BEST OF GLASNOST : When the United States Meets Soviet Union in Volleyball, It’s Party Time

If you were looking for a Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union, even the volleyball variety, the Forum Club at 3 a.m. the morning after the 1987 USA Cup ended wasn’t the place to find it.

The Americans, having won the tournament hours earlier for the fourth time in as many tries, were buying shots of tequila for their Soviet counterparts. The Soviets reciprocated with shots of vodka, the real Red heat. Ah, glasnost.

These nonpolitical rivals do make strange bedfellows. Put them on a court, with the world championships or Goodwill Games at stake, or even tonight at 7 in the four-team Stubbies USA Cup at the Forum, and it’s never say die. But put them across a table afterward and, as former U.S. national player Chris Marlowe said, “It’s never say nyet. “

In other words, nobody turns down a good time, and the Americans and Soviets have had many together. They’re honest-to-goodness friends off the court, even if they do only get together five or six times a year. Drinking buddies. “People will read what they want into the relationship between the two countries, about nuclear war and all that,” said Karch Kiraly, the U.S. captain. “It’s really 12 guys who love volleyball against 12 more guys who love volleyball. They just happen to be from different countries.”

This has been going on, although not to such a degree, since 1975, when the teams kicked off a U.S. tour with a trip to Disneyland. That became the starting point for what exists today, the Americans buying everything from beer to music tapes to salami slicers and the two sides getting along well. Very well, indeed, considering that Yuri Panchenko is the only Soviet who speaks enough English to communicate.

Otherwise, it’s a lot of hand signals. And some communication is universal--such as raising a glass.

There was the time in Italy when the Americans bought champagne and wine and sneaked into the room of one Soviet player. Then there was the party outside Moscow after the Goodwill Games. At the Japan Cup, the players paraded around with kimono sashes tied around their heads, the spirit of the occasion having been helped along by shots of vodka bought out of vending machines.

American star Steve Timmons, who missed the trip, saw the pictures later.

“You couldn’t tell which ones were the Russians and which were the American beach guys from California,” he said.

And that was--and is--the beauty of it, this relationship once termed the Beach Boys vs. the Bolsheviks.

“We always seem to do something at the end of a trip,” Timmons said. “It doesn’t happen with any other team. It’s amazing how alike we are. Maybe it is more intriguing because they are Russians, but they’re good guys.

“They ask us who we think is going to be in the finals of the Olympics, and we’ll say, ‘Us two.’ They’ll ask who we think is going to win, and the answer is always, ‘Us, of course. It’s best for volleyball if we win it.’ ”

The Soviets don’t necessarily agree. The evidence, however, favors the United States.

The Americans, the top-ranked team in the world and 1984 Olympic champions, have beaten the second-ranked Soviets, the 1980 Olympic winners, five straight times going into tonight’s competition, most recently in a four-match tour of the East Coast. They are the only two countries ever to win volleyball’s version of the Triple Crown--Olympics, World Cup and World Championships in successive years--but the United States is on top now.

“We learned a lot from them about dynasties,” Kiraly said. “They taught us too well, and now they’re learning from us.”

The Soviet players sure do want to learn. A couple asked some of the Americans if they could sneak away sometime during the stay in Southern California to experience this game known as beach volleyball.

The teams will see each other several more times this year, but never with anything more on the line than at Seoul in the Summer Olympics beginning in September.

“Hopefully, we’ll beat them in the final and then all go out for a victory toast,” Timmons said.

Volleyball Notes

France, which played the Soviet Union tough Tuesday, will play Japan, a decisive loser to the United States, in tonight’s second game, scheduled for 9 p.m. . . . Prime Ticket will televise tonight’s matches live. Saturday’s competition will be shown June 30 and the two Sunday matches July 1. Chris Marlowe will do play-by-play and Paul Sunderland the color. Both were 1984 Olympians.