In Spite of Doubts, Soviets Wax Poetic About Geneva

The post-summit Soviet mood combines a new sense of optimism with continued uncertainty about the long-range actions of President Reagan.

A poem printed on the front page of Pravda, celebrating the three-day meeting of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Reagan in Geneva last week, illustrated the feeling.

Written by Sergei Oktrovoi and entitled “Geneva,” the poem begins:

As after spring planting,

Our work awaits joyous fulfillment,

We are waiting for your shoots, Geneva

We believe your seeds will sprout.

Using a similar analogy, however, the literary publication Soviet Culture said that the seeds planted at Geneva would require careful tending before they would blossom and yield fruit.

On the whole, the official media have joined in praising the outcome of the first encounter between the superpowers’ leaders.

Even the lack of arms control agreements--rated beforehand as the test of a successful summit--has not affected the sense of relief expressed by ordinary citizens.

“Reagan spoke good words,” said Anatoly, a Moscow driver. “It’s a good beginning, but we’ll wait and see whether his deeds are good.” In a dramatic departure from past practice, the American leader is being presented not as a warmonger but as a smiling, amiable man in easy conversation with Gorbachev.

World approval of the summit, as reflected in praise from London, Bonn and other Western capitals as well as the anticipated support of Moscow’s East Bloc allies, has been given front-page display.

Izvestia, the government newspaper, saluted the Geneva meeting as an event of historic significance and carried comments from Muscovites and visitors that echoed the same theme.

Pravda, the Communist Party daily, joined in the muted celebration of the Gorbachev-Reagan talks, declaring:

“The Geneva summit meeting is the start of a dialogue with a view to achieving changes for the better both in Soviet-U.S. relations and all over the world.” In the next article, however, Pravda linked future success to the scrapping of Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars,” the issue on which the President refused to budge at Geneva.

“Naturally, the significance of the accords reached in Geneva can be manifest only in practical deeds,” the authoritative newspaper said. “The Soviet side proposed the realistic and truly radical program of reducing armaments. The ‘Star Wars’ program instigates the race of all types of armaments and, moreover, can make it irreversible.”

Extracts from Reagan’s report to the Congress on the summit talks were read by an announcer on the main evening television news program, broadcast on all channels in the Soviet Union.

Unusual Attention

For Soviet listeners, accustomed to negative descriptions of the President and of U.S. policy, the attention devoted to his speech must have come as a surprise.

Before the summit, the Soviet media said it would not be worthwhile for Gorbachev to go to Geneva just for a handshake in front of photographers.

Now, however, the theme is that a successful start has been made after more than six years of not talking at the highest level and that this, in itself, is a breakthrough of sorts.

A Western diplomat, commenting on the Soviet reaction, said it sounded like a replay of what American leaders were saying before the meeting.

Little attention was devoted to the agreements that were reached in Geneva on exchange of artists and scholars, opening of new consulates in Kiev and New York and adoption of new air safety measures in the North Pacific, where a South Korean airliner was shot down by Soviet fighter planes in September, 1983.

Tass, the official news agency, did report the agreement to resume air service between the Soviet Union and the United States, which had already been announced in Washington Friday. It said Aeroflot flights between Moscow, New York and Washington, and Pan American World Airways flights between New York, Washington, Leningrad and Moscow would begin in April.