In fact, in cooperating with the West, the Soviets will have to face the problem of how to keep ideological infections from seeping in along with Western technology and taste.

The summit has not brought the millennium, peace, but it has brought some tremendously significant new conditions in the world. Reports TIME Correspondent John Shaw from Moscow: "A move from the 'absence of war' toward something not only safe but fruitful cannot be achieved easily and certainly not by remote control or through ambassadors and technicians, no matter how able. It requires the look into the eyes, hours of talking that reveal leaders and their motives to one another. Someone has written that 'Russia is not to be grasped with the mind. It is to be believed.' Perhaps Richard Nixon did not become as philosophical as that during this week. But his Russian hosts, after the longest talks they have ever held with any nonCommunist, have more sense of what America is about than any previous Russian rulers."

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