How to Deal with the Russians

By LANCE MORROW

In the reign of Elizabeth I, an English agent for the Muscovy Co. of London had this advice about dealing with the Russians: "Make your bargains plain, and put them in writing." Americans staring across the mahogany of detente sometimes learn the hard way --in the 1972 wheat deal, for example --that, for Communists, the Russians can be very good at doing business.

They can also be extremely difficult, full of contradictions and imperatives that are hard for Americans to comprehend. Westerners tend to regard negotiations as a vehicle leading to compromise. The Soviets more often view them as a struggle to be won. The difference is all the more important right now because the U.S. and the Soviet Union face a series of negotiations, beginning with SALT II in Geneva last week, that will determine relations between the two countries for many years to come.

One major problem in dealing with the Soviets is their xenophobia. Though they have grown considerably more sophisticated about the outside world in recent years, they still show a distrust of foreigners that borders on paranoia and a defensiveness that can make them downright offensive. In one of his David Frost interviews, for example, Richard Nixon recalled a conversation President Eisenhower once had with Nikita Khrushchev. Eisenhower lamented that he could never seem to get away from the intrusions of the telephone. Khrushchev responded--irrelevantly and incorrectly--with a tirade about how the Soviets have far more telephones than the Americans.

U.S. negotiators, whether they are involved with armaments, trade or soft drinks, should bear in mind some of these lessons in dealing with the Russians:

COUNT THE SILVERWARE. In their contacts of late with the outside world, the Russians have usually proved themselves stolidly tough and reasonably honest. Usually. In talks on the television rights for the 1980 Olympics, CBS believed until the last minute that it had concluded a bargain--only to learn that the Russians had gone to NBC for $85 million. A British diplomat recalls how during one negotiation "a Soviet diplomat led me to believe--by appropriate nods and silences, though never uttering a word--that he was willing to share certain information. When I showed him what I had, he read it avidly. When I asked him for his stuff in return, he insisted--and technically correctly--that he never promised anything of the sort." Some of this may be sheer love of the game; Russians are very good at chess.

Dp NOT GO PUBLIC. In March, by revealing the U.S. negotiating position with considerable fanfare even before Cyrus Vance had his first meeting with Leonid Brezhnev, Jimmy Carter learned a vivid lesson in how not to deal with Moscow. The Soviets are conservative and secretive; they publicize the workings of government only for purposes of propaganda. Nor do they appreciate or even understand the Western practice of leaking information to the press.

WEAR AN OLD TIMEX AND BRING A CAR. Whenever Leonid Brezhnev becomes involved in U.S.-Soviet dealings, it is well to remember that he collects 1) fine clocks and watches and 2) very expensive cars. Once during Henry Kissinger's last trip to Moscow in 1976, Brezhnev blithely made off with the gold wristwatch belonging to State Department Counselor Helmut Sonnenfeldt. Brezhnev already owns a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud, a Cadillac, a Lincoln, a Citroen-Maserati sports car, a Mercedes 450 SLC and a Russian Zil, so there seem to be few automotive baubles with which to tempt him. A Pinto station wagon, perhaps.

AVOID THE PERSONALITY TRAP.

Jimmy Carter has suggested that much of the success of U.S.-Soviet relations will depend upon the relationship he develops with Brezhnev. Personal relationships can be helpful, but it may be a dangerous form of self-delusion to expect much from them. The Russians have a proverb: Druzhba druzhboi, a sluzhba sluzhboi--friendship is friendship, and work is work. At Yalta and even earlier, F.D.R. unwisely thought he could succeed by developing a personal friendship with Stalin, but the ideological gap proved unbridgeable. Says Harvard Soviet Expert Adam Ulam: "Soviet leaders don't respond to the goodfellow treatment." Brezhnev and Nixon seem to have understood one another well. But the strongest ingredient there may have been the Russian appreciation of Nixon's unpredictability and his air of being thoroughly in charge--at least until he was undermined by Watergate.

LEARN IMPERTURBABLE PATIENCE.

As Dean Acheson said in 1947, "The business of dealing with the Russians is a long, long job." Ulam says that the Russians have no special trick or magic as negotiators. "They simply wear you out by constantly saying nyet. Americans unfortunately do not have staying power. We are too eager. We have hot pants for an agreement." U.S. negotiators might train for the ordeal by, say, sitting across from their spouses at a dining room table, arraying a phalanx of mineral water bottles in between, and trying over a period of ten hours or so to hammer out a marriage contract that covers who does the dishes after what meals on what days of the week, who makes the beds when, who cleans the cat's litter pan, and so on.

Russian negotiators can be not only uncivil but personally offensive, all in the interest of provoking or distracting their opponents. To negotiate with the Russians, says an American ambassa dor, "you must have enormous patience, doggedness, fantastically thick skin and the ability to hit hard."

CULTIVATE CLARITY, BUT ALSO FLEXIBILITY. The Russians respond best when approached with clear, firm, direct goals. At the same time, it is well to keep them off balance by never al lowing them to know in every detail how the U.S. will respond in specific situations.

The U.S., being a democracy, labors under a negotiating disadvantage. In the midst of the first SALT talks, debate with in the U.S. Government -- among the White House, Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department -- confused and prolonged the process.

DON'T SURPRISE, DON'T CONDESCEND. The Soviets, on the other hand, suffer from a certain dour rigidity that dampens any improvisational impulse.

Everything is planned in 'advance; everything emanates from the Kremlin.

Surprises offend the Soviets. Says one West German diplomat: "Often you feel your Russian counterpart needs to check with Moscow if you propose a tea break." Although Russian negotiators are entrusted with little discretionary power, their dogmatism can sometimes be penetrated through judicious use of the well-timed -- and lengthy -- unofficial lunch or dinner. Via such "back channels," and with sufficient lubrication, each side can get a feeling for the other's negotiating terrain.

At the same time, nothing can torpedo a negotiation faster than even a hint of disrespect. The Soviets want to be treated like a great power. "They're very sensitive to any notion that they're being treated as less than equals," says former Commerce Secretary Peter Peterson.

During a student strike at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1970, Novelist John Earth, a teacher there, remarked: "I'm totally bored by the situation, the critical importance of which I absolutely affirm." If they are to succeed with the Russians, U.S. negotiators must always cultivate a certain fatalism. The Soviets sign agreements when they believe it is valuable for them to do so; otherwise, they do not sign.

Still, the Soviet perspective on the world has enlarged and the Russians have glimpsed international vistas -- trade and technology, for example -- that require accommodations with the rest of the world. A growing self-confidence has somewhat softened the Soviet truculence. Such factors may be the best hope for getting the Soviets to take up their pens and bestow their signatures at least on SALT'S limited contracts of nuclear forbearance. sbLana Morrow

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