Toast to Survival

Even after President Reagan reported a “measure of progress” to a cheering Congress Thursday night, the real meaning of the Geneva summit eludes glib description. The two-day collage of private chats between Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev, of champagne toasts, briefings and backstage whispers certainly wiggles free of the labels success and failure.

Perhaps the summit was nothing more or less than what the President called it: a “fresh start.” The two leaders may have decided--sitting together in the splendor of their Swiss chateaux, unfettered by hovering staffs and counting up what the final communique called the “serious differences” between their countries--that they had talked themselves dangerously close to the brink and perhaps should start backing off. That would be a fresh start.

Certainly the summit cannot be judged on issues that were advertised before the meetings as poker chips to be counted after the game to decidewho had won. Not only was “Star Wars,” the President’s plan to build a missile-proof shield over the United States, not resolved, neither side budged an inch. The same must be said of regional conflicts and Soviet intervention in areas like Afghanistan and Angola. The issue was raised and the President said that discussion of political settlements would continue. But did his message get through? In condescending remarks after his post-summit press conference, Gorbachev answered his own rhetorical question about whether people would say “that’s the hand of Moscow” if Mexico’s huge debt led to economic and social unrest: “Can you be so irresponsible to give those kinds of opinions . . . ?”

As for pre-summit proposals to formally extend the expiration date of the SALT II arms-control treaty, the best that can be said is that it hasn’t been mentioned since, and therefore presumably was not rejected. The same goes for the anti-ballistic missile treaty.

But there are clues that both men got beyond arms into global politics and ideology and explored a thesis that Reagan put forth before he went to Geneva: Nations do not distrust each other because they have nuclear weapons; they have nuclear weapons because they distrust each other.

Only two people--Reagan and Gorbachev--know what turn that part of the conversation took, and they are not likely to share everything with the world immediately.

But optimists--and we count ourselves among those no matter how hard-headed we try to be--can consider two signs that they understood that aspect of the relations between the superpowers.

In leaving Geneva Gorbachev said: “I would be so bold as to say the world has become a more secure place.”

In his parting remarks, Reagan said that building confidence and removing mistrust would depend on “deeds and not words,” and that the Geneva meeting would be judged not by the words of the summit but by the deeds of the future. Did Gorbachev see it that way? The President told Congress he thinks he did. That, alone, would make the trip to Geneva worthwhile--not just for the President or the general secretary but for the world.