From Sound Bites to Leak Management : Soviets Master Art of Media Manipulation

When Communist Party Central Committee official Nikolai V. Shishlin tested the voice level of his microphone Sunday on the set of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he did not mumble nervously a thick-accented “Testing, vun, two, tree.”

Instead, Shishlin rehearsed his best “sound bite”--the line he knew the news media would seize upon. Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev will come with “a Christmas gift to the American people and to mankind,” he said tantalizingly into the microphone, thus ensuring that the panel of journalists would not fail to ask the right question.

Media Manipulation

With such techniques, the Soviets are demonstrating in their visit to New York this week that, at the highest levels, their skills at selling their political agenda through media manipulation extend well beyond the on-camera talents of Gorbachev and the idiomatic English of talk-show guest Vladimir Pozner, a Soviet specialist on U.S. affairs.

Gorbachev’s address to the United Nations on Wednesday, for example, seemed written with an ear for the needs of American television--short, punchy phrases suitable for editing.

To be sure, at the level of simple logistics--arranging schedules and handing out press passes--the Soviet media apparatus still can be entertainingly crude.

The first flight of a Soviet presidential press plane was so disorganized, for example, that it arrived in New York after the briefing for which the whole group had left Moscow a day early to attend. Even the usually well-behaved Japanese journalists were shouting in anger.

But for the most part, the emphasis of the new Soviet leadership on media manipulation is paying off.

Many experts cite the closeness to Gorbachev of Alexander N. Yakovlev, a Politburo member once in charge of propaganda and now responsible for all foreign affairs. Yakovlev is a former journalist, ambassador to Canada and Columbia University student who demonstrated a sophisticated understanding of American media.

The Soviet media strategy that Yakovlev and others are directing, experts say, goes well beyond demonstrating that the Soviets are friendly in geopolitics because they are friendly, well-spoken and well-dressed on American television.

Rather, much like American presidents, Gorbachev’s team tries to help sell specific policy initiatives by staging media events that shape the public and political atmosphere, both at home and abroad.

Indeed, if the new Soviet leadership has faltered in the past, it was in overselling to the media. At Gorbachev’s 1985 summit with Reagan at Geneva and his later visit to France, Brookings Institution scholar Helmut Sonnenfeldt says, the Soviets hurt themselves by making statements--unsupported by the facts--about how much diplomatic progress they had made.

So far, they have avoided such mistakes here.

Robert Kaiser, the Washington Post’s assistant managing editor, said the Soviets demonstrated skill at the arcane art of news management Tuesday in the way they dealt with an unorchestrated news leak to the Post.

As Kaiser explained it, Post reporter Jeffrey Smith learned “through remarkable good luck,” and not through a carefully directed leak, the “essence” of Gorbachev’s proposal to reduce Soviet military strength, which was to be announced the next day. Rather than refusing further comment, thus risking the possibility that the Post might print something exaggerated or erroneous, Soviet officials confirmed the story and provided details.

A more familiar strong suit of the new Soviet media juggernaut is willingness to provide the television networks with friendly spokesmen, such as Shishlin, Pozner or Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov, each of whom has appeared on at least one morning news program this week.

“They are over here, and they are playing by our rules,” Kaiser said.

Still Struggling

Yet at another level, the Soviets are still struggling.

The Americans, for instance, handled the logistics for the lunch between Gorbachev, President Reagan and Vice President George Bush. For that session, which involved transporting reporters via ferry to Governors Island, the schedule was set and details of the makeshift press center on the island were clear a week ahead.

But the Soviet-arranged part of the day--what Gorbachev would do in Manhattan after lunch--remained a mystery until he did it, even to the CBS-TV officials who were providing the live footage and facilities for Soviet television.

Logistics are so confused that at times Soviet media briefings at the United Nations have sounded like Groucho Marx routines.

Little Elaboration

Consider this exchange from a briefing concerning logistics held shortly before midnight Tuesday in a deserted United Nations. Keep in mind these are not state secrets; reporters who had traveled from Moscow were simply trying to learn the schedule for the next day.

“After lunch, Gorbachev will visit the area of Wall Street,” Soviet press aide Yuri B. Dubin told reporters.

Q. What time?

A. After lunch.

Q. Will he visit the Statue of Liberty?

A. There are rumors.

Q. How will Mrs. Gorbachev meet up with Mr. Gorbachev?

A. That’s a question.