Nixon Warns of ‘Facade’ on Part of Soviet Leader

Former President Richard M. Nixon says Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s “facade about a modern, Western-style technocrat” is “just that, a facade.”

“Just because Gorbachev uses charm does not mean he is going to be swayed by it,” Nixon said in an interview in the current issue of Time magazine.

He warned American leaders to carefully assess their Soviet counterparts.

“We in the U.S. are suckers for style as far as Soviet leaders are concerned,” he said. “I remember how we had (a National Security Council) briefing on Nikita Khrushchev back when he came to power in the ‘50s. We were told he was going to be a temporary man because he drank too much, wore ill-fitting clothes, spoke bad Russian and had boorish manners.

“As it turned out Khrushchev was by far the most intelligent, imaginative and creative Soviet leader I’ve ever met.”

The former President said that when Yuri V. Andropov came along, “I practically lost my breakfast when I read some of that sappy stuff about him in the morning papers--how he liked Western pop music and so on. Now we’re hearing about how Mikhail Gorbachev has good eye contact and a firm handshake and how his wife wears stylish shoes.”

Nixon said Gorbachev is a brilliant politician and should not be underestimated.

“It is a testament to Gorbachev’s brilliance as a politician that he could preside over four years of failure in agriculture and still come out smelling like a rose,” he said.

“He has the confidence of the Soviet bureaucracy because they believe he is a true believer. He isn’t going to change the system. He is going to try to make it work better.”