On a Free Stage

By Hugh Sidey

Ronald Reagan's best friend is freedom. It did most of the work for him in Geneva. It was on his shoulder when he was walking Mikhail Gorbachev down toward the lake. It was tiptoeing around the room in the Chateau Fleur d'Eau and may even have whispered in Gorbachev's ear.

The thing one has to understand is that when others doubt and hesitate, Reagan trusts freedom--in politics, in trade, in prayer. When the Soviet double defector Vitaly Yurchenko spilled his story in Moscow to embarrass Reagan just before the summit, the President leaned back and listened. Yurchenko said the CIA drugged him and his complexion turned green, then they took him out to play golf so he could get a tan, and next they escorted him to dinner with the CIA's director Bill Casey, whose fly was unbuttoned. Reagan doubled up with laughter. So did the free world, the people Moscow was trying to impress with that hilarious yarn.

When the USIA's director Charles Wick, a buddy of Reagan's, got to Geneva, the Los Angeles Times's talented Washington bureau chief Jack Nelson asked him why U.S. Government spokesmen were just arriving when the Soviets had been putting out propaganda for days. Answered Wick: "You were here, Jack, that's all we need." Indeed, Nelson and his thousands of other colleagues in the free press were dispelling hogwash on all sides the moment they arrived in the old city.

Jesse Jackson thought he was a sly one getting to see Gorbachev during the summit to show the world that some Americans oppose Reagan's arms buildup. That was probably a hit in Minsk. In Peoria, however, such a cute maneuver probably kindled resentment against both Jackson and Gorbachev.

The Kremlin's propaganda heavies did have their moments until a hundred-pound dissident, Irina Grivnina, only three weeks out of the Soviet Union, took them head on in one of freedom's forums, the press conference. Not used to such tumult, the Soviets stomped off the stage in anger while a scornful world watched. The Jesse Jackson score was evened by another determined woman, Avital Shcharansky, the hauntingly beautiful wife of Dissident Anatoli Shcharansky, still held in a Soviet prison after eight years. Bella Abzug, the American liberal agitator, was met on Geneva's free streets by Phyllis Schlafly, a banner bearer of the right.

What happened in Geneva was participatory summitry. Reagan went about his business as he always does in that environment, firmly rooted in Thomas Jefferson's doctrine that freedom is a God-given right and James Madison's conviction that some participants will try to corrupt freedom, but more will try to protect it.

Freedom, for all of its noise and confusion so evident at the Geneva summit, imposes standards of behavior for those who want approval in its open bazaar. Boors and bullies are these days most often put down in the long run of events.

Mikhail Gorbachev had every opportunity to behave in the worst Soviet tradition, fuming and pounding like Nikita Khrushchev did to Ike and Kennedy. He did not. "This is not going to happen today, or tomorrow or in the future," Gorbachev said. Even when he was asked about Andrei Gromyko's characterization of him as a man with "iron teeth" behind a nice smile, Gorbachev declined the old role. "It hasn't yet been confirmed," he said. "As of now, I'm still using my own teeth." Reagan's friend freedom was surely watching, and Gorbachev felt it.