Soviet Official Describes Reagan as a ‘Provincial Ideologist,’ Raised on Lies

A senior Soviet official attacked President Reagan on Friday as “a provincial ideologist” who was raised on anti-Communist lies and Nazi propaganda.

Georgi A. Arbatov, director of the U.S.A. and Canada Institute, also suggested superpower negotiations might have to wait two years until the end of Reagan’s term in office and the election of another President.

“One would not like to see our two countries, confronted with so many complicated and dangerous problems, lose another two years--until the next presidential elections,” Arbatov said.

“Or if those years should be allowed to become years of further heightening of tension,” Arbatov wrote in the Communist Party newspaper Pravda. The Soviet official, a key adviser on U.S. affairs, accused Reagan of moving since the summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, last month from “talks to rabid anti-Sovietism” and said it was impossible to trust the American President’s word.

“Where is the genuine, real President Reagan . . . . Is the President a competent person at present?” Arbatov asked. “Or is someone else talking out of his lips--now one, now another, depending on the circumstances?”

‘Second-Rate Films’

Arbatov even included a mention of Reagan’s “second-rate Hollywood films.”

One Western diplomat called Arbatov’s remarks “particularly nasty.” They apparently were prompted by Reagan’s speech Tuesday in which he called for support of those fighting “the sea of darkness,” phrasing reminiscent of his earlier label of the Soviet Union as the “Evil Empire.”

“What Ronald Reagan said on Nov. 18 creates the impression he is reverting to his original role of a provincial ideologist nurtured on anti-Communist falsehoods and arcane quotations,” Arbatov said.

The quotations, he said, include some quotes “cited by him every now and then, which had been borrowed from a booklet cooked up by Goebbels’ hacks way back during the Second World War.”

The reference to Reagan quoting the beliefs of Josef Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, follows a diplomatic row between Moscow and West Germany over a similar reference.

Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s comparison of the public relations skills of Goebbels and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev outraged the Kremlin. West German visits were canceled and an apology extracted from Bonn.

Iran Arms Deal

Arbatov also said that Reagan’s anti-Soviet speech Tuesday at the Center for Ethics and Public Policy was aimed at diverting attention from the Administration’s mistakes--apparently a reference to the uproar over the decision to send military hardware to Iran.

“It is too obvious that the President is thundering with biblical wrath primarily in a bid to encourage his followers and himself and simultaneously to distract public attention from the serious troubles of the Administration,” Arbatov said.

The Soviet official accused Reagan of first “lying” about the results of the Reykjavik summit with Gorbachev and now deciding to deny there was any agreement.

“One does not have to be a clairvoyant to understand the reasons for this outrageous behavior,” Arbatov said. “They want to provoke us, to thwart dialogue . . . and to bury the talks they don’t need.”

Arbatov’s bitterly personal attack on Reagan recalled articles during the cold period of U.S.-Soviet relations in the President’s first term.