Diplomats Hear Critical Speech by Gorbachev

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, apparently dissatisfied with Moscow’s diplomatic efforts, is believed to have urged Soviet envoys to be more dynamic and effective in presenting Moscow’s views to the world, Western diplomats said Saturday.

Gorbachev met with Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, former Washington Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin and Soviet diplomats called home from around the world for what the Soviet news agency Tass said Saturday was a major speech Friday. Tass offered few details, but made it clear that Gorbachev was not happy with past handling of foreign affairs.

“The experience of Soviet diplomacy in recent years was examined critically and with party-style exactingness,” Tass said. Such language customarily means that the party leader wants changes made.

One envoy in Moscow said: “The message will have been: ‘We must be seen to get our message across better, we must not be old-fashioned.’ ”

Gorbachev is likely to have spelled out the need to keep Soviet diplomacy free of cant and cliches and make it more flexible and responsive to events, the embassy sources said.

Citing possible areas of concern, Western diplomats said the Kremlin leadership would have taken stock of the critical foreign reaction, particularly in Western Europe, to the initial Soviet silence on the Chernobyl nuclear accident.

“After Chernobyl, the line must go out that ‘We do not want to be bad neighbors’ and ‘We have common ground,’ ” one diplomat said.

A senior Asian envoy said the ambassadors were probably told that it is not enough to use the old cliches, to talk about Japanese militarism and Chinese hegemonism.”

Diplomats said they detected concern among Soviet leaders that foreign opinion was not responding positively enough to initiatives, especially on arms control, which Gorbachev launched after he took power in March, 1985.

“Gorbachev is concerned about why various countries are not warming more to his initiatives. He would like to see public opinion handled better and Soviet policies sold better,” one diplomat said.