Gorbachev Seen as Determined to Seek Better Ties With West

One of the few Americans to have talked at length with Mikhail S. Gorbachev describes the new Soviet leader as “a remarkably educated, sophisticated man” whose most promising trait is a common sense that could lead to accommodation with the West.

Dwayne O. Andreas, chairman of giant agricultural processing firm Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., had a two-hour private talk with Gorbachev on Dec. 3, while Andreas was serving as chairman of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Trade and Economic Council, Inc., a trade promotion group.

In a copyright article over the weekend in the Decatur Herald & Review, Andreas said Gorbachev is determined to find some sort of peaceful common ground with the West so he can begin devoting more of his budget toward improving Soviet agriculture and his people’s standard of living.

“I went away with the hope . . . that he and (President) Reagan would meet, because I think in a few hours they would find some common ground that comes out of common sense,” the industrialist said.

Gorbachev, 54, who succeeded the late Konstantin U. Chernenko as Soviet Communist Party chief last week, “doesn’t seem to have the same built-in antagonisms” of past Soviet leaders, Andreas said. “A man who came up through the economic side obviously has a different set of priorities, different thought processes, than people who have been only political and have been through the revolution.”

Gorbachev is a generation younger than past Soviet leaders and is the first one who did not play an active role in the early building years of the Communist Party or in the traumatic defense of the nation in World War II.

Andreas thinks Gorbachev may attempt to instill the profit motive in Soviet life in an effort to improve efficiency, but he does not doubt Gorbachev’s dedication to Communist Party principles.

“You have to say that a man who got where he got was totally loyal to their system,” Andreas said, “but a system is something you can fine-tune all the time.”