Taking the First Step

By George Russell

The session was hardly a breakthrough, but the outcome, a slight easing of East-West tensions, was nonetheless welcome. When Secretary of State George Shultz emerged last week from the red brick residence of the U.S. Ambassador to Finland overlooking Helsinki harbor, walking in affable fashion alongside him was a smiling newcomer to the game of superpower politics, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, 57, appointed only a month ago. The two men paused briefly to exchange chitchat with the help of interpreters and to pose for eager photographers. Later Shultz declared that three hours of private talks with his Soviet counterpart had provided a "good first step" toward the Geneva summit meeting between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev scheduled for Nov. 19 and 20. The comment sent ripples of relief through Helsinki delegates representing the U.S., Canada and every European country except Albania. The 35 delegations had convened in the Finnish capital's modernistic Finlandia Hall to mark the tenth anniversary of the agreements on security and cooperation in Europe known as the Helsinki Accords. But for most of the participating diplomats, the main question, at a time of dramatic change in Moscow's top leadership, boiled down to the state of U.S.-Soviet relations. What would happen when the Reagan Administration dealt with the younger, if less experienced, Soviet management team that has been propelled into positions of leadership by Gorbachev since he took power in March? The first-ever encounter between Shultz and Shevardnadze, whose replacement of the formidable Andrei Gromyko came as a shock to most Kremlinologists, was expected to provide at least preliminary answers.

Even before the Helsinki meeting began, there were indications of what the future might bring in the form of a spirited new round of East-West propaganda dueling. Both the White House and the Kremlin had been planning public relations moves in advance of the conference. As it turned out, the proposals they put forth were radically different. Responding in part to a Soviet complaint that a recent U.S. underground test of a nuclear device had exceeded the 150-kiloton limit permissible under the 1974 Treaty on the Limitation of Underground Nuclear Weapon Tests, President Reagan, in a letter to Gorbachev, invited the Soviet Union to send experts to monitor the next U.S. test in Nevada. That essentially painless suggestion, similar to an offer Reagan made last year, was intended to show U.S. goodwill in developing arms-control-verification procedures that Washington has long sought.

Gorbachev had another idea. Within hours of the U.S. announcement, he declared the Soviet Union would launch a five-month moratorium on nuclear testing. It would begin on Aug. 6, the 40th anniversary of the atom-bomb detonation over Hiroshima, and would be extended indefinitely if Washington joined in. The U.S. rejected the offer. For one thing, Shultz noted as he arrived in Helsinki, the Soviets had proclaimed such a unilateral moratorium before, in the late '50s and early '60s, and then had abruptly begun what he described as "the largest nuclear-testing program ever undertaken." Nonetheless, the Gorbachev proposal's simplicity and emotional appeal had distinct propaganda advantages, particularly in Western Europe. The Soviet offer also came at a time when the Kremlin has given intriguing, if nebulous, hints that it might be willing to propose a variety of new across-the-board reductions in the strategic-missile stockpiles of the superpowers.

By the end of the three-day conference, the 266 participants would see Soviet p.r. skills raised to new heights. Not that either the U.S. or the Soviet Union broke fresh ground on issues of substance; neither side departed from long-held positions on disarmament, human rights and various regional conflicts. But both Shultz and Shevardnadze seemed intent on moderating superpower rhetoric, even as each side blamed the other for weakening the Helsinki Accords, once considered a milestone of detente (see box). In their private conversations, they moved easily into a rapport that, as a senior Administration official later put it, "expressed the will" to make progress at the November summit, the first such U.S.-Soviet meeting since 1979. That accomplishment, said Shultz afterward, helped to make the meeting "productive." The Soviets were a bit more cautious: the private session, they said, had been "interesting," "useful" and "frank."

However the Helsinki conversations were described, they amounted to a successful, if initially hesitant, debut for Shevardnadze. The silver-haired, outgoing former Communist Party boss from the southern republic of Georgia had few evident credentials for the Foreign Minister's job beyond close ties with Gorbachev. Shevardnadze's expertise lies in public administration, where he made his mark with boldness, incorruptibility and a flair for public relations during a 20-year career in Georgia as minister of public order and eventually party secretary.

At first in Helsinki, he appeared nervous and ill at ease. When he entered Finlandia Hall's blue-and-white main auditorium, he looked so diffident that some onlookers mistook him for a diplomatic aide. One who did not make that error was Shultz, who strode purposefully from his front-row seat to shake hands with the Foreign Minister and introduce himself. When a journalist asked Shevardnadze to stop and answer questions, the Foreign Minister shrugged, grinned and replied, "They won't let me," apparently a reference to his aides.

A similar lack of assertiveness was evident when Shevardnadze gave his maiden speech to the conferees. He read his 25-minute address woodenly and slowly, raising his eyes to his audience only four times. His tone was quiet and moderate, but in terms of content the speech could easily have been written by his unbending predecessor, Gromyko, now Soviet President. Pleading for a return to detente, Shevardnadze launched into a predictable litany of accusations against the U.S. for deploying intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Western Europe, for "violating" Strategic Arms Limitation treaties and for pushing ahead with the Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly known as Star Wars, "by whatever means." Discussing human rights, one of the cornerstones of the Helsinki Accords, Shevardnadze declared, "Our country has not allowed and will not allow anyone to interfere in its internal affairs." Said a senior U.S. official: "The positions he described were all quite familiar to us."

Shultz devoted the bulk of his 20-minute speech to another familiar topic: U.S. displeasure with Moscow's human rights record. He named 22 Soviet citizens victimized by Moscow over the past decade. Among them were Nobel Laureate Andrei Sakharov, Physicist Yuri Orlov, Dissident Anatoli Shcharansky and more obscure citizens like Yuri Balovlenkov, whose "crime" was to marry a U.S. citizen.

Beneath the surface, however, both speeches stressed the need for cooperation by the superpowers. "We will have to obtain peace," said Shevardnadze. "The U.S. and the Soviet Union have an opportunity to help build a more secure world," said Shultz.

The next day, during his private meeting with Shultz at the U.S. embassy residence, Shevardnadze was accompanied by Anatoli Dobrynin, longtime Soviet Ambassador to Washington, and several other aides. (Later it was learned that Dobrynin will soon leave his post in Washington, where he has been Ambassador for the past 23 years, to become one of Shevardnadze's top deputies in Moscow.)

Once seated across the table from Shultz, Shevardnadze visibly relaxed. Both men were aided by an innovation for such talks, simultaneous translation. As a result, Shultz said later, "we accomplished in three hours what would have otherwise taken six."

The substance of those accomplishments was more difficult to define. By and large, the two men laid out their countries' positions on major issues dividing the superpowers and agreed on those that would appear on the agenda of the November summit. According to the U.S. side, the program would include four categories: 1) arms control and security, 2) regional conflicts such as Afghanistan, Kampuchea and Central America, 3) bilateral matters, including trade and cultural exchanges, and 4) human rights. But Soviet officials asserted that only three categories would be discussed; human rights did not appear on the Soviet list.

Shultz and Shevardnadze developed an easy dialogue, something that immediately set the new Foreign Minister apart from the dour Gromyko. Said one U.S. participant: "He wasn't an automaton or a robot who just read what the Central Committee wrote for him. He was very expressive." In contrast to Gromyko, whose fabled memory for exact wording sometimes reminded his adversaries of a tape recorder, Shevardnadze occasionally improvised on standard Soviet positions. Said one U.S. official: "Even though he's just started on the job, he's already got a very good grasp of things. He was a good, strong interlocutor." Shultz found Shevardnadze's "distinct" personality "interesting and strong." Said the Secretary: "From all indications, we should have an easy ability to talk to each other in a direct and useful way."

Shevardnadze's style also drew favorable comment from other delegations. Said Canadian External Affairs Minister Joe Clark: "He's a very lively man, and he has a sense of humor. He is tough, able and flexible." Observed a West European colleague: "Despite his inexperience, he showed a natural tendency for diplomacy." Several delegates contrasted Shevardnadze's patient, inquisitive manner with the frequently hectoring and emotionless style of Gromyko. Said another conferee: "Imagine! A Soviet Foreign Minister who listens to you!"

West European delegates also noted that in their contacts with Shevardnadze, as one of them put it, "there was a tremendous emphasis on improving relations with Western Europe. It was as if he had come to Helsinki determined to play the European card." That was taken by some participants as confirmation that Gorbachev, who will pay a state visit to French President Franc,ois Mitterrand before the summit with Reagan, wants to transform the strong Washington orientation of Soviet foreign policy under Gromyko into something more diversified.

President Reagan will get a chance to judge Shevardnadze's effectiveness for himself when he receives the Soviet Foreign Minister at the White House in the fall. There were signs, however, that Reagan might have to rise to additional challenges from the public-relations-conscious new leadership in Moscow well before then.

The Kremlin presumably intends to use its moratorium offer as an extended exercise in arms-control propaganda. The day after the Shultz-Shevardnadze meeting, Soviet officials held a press conference in Moscow to praise the Gorbachev proposal and criticize the White House invitation to the Soviets to monitor continuing U.S. tests. Almost as an afterthought, the officials revealed that Gorbachev, the General Secretary of the Communist Party, had also been named chairman of the powerful Defense Council, which has supreme control over the country's armed forces in the event of war.

At the press conference, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Georgi Kornienko declared, "It is to be hoped that the U.S. Government has not said its last word in response to the new Soviet expression of goodwill." It scarcely seemed coincidental that the Soviet moratorium idea came not only on the eve of the Helsinki meeting but as a World Youth Festival brought thousands of Communist and left-wing visitors to Moscow. Summed up a West European diplomat in the Soviet capital: "The Soviets intend to put as much pressure as possible on Washington until the November summit rolls around." --By George Russell. Reported by James O. Jackson and Johanna McGeary/Helsinki

With reporting by Reported by James O. Jackson, Johanna McGeary/Helsinki