‘High Noon’ at Geneva?

The November summit meeting between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev was never likely to produce agreement on arms control or other tough issues. The summit was seen, certainly by the U.S. side, as basically a chance for the two leaders to get acquainted and clarify their positions--and perhaps create a mood conducive to substantial progress in the nuclear-arms-reduction talks in Geneva. Even by these modest lights, however, the deteriorating atmosphere in U.S.-Soviet relations in the pre-summit period is disquieting.

Within recent days a cascade of events has seemed to signal bad news for the summit. A Soviet proposal for a moratorium on nuclear tests was rejected by Washington--too flatly and too quickly, we thought. The Soviets quickly added the rejection to its quiver of propaganda darts. Reagan then ordered final tests of a U.S. anti-satellite system, leaving the Kremlin to decide between now and November whether the test is a point-of-no-return or whether the system remains negotiable. Then came the “spy powder” charges by Washington last week. And, finally, there was the downbeat speech by Robert C. McFarlane, Reagan’s national-security adviser, warning that “even incremental improvements” in U.S.-Soviet relations will be hard to achieve.

The Soviets clearly are playing to the gallery of America’s allies. On the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, they all but called the use of nuclear weapons a war crime. Reagan could have handled the moratorium proposal more deftly, but Moscow must have known that the idea would be unacceptable--offered largely for headlines in the Western alliance. As for the timing of the spy-powder announcement, if the Soviets didn’t want to be called on it, why did they use the stuff?

Not satisfied with a summit meeting in which the two leaders could sound one another out on the question of whether serious arms-control talks could reduce tensions, they have acted more like stagehands setting up props for a production of “High Noon,” casting themselves as the good guys. Such one-upmanship is business-as-usual in the context of the Geneva arms-control talks, but it is not the behavior of a nation seriously interested in a productive summit. The problem has been compounded, however, by Washington’s digging in its heels and sending out its stagehands to help with the props. America cannot control what the Soviets do by way of posing as peacemaker. It can control the way it reacts to the pose.

Despite the preliminaries, the forecasts of failure at the summit are premature. Three months remain before the Geneva meeting, and that is time enough for Soviet and American self-interest in a passably successful meeting to come into play.

If the Soviet intention all along has been to use the summit purely to embarrass Washington and stir trouble between the United States and its allies, then the outlook is grim indeed. But there is ample reason to question that scenario.

As Gorbachev and his Kremlin colleagues have made publicly clear, they are preoccupied with the dismal state of the Soviet economy--particularly the seeming inability of the system to absorb computer-age technology. The congress of the Soviet Communist Party early next year is expected to concentrate on this question.

While it is conceivable, even likely, that the new Soviet leadership is prepared to continue the present level of defense outlays indefinitely, it is hard to believe that Gorbachev really wants a confrontational summit meeting that would give support to those in the Soviet power structure who favor an even greater tilt toward military spending. If this reading is correct, the outlook for a civilized summit meeting is still very much alive.

It bears repeating, however, that not much more than mood-setting civility should be expected in this first encounter of Gorbachev and Reagan. The differences between our two countries are based not just on contradictory notions of the rights of man, but also on clashes of national interest that are not easily resolved.

But a lot is at stake. The world has a right to expect less posturing by both major powers in the next three months than has been evident of late.