Those Who Have Gorbachev's Ear

By Ed Magnuson

When Mikhail Gorbachev sits across from Ronald Reagan in Geneva, he will be flanked by many of the same men who have guided the Soviet Union's relations with the U.S. since Leonid Brezhnev's time. Unlike Brezhnev and some of Gorbachev's other predecessors, however, the General Secretary is unlikely to consult his advisers in public. During meetings with foreign dignitaries, in his August interview with the editors of TIME, and in October's visit to France, the new Soviet boss has allowed the men at his side only an occasional whispered suggestion.

Apparently well prepared in advance, Gorbachev speaks at length without looking at notes, but takes advantage of translation time to glance down at a tidy stack of briefing papers, underlined with red, blue, yellow and green felt-tip markers. As Gorbachev was answering a question on Israel during his Paris press conference, one adviser half rose, cupped a hand to his ear to hear what was said, then sat down with a satisfied look when the boss had finished. The Soviet leader will presumably use his staff in a similar way at the summit, referring to their briefing papers for guidance but summarizing the Soviet position succinctly and accurately on his own.

Although he has not appreciably altered basic Soviet foreign policy, Gorbachev has made a key change at the top. A notable absence at the summit is apt to be Andrei Gromyko, a fixture of U.S.-Soviet negotiations for four decades, who has been eased out of the Foreign Minister's job into the largely ceremonial position of President of the U.S.S.R. Although other veterans are likely to follow Gromyko out the door, many have survived previous shifts in Soviet leadership by developing expertise that successive leaders have found invaluable.

The new look in Soviet diplomacy is personified by Gromyko's replacement, the genial and soft-spoken Eduard Shevardnadze, 57. A novice at foreign policy, he speaks with much less knowledge and authority than his predecessor and seems to be mainly a pleasant and able messenger for his boss. While Gromyko tended to deliver harsh lectures to Western diplomats, Shevardnadze offers competent, but far from exhaustive, position summaries. A Communist apparatchik in his home republic of Georgia, Shevardnadze rarely traveled abroad until he was tapped by the party leadership for his present post last July 2. But he has gained visible confidence in recent visits to Helsinki, Paris and twice to the U.S. Says one senior Western diplomat: "The guiding hand of Gorbachev can be seen behind him."

One of Gorbachev's most important foreign policy advisers is Andrei Alexandrov-Agentov, 67. So self-effacing that visitors sometimes mistake him for a secretary, he advised Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko on foreign affairs, probably wielding more influence in this role than anyone other than Gromyko. Largely out of sight in Gorbachev's early tenure, Alexandrov has since emerged at his leader's side in important diplomatic meetings. Alexandrov is a talented linguist, fluent in six languages, including English. A stickler for detail and a master of phrasing, he has been a top speechwriter for the recent Soviet leaders.

Western TV viewers are already familiar with Georgi Arbatov, 62, in his role as a Kremlin analyst of U.S.-Soviet relations. As the longtime head of the Institute for the Study of the U.S.A. and Canada, an arm of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., Arbatov has turned the institute, as well as himself, into an active formulator of policy as well as an academic source of information. Although his writings reflect a yearning to return to the detente of the early 1970s, he rarely deviates from the official Soviet line. His stiff criticism in 1981 of U.S. policy led the Administration to refuse to extend his visa so he could appear on a U.S. television program. In a typical laconic response, he told a TV interviewer, "What the Soviet Union is doing is explaining its position to the world. Somehow, your people don't like it."

Another hardy survivor of Kremlin politics is Leonid Zamyatin, 63, a representative to the press who has served five Soviet leaders dating back to Nikita Khrushchev in 1961. He has headed the Communist Party's International Information Department since 1978, a job that makes him the General Secretary's top spokesman. After Gorbachev ascended to power, Zamyatin was rumored to be out of favor, but he has reappeared on the job in a dramatic way, managing the spectacular presummit public relations blitz that has put the Soviets in good position for the Geneva meeting.

The Moscow insiders will be joined in Geneva by two of the Soviet Union's arms-control negotiators, Viktor Karpov, 57, and Yuli Kvitsinsky, 49. K. & K. have been a team at superpower arms talks since 1982, but U.S. observers have recently spotted below-the-surface tension between the two. Karpov, the chief negotiator at the Geneva arms talks, is a bluff, methodical diplomat, a protege of Gromyko's with ties to the military and the Kremlin Old Guard. Kvitsinsky, who runs the subordinate space-weapons talks, is closer to the upwardly mobile Soviet technocrats who are being promoted by Gorbachev. While Karpov played a prominent role in hammering out both the SALT I and SALT II arms agreements, Kvitsinsky is now regarded by some Western diplomats as the most able Soviet arms negotiator. In a decision that may be indicative of the impending changes in the Kremlin foreign policy team, Kvitsinsky and not Karpov was summoned to Moscow to prepare for last week's visit by Secretary of State George Shultz. Kvitsinsky was also chosen to accompany Gorbachev on his outing to Paris, and he may be on hand when the General Secretary comes face to face with Ronald Reagan. --By Ed Magnuson. Reported by James O. Jackson/Moscow

With reporting by Reported by James O. Jackson/Moscow