TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/120489/12048900.038

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 9KB | 163 lines

                                                                                EAST-WEST, Page 30

Going to Meet the Man


If the U.S. and Soviet leaders hit it off, the summit could be
more than a cruise

By Michael Duffy


    George Bush has often said he prefers "what works and
what's real" to "airy" theorizing. Yet as he prepped for the
toughest challenge in his diplomatic career, this weekend's
meeting in Malta with Mikhail Gorbachev, there were tantalizing
signs that the President was coming down with a case of "the
vision thing." As he described his attitude toward the Saltwater
Summit last week, "I'm thinking of it rather philosophically
now."

    Mindful that his get-together with the Soviet leader will
take place at a time of extraordinary upheaval in Eastern
Europe, Bush has mused privately and publicly about the
"historic" nature of the encounter. Flying back from Memphis
aboard Air Force One on the day before Thanksgiving, he wondered
aloud if the meeting might help guarantee "a peaceful future for
kids all over," including his eleven grandchildren. Then, in a
televised address that evening, the President struck what was
for him a visionary tone. He invited Gorbachev to "work with me
to bring down the last barriers to a new world of freedom. Let
us move beyond containment and once and for all end the cold
war."

    Despite Bush's sweeping rhetoric, his closest advisers
predict that he will stick to the cautious script he has
followed since Hungary, Poland, East Germany and most recently
Czechoslovakia began loosening the grip of Communist repression.
But the President was dropping hints that if the chemistry is
right, then maybe -- just maybe -- the meeting in Malta could
go beyond the modest get-acquainted session he originally
envisioned. He dangled that possibility in his televised speech.
While stressing that the meeting "will not be a time for
detailed arms-control negotiations" and that "there will be no
surprises sprung on our allies," Bush also declared that "we
will miss no opportunity to expand freedom and enhance the
peace." The Soviets too were sounding optimistic. "I know the
mood of the General Secretary, and I can forecast that it is
going to be a very interesting and very useful meeting," said
Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze.

    The probability that such steps will be taken, if not at
Malta then soon thereafter, was enhanced by developments in
Washington. In recent weeks feuding between anti-Soviet
hard-liners like Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and moderates led
by Secretary of State James Baker, who favor a more active U.S.
role in helping perestroika succeed, has been decisively
resolved in the moderates' favor. Whether by conviction or
coercion, Cheney has lately been cooing like a dove. By ordering
the Pentagon to cut as much as $180 billion from its projected
spending plans through 1995, Cheney indicated that Washington
is ready to make deeper cuts in military expenditures -- and by
extension, in U.S. troops stationed in Europe -- than it had
previously contemplated. Said Cheney: "It's clear that the
likelihood of all-out conflict between the U.S. and the Soviet
Union, between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, is probably lower now
than it's been at just about any time since the end of World War
II."

    Although Administration aides spoke of considerable "arm
twisting" by Bush, Cheney's turnabout reflected political and
budgetary realities more than a major rethinking of U.S.
defense needs. Faced with a lingering $110 billion deficit,
Congress long ago abandoned Pentagon plans to increase defense
spending each year. Overdue as Cheney's order may have been, the
armed services responded by leaking hastily assembled cut lists,
studded with base closings and hard-to-cut weapons systems that
are immensely popular on Capitol Hill. Conspicuously absent from
the lists were such big-ticket items as the Navy's Seawolf
attack submarine, the Air Force's Advanced Tactical Fighter and
the Army's LHX attack helicopter. The Navy flouted the spirit
of Malta further by scheduling a test of its Trident II
submarine-based ballistic missile for Dec. 1 -- the day before
the summit begins. The Navy's insensitivity to diplomatic timing
so worried the Joint Chiefs of Staff that they are contemplating
postponing the test.

    More striking than the size of the Pentagon's proposed
cutback was the timing of its announcement. Bush has become
adept at letting the most conservative Cabinet members announce
liberal-sounding policy changes that could anger the Republican
right. It thus fell to Cheney to disclose that the Pentagon is
examining conventional-weapons cuts that would go beyond Bush's
plan, unveiled at last May's NATO summit, to reduce U.S. and
Soviet forces to 275,000 each. Some Pentagon officials are
worried that the talk about reducing defense spending could, in
the words of one, give some allies "a green light for their own
cuts."

    On the heels of Cheney's announcement, word reached
Washington that West German Defense Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg
has drawn plans for a 15% reduction in the Bundeswehr by 1991.
Almost simultaneously, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the West German
Foreign Minister, arrived in Washington and let it be known that
any U.S. plans to modernize short-range nuclear weapons in
Europe are out of the question now that the two Germanys are
groping toward reconciliation. "No German government will
discuss any weapons system that might result in nuclear weapons
being targeted at Dresden and Leipzig," said a Genscher aide.

    Such talk has angered British Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher, who spent the day after Thanksgiving with the
President at Camp David tutoring him on how to handle the Soviet
leader, with whom she has met five times. Concerned that
Cheney's announcement will weaken America's hand if the Malta
talks take a substantive turn on arms control, Thatcher advised
Bush, "Any surprise that you're presented with, you take it away
and you consider it very, very carefully."

    The pushing and pulling among allies will bolster Bush's
wariness if Gorbachev delivers a surprise of the sort that
caught Ronald Reagan off balance in Reykjavik. Much more likely
are broader philosophical explorations of the future course of
the superpower relationship and a series of small but still
significant incremental steps on trade, chemical weapons and
nuclear testing. But White House aides have been hinting for
several weeks that Bush will not be going to Malta empty-handed.
If past experience is any guide, Bush will not decide to play
whatever cards he is carrying until he arrives in Malta and the
game is under way.

    Above all else, Bush, a true believer in the value of
personal diplomacy, wants to cement a bond with Gorbachev that
he thinks will enhance relations between the two countries. He
has sought advice from experts he has long trusted, such as
Zbigniew Brzezinski and Richard Nixon, and from some about whom
he has misgivings, like Jeane Kirkpatrick and Henry Kissinger.
Bush hopes not only to impress Gorbachev with his understanding
of Soviet problems but also to argue cogently about solutions.
"It's one on one, and at stake is the world," said a senior
Administration official. "He's a little nervous about it, and
I think that's why he's working so hard to get ready."

    Initially, Bush had hoped to invite Gorbachev to Camp David
for a few days. There, alone and in private, he could test
Gorbachev's mettle and get to know the Soviet leader personally,
just as he had befriended hundreds of other foreign leaders in
his career. After the Soviets opted for Malta, Bush told aides,
"I want a Camp David atmosphere on that ship." To work his magic
free of prying eyes and ears, he has ordered reporters to stay
far from the U.S. cruiser Belknap and the Soviet cruiser Slava.
"He wants to be able to get up from the table and go for a walk
with Gorbachev around the ship if he wants to," said a senior
official.

    Bush is at his best in such intimate settings. For all his
talk about taking steps only in consultation with U.S. allies,
Bush knows that he and Gorbachev will decide what happens in
Malta. If the President has indeed become more "philosophical,"
the Malta summit could turn out to be far more than the friendly
ocean cruise Bush had originally proposed.


-- Frank Melville/London and Bruce van Voorst/Washington