President Pledges ‘Rock-Hard’ Realism in Dealing With Soviets

Two years ago, in his State of the Union address, President Reagan broke with his harshly anti-Soviet past and called for negotiations toward a more stable relationship with Moscow as part of an “agenda for peace.” So suspicious were the Soviets that the offer was an election-year ploy that Reagan had to repeat it on three more occasions before the Kremlin picked up the signal.

In his State of the Union message Tuesday night, however, with November’s successful summit meeting behind him, two more summit sessions scheduled and the promise of significant arms control negotiations in the air, Reagan demonstrated that the heart of his policy for dealing with the Kremlin is a two-track strategy that can shift its emphasis to meet changing needs:

--To maintain support for increasing American military might, which Reagan perceives as dangerously weakened by the decade of detente, he sometimes hammers home his vision of the continuing global threat posed by Soviet expansionism.

Willingness to Negotiate

--To maintain his quest for the deep cuts in nuclear arms that he sees as the centerpiece of a potentially new relationship with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Reagan at other times emphasizes his willingness to negotiate.

Thus, Reagan declared Tuesday that this country’s dealings with an expansionist-minded Moscow will be guided not by “child-like faith” but by “realism--rock-hard, clear-eyed, steady and sure.”

At the same time, he vowed that “if the Soviet government wants an agreement that truly reduces nuclear arms, there will be an agreement.”

“It is my hope that our fireside summit in Geneva and Mr. Gorbachev’s upcoming visit to America can lead to a more stable relationship,” the President said. But he was quick to add: “Our differences with a system that openly proclaims, and practices, an alleged right to command people’s lives and to export its ideology by force are deep and abiding.”

Never Closed the Door

As a review of his previous State of the Union addresses and other pronouncements shows, even at the height of his anti-Soviet rhetoric, Reagan never closed the door to negotiations with the Soviets. But, it was after the Kremlin announced in 1983 that it could not do serious business with him that the President began to push for talks.

Now, whether thanks to Soviet economic and leadership problems or to astute Reagan tactics and luck--or all combined--that approach appears to be paying off. The commitment by the two superpower leaders to two more summit meetings has given rise to hopes for substantive progress in arms control and a more stable--if not a much friendlier--relationship across the board.

Critics, who have underestimated Reagan before, now ask whether he will be clever enough to settle for only some of his professed goals--for radical reductions in offensive nuclear arms, for example, at the cost of some limit on “Star Wars” missile defense work--or refuse to compromise and risk getting nothing.

Other skeptics wonder whether the slow, brick-by-brick restoration of civil relations with Moscow can go much further without a comprehensive strategy to give it greater focus. Reagan has shown no inclination toward grand concepts of this kind and may end his presidency with a hodgepodge of technical agreements without a broader political design that would improve prospects for long-term stability in U.S.-Soviet relations.

For example, progress is being made on government-to-government issues, such as disputes over the U.S.-Soviet maritime border and implementing a new cultural exchange agreement. Moscow is also easing its treatment in human rights cases.

Kremlin Arms Proposal

On another track, the Kremlin has put forward a radical arms cut proposal--to which the Administration has yet to formulate a complete response. And, while insisting that Moscow withdraw from Afghanistan and restrain its surrogates elsewhere, the United States has not made it clear how the Kremlin would benefit from doing so.

At home, some specialists argue, Reagan’s ability to approach the Soviets in this way has been enhanced by a new public consensus that approves of arms control negotiations but is more concerned about U.S. military weakness and Soviet strength. These specialists say that this attitude began to emerge in 1978, when the first real increase in U.S. defense spending in almost a decade occurred.

For his first two years in office, Reagan focused almost exclusively on restoring strength--to the nation’s economy, as well as to the Pentagon--rather than on negotiations. His first State of the Union address, in January, 1982, stressed expanding and improving the U.S. weapons arsenal.

“We have begun to restore that margin of military safety that ensures peace,” he said, and, “our foreign policy is a policy of strength, fairness and balance,” while the Soviets support “forces of oppression” and respect “only strength and resolve in their dealings with other nations.”

As for arms talks, Reagan said then, “it is essential that we negotiate from a position of strength.” He cited his November, 1981, offer to eliminate all intermediate-range nuclear missiles--the publicly proclaimed “zero option”--as evidence of U.S. sincerity. But that proposal would have cut Soviet missile forces far more than U.S. weapons and was widely dismissed as more a propaganda move than a realistic offer.

After two years, the tone began to moderate, however. “As we begin our third year,” Reagan said in the 1983 message, “we have put in place a defense program that redeems the neglect of the past decade.” After noting that the leadership in Moscow had changed, he added: “We are prepared for a positive change in Soviet-American relations.”

Still, the President seemed less than totally serious about a new opening to Moscow. His strategic arms offer a few months earlier--”significant reductions to equal and verifiable levels,” as he put it--was again so weighted in this country’s favor that, as his former secretary of state, Alexander M. Haig Jr., later said, it was almost designed to be non-negotiable.

In early 1983, too, he began to stress that Soviet behavior in the Third World was “linked” to U.S.-Soviet arms control and other aspects of the relationship. Moscow must resist acting against neighbors and must restrain its allies from more distant aggression, Reagan said, elaborating on a theme that has become known as “regional concerns” and has grown to be a specific item on the U.S.-Soviet agenda.

Nonetheless, 1983 became a turning point, according to a State Department official who monitored U.S.-Soviet affairs closely during the period. The White House began to act more confidently in foreign relations as the economy improved, as its rearmament program was adopted and as the Western alliance rebounded from its bitter divisions over the U.S. attempt to embargo Western goods that the Soviets needed for their Siberian gas pipeline. The United States won the rancorous fight to deploy intermediate-range missiles in Europe despite determined peace and nuclear freeze movements and Soviet walk-out threats at the arms talks.

In small ways, the Soviets moved too--on human rights, bilateral affairs involving consulates and in arms proposals. Some officials, looking back, saw in 1983 a “mini-thaw.” But relations quickly plunged back into a deep freeze when the Soviets shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 in September. Then the Soviets walked out of the Geneva arms negotiations in a pique when the U.S. missiles were deployed in Europe, pledging never to return until those missiles had been withdrawn.

Nonetheless, in his 1984 State of the Union speech, Reagan made a major overture toward Moscow. “America is ready to make a new beginning,” he said, outlining a six-point “agenda for peace,” the first goal of which was to “establish a more stable basis for peaceful relations with the Soviet Union.”

Not surprisingly, because it was the start of a presidential election year, the Soviets, as well as many Americans, were dubious about “the new Reagan.” Moscow boycotted the Olympics but abruptly offered negotiations to ban anti-satellite space weapons. The Administration astutely said yes, with the qualification that offensive nuclear weapons should also be included in new talks. The Soviets pulled back from their offer.

However, Reagan persevered. And, the morning after his reelection, the Soviets accepted the U.S. counterproposal for talks on reducing both space defensive arms and offensive nuclear weapons.

The current round of Geneva talks was arranged in January, 1985, and Reagan’s State of the Union message that month clearly reflected his feeling of vindication and even victory.

“We are positioned as never before to create a safer, freer, more peaceful world,” he said. America has resumed its “role as leader of the free world . . . .”