An Interview with President Reagan

"There is less of a danger today than there was a few years ago"

The morning's bulletin from Vienna reported another chill of silence in the diminishing dialogue between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Negotiations on reducing conventional forces had gone into recess with the Warsaw Pact nations refusing to set a date for resumption of the talks. But that afternoon in the Oval Office Ronald Reagan's mood was sanguine, his bearing confident, as he discussed Soviet-American relations with three visitors from TIME. Editor in Chief Henry Grunwald, Managing Editor Ray Cave and White House Correspondent Laurence I. Barrett. The President was pleased to concentrate on that subject, he said with a smile, because "there are a great many misperceptions out there about the situation now. As a matter of fact, if you correct the misperceptions, you 'II have an exclusive scoop." Highlights of the interview:

Q. After three years of experience with the Soviets, have you encountered anything that was different from your expectations?

A. No. I came here determined to attempt to bring about a reduction in arms, an end to the arms race. Well, it really hadn't been an arms race. There had only been a buildup on one side. I also wanted to see if we couldn't get the world on a practical road to peace. And I am still dedicated to that. I think that, contrary to some of the cries of despair out there, the world situation is better than it was when we came here.

There is one new development that I have worried about for some time. That is the extent, lately, to which military leaders in the Soviet Union are, apparently without any coaching or being briefed by the civilian part of government--at least there is no evidence of that--taking it upon themselves to make statements, and rather bellicose statements. There has not, in the past, been evidence of top military leaders going public with attacks on the U.S. and seeming to enunciate policy on their own. We have to be aware of this and pay a little attention to this, to see if they have become a power on their own.

Q. Have you formed any image in your own mind of your counterparts over there? Does it help to try to think of them as human beings with strengths and failings?

A. Really, you deal with them as human beings. But you are aware that, certainly, they are ideologues dedicated to the philosophy that brought them into power. As a matter of fact, we have had some reports from people in other countries that Soviet leaders seem to feel that they can communicate better with us because we are more consistent.

Q. Better than with Jimmy Carter?

A. Well, I won't use any other names. But previously they didn't know, really, what the policy of America was and what we were doing. This has been related to us, as I say, by third parties. At least they know where we stand.

Q. It has been suggested, on the basis of a statement issued in Mr. Andropov's name, that they have given up on you, decided they cannot deal with you.

A. Maybe they are thinking of getting involved in an American election as they did in Germany. I would hope, with the same lack of success.

Q. But you do not feel it has become impossible to do business with them?

A. No, I do not, because they have to look realistically at the alternative. It was summed up in a cartoon that I love to cite, when Brezhnev was portrayed as saying to a Soviet general, "I liked the arms race better when we were the only ones in it." They have to know that we are not going back to our window of vulnerability that existed before we did our military refurbishing. They have to know that whatever they do is going to dictate our course in that regard. And they also have to know that industrially they cannot compete.

Q. Can you tell us anything about your correspondence with Andropov?

A. We have channels open. This, again, is part of the misperception out there--that, somehow, we are incommunicado, we are not speaking to each other. We have been in communication with them, and intend to continue. [Reagan at this point recalled his first letter to Brezhnev, written in April 1981, while convalescing from the assassination attempt.] I wrote that letter to Brezhnev in longhand, and it was sent to him in longhand. I said to him that I have long believed that his people and our people wanted the same things: that those people out there on the street, in their homes, want to raise their families in peace. They want to educate their children. I said that only governments seem to cause wars; wars do not come from people. Now, whether he read that letter or not, I don't know, and will never have any way of knowing. After quite a long delay, the answer that came to me was not handwritten, nor was it personal. It was the usual rhetoric that is publicly exchanged between our two countries.

Q. Would you send the same kind of letter to Mr. Andropov?

A. We have tried to get this kind of correspondence, but it has been difficult. I understand the situation with the new regime coming in after the death of Brezhnev.

Q. But you do not feel such a letter would be appropriate at this time?

A. I feel a little hard put because of the lack of information and knowledge that we have about where he stands. It isn't like dealing with Brezhnev after years in the Kremlin. You knew where he was and felt you knew how to reach him. But we do have contacts, we can get our views there and solicit theirs. We have discussed specific issues between our two countries and have had some results from them.

Q. When you say "where he stands," you mean in the Soviet hierarchy?

A. Yes, in the hierarchy.

Q. In other words, you are not absolutely sure that he has yet totally taken control?

A. I had a few months' advance warning to get a government organized, so I know what some of those problems are.

Q. You have based your nuclear negotiating strategy on the conviction that once Moscow was persuaded that deployment of the Pershing II and cruise missiles in Europe would go ahead, the Soviets would then bargain seriously. Now those conditions have been met. Yet the Soviets are not negotiating seriously. How do you propose to deal with that?

A. Isn't it possible that they had embarked on a kind of negotiating procedure that did not result in negotiating directly with us but was trying to bring some weakening of the NATO alliance in order to prevent the deployment of the intermediate-range weapons that NATO had asked us for in 1979? Now, I offered what I think was a very reasonable and common-sense proposal: the one way to prevent the deployment was if they would destroy their weapons and we'd have zero-zero, no intermediate-range weapons in the European theater.

This they rejected out of hand, and so I said, "All right. If they are unwilling to go that far, then we will make a proposal for a reduction to fair and equal amounts on both sides and let them come in and negotiate. What is a number that they would be agreeable to?" And, so far, they have still kept to their program: "No, we must stop the [NATO] deployment." In other words, they bought our zero-zero proposal--50% of it. Zero for us. And they had over 1,000 warheads already targeted on Western Europe.

Now they have left the negotiations. I have to believe that once those missiles of ours are put in place and they see that we have the will to go forward with this--that they have not been able to separate the alliance--then, I think, they will return to the table. And we are waiting for any proposals that they want to make.

Q. So you believe the original negotiating strategy is still sound?

A. Yes.

Q. You think it will lead to a reasonable deal--when? In the next year or so?

A. I don't know what the time period will be. But I do know this: when we came here--you asked about surprises--we were all surprised. We thought we knew something during the campaign of the situation, but we were still surprised to find how desperate the U.S. position was militarily. But we have been very successful in what we have done. And I think this is what brought the Soviets to the table in the first place. For the first time in years they have seen that the American people have the will to provide a deterrent force.

Q. In dealing with the Soviets, have you found the European allies a help or a hindrance?

A. They have been very much a help. This is evident in the INF deployment. They have held up under all this propaganda, all these demonstrations. The alliance is stronger and better than it has ever been.

Q. When you made the remark containing the phrase "focus of evil," which certainly nettled the Soviets, did you feel that it was appropriate? Would you make it again?

A. No, I would not say things like that again, even after some of the things that have been done recently.

Q. Is that because they now know your thinking on that and so it is a case of "message delivered," or because you think it was a mistake that only got their paranoia up?

A. They really had to know and understand how we felt, what our views were and why we thought it necessary to build up our military defenses. In addition to their aggressive policy of wanting to spread their doctrine throughout the world, there is a great fear on their part that they must be constantly on guard and defensive. This was characteristic of Russia before it was Communist, a suspicion of neighbors. Maybe it goes back to Napoleon's march on Moscow, maybe it goes back to other things of that kind.

I would like to convince the Soviets that no one in the world has aggressive intentions toward them. Certainly we don't. And we have proof over 50 years that we don't. Did we do anything when we were the only power with nuclear weapons? Did we threaten the world? Did we say to everyone, "Lay down your arms"?

Now I would like to make them see that it is to their best interest to join us in reducing arms. What more of an international superpower they could be if it was not just in the military that they were super, but if they could join the family of nations as trading partners, working together, as all of us are, for the improvement of their own people's standard of living. I don't know whether that is possible for them to see, but I think it is worth a try.

Q. Speaking of their joining the "family of nations," do you think they have any useful role to play jointly with us in the Middle East?

A. Well, right now they are in the Middle East in one place, and that is where there is trouble. That has been a tactic of theirs: they do not necessarily start the trouble, but they get in and stir the pot. They could be helpful if they would use their influence to persuade Syria to withdraw from Lebanon and let the Lebanese regain control of their country.

Q. You have said that a summit meeting needs an agenda, and that it should not be embarked upon unless a result is visible. But as concerns continue to rise about the strain between the U.S. and the Soviets, is there any form of summitry that could be less formalized?

A. I have never thought of it so much as being formalized. But when one of these things takes place, we know from the past, the hopes of people worldwide are brought to a high level. And then if there is nothing accomplished except that you have had a meeting, and neither one of you has anything to say when you leave that meeting, there is a letdown. The letdown, the disappointment--I just don't think that is healthy or good. But you mentioned all the "strain." I have to say that I think there is less of a risk and less of a danger today than there was a few years ago. I think that the world is safer and further removed from a possible war than it was several years ago.

Q. Would you tell us why?

A. Because there was more risk of someone gambling if it did not look as if we could retaliate in any extremely damaging way. I think the Soviets now understand that we have the will power to preserve a deterrent, so there is logic in our talking. If both of us would say, "Hey, we have heard the scientists talk about how the world itself could be destroyed. As long as we maintain things so that neither side is able to start a war with the other, why don't we reduce our arsenals?" And if we start down that road of reducing, for heaven's sake, why don't we rid the world of these weapons? Why do we keep them? Here's a world today whose principal armaments would wipe out civilians in the tens and hundreds of millions. Let's get back to being civilized.