Studying the Cue Cards

By David Beckwith

The events are deliberately casual. An expert on Soviet culture, steered by Presidential aides, approaches Ronald Reagan at a reception and gently converses with him on the Russian mind. Only later is the conversation buttressed by background papers. Relaxing in the the White House, the President turns on a video recorder and watches images of Eduard Shevardnadze in action, with a voice-over describing his negotiating style. White House aides order in a print of Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears, the 1981 Oscar-winning romantic comedy about three young Soviet workingwomen who move with their dreams to the big city.

The vignettes are all part of a tutorial designed by his aides to coach Ronald Reagan for his meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev. It is clearly a delicate operation. His advisers are busily pulling together as broad a curriculum on the Soviet Union as they can, in part to prevent Reagan from making foolish or unintentionally provocative remarks. At the same time, they realize that if he is stuffed full of facts and figures, he risks becoming bogged down in confused detail, as he was in his first debate last year with Walter Mondale.

Thus Reagan's preparations have been calculatedly low-keyed. His master briefing book is augmented by two dozen concise background memos, each bound in black vinyl and covering a specific aspect of U.S.S.R. affairs ("Russia's Place in the World: the View from Moscow," "Soviet and Russian Psychology: Some Common Traits"). Aides under Chief White House Kremlinologist John Matlock Jr. are preparing several videotapes, mostly profiling key Soviet participants, including a lengthy one of Gorbachev in public appearances. Although Soviet Defector Arkady Shevchenko was invited to a presidential lunch recently, one-on-one sit-downs between Reagan and pedagogic experts have largely been avoided. Says one aide: "We wanted him to have a solid base of information before we bring in outsiders."

In his first group session with experts last week, Reagan listened attentively as six top academics took turns giving minilectures. The President mainly seemed curious about Gorbachev as a person and his place in Soviet society.

It has long been Reagan's style to avoid cluttering his mind with the complexities of a subject. In many ways this contributes to the boldness of his vision, but his blurry collection of ideas and hearsay details can also present problems. In a presummit interview with the BBC, for example, Reagan remarked there was no Russian word for freedom. There is: svoboda. Similarly, Reagan seemed to tell five Soviet journalists that his nuclear defense project would not be deployed before all offensive nuclear missiles on both sides were dismantled. Spokesman Larry Speakes gently categorized the statement to the Washington Post as "presidential imprecision." Asked later whether he would give the Soviets veto power over Star Wars, Reagan declared, "Hell, no."

Publicly, Reaganites express confidence that the President will successfully blend his procapitalist ideological toughness with an informed shrewdness about Soviet stratagems. "He's been preparing for this for 25 years," says ex-Aide Michael Deaver, who is helping with summit public relations. One prepper goes so far as to label Reagan's elaborately prepared briefing materials as mere "refresher reading." Still, sighs one Sovietologist, "let's face it. He's starting from such a low base that any knowledge would be an improvement." Reagan is so supremely confident of his ability to persuade the Soviets of the virtues of the American way that he is not troubling himself to cram for the summit. His aides know, however, that he will need a lot more than charm and amiability when he faces the tough-minded Soviets at the higher-stakes show in Geneva. --By David Beckwith. Reported by Barrett Seaman/Washington

With reporting by Reported by Barrett Seaman/Washington