A Vodka Toast for Reagan

By Hugh Sidey

The Soviet embassy threw its annual celebration of the Revolution of 1917 a few days ago, and the glitterati of Washington swarmed in as usual to the stone box of a building that hunkers down on 16th Street. The vodka was good (Stolichnaya), the few dabs of caviar were superb (from the Volga River) and the guests from the diplomatic corps, Congress, White House and the city at large elbowed each other cheerfully in the chandeliered rooms on the second floor of the elaborate embassy where tsarist Russia set up shop in 1913.

The occasion is always a night's adventure. Dour guards, who prowl the fenced perimeters at other times, paste on smiles and put on star-spangled uniforms. The heavy doors that are usually closed are wide open. But this night there was something unusual afoot. The commemoration of the Russian Revolution may have proved to be the first significant social and diplomatic event of the soon-to-arrive Reagan Administration.

The atmosphere was oddly exuberant. Old Lenin stared down somberly on the assemblage from his ten-foot canvas at the head of the hall. The center of attention was former President Richard Nixon, who had flown in from New York especially for the party. Ex-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger showed up, and some of his staff members from the past were on hand. The place was jammed with Republican contributors, consultants and former Administration aides, as though the Soviets had summoned a meeting of the shadow government that had been lurking in the wings the past four years.

The talk was about the new meaning that Washington would now have. Fun and class would return to social events. The ageless chronicler of conservatives, Betty Beale of the Washington Star, was there with a wide smile. But there was something else in the mood at the Soviet embassy that bears watching.

The Soviets themselves seemed to like the idea of Reagan. They did not exactly say that. They seldom say such things directly, but the hosts projected an unusual warmth. Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin, who, with Reagan, will have served in the time of eight U.S. Presidents, greeted the thousand guests who had come for the 63rd anniversary of the revolution. He knew most of them personally. "Old friends," he said, beaming a great smile around the room. It seemed like a reunion from better times.

Somebody told Dobrynin that a letter the Ambassador had written Reagan had been read that morning at a Reagan transition staff meeting and that if Dobrynin did not watch out he would be recruited for a job in the new Administration. Dobrynin laughed heartily at that, and even at a sally that Reagan had just finished his first press conference and not declared war on the Soviet Union.

The question that was posed but not asked explicitly during this singular evening may be central to Ronald Reagan's presidency. Will the firmness and certainty about opposing the spread of Soviet influence, which Reagan has vowed will be his policy, actually improve the working relationship between the U.S.and U.S.S.R.? Off in another noisy corner of the embassy, a Soviet diplomat pondered the idea and finally declared that there was no difference between Carter and Reagan. Then his expression grew distant and he added, "But at least we know where Reagan stands."

One old trouper had no doubts, Nixon, with a shot glass of vodka in his hand, posed with Dobrynin for a picture, told the Ambassador that he never drank the stuff and declared that strength and reliability were the true ingredients of peace. Said Nixon: "Rather than this being a period with a danger of war, it will be the opposite." Said Kissinger: "The Soviets want a predictable Administration. And in a curious way, I think they want one that puts limits on them. Their system is not capable of operating under the principle of self-restraint." An interesting theory and an optimistic one, from the viewpoint of the Reaganites.

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