Soviet Media Bid Farewell to Reagan, Shultz

The Soviet media once fumed at President Reagan, but the nation’s two most prestigious newspapers bid respectful and even fond farewells Monday to Reagan and his secretary of state, George P. Shultz, for helping U.S.-Soviet relations.

“Of course, Reagan has remained Reagan, the anti-Communist and the troubadour of Western society,” the government newspaper Izvestia said in a front-page article. “But the restructuring of international relations could not bypass the White House.”

In 1984, Reagan quipped into an open microphone that he would begin bombing the Soviet Union in five minutes. In the last days of his presidency, however, Soviets recall not those “five minutes” but his five summit meetings with Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Izvestia said.

“And this is not because we have short memories but because a long road lies ahead of us, which we can only overcome together,” wrote the newspaper’s commentator, former U.S.-based correspondent Melor Sturua.

Pravda, the Communist Party daily, painted an extraordinarily intimate portrait of Shultz, Reagan’s secretary of state since July, 1982, and declared: “It will be just to note that Shultz was one of the architects of the turning-point in Soviet-U.S. relations.”

In the recent warming between the superpowers, Pravda said, “Shultz’s realism had a telling effect, as well as his sober recognition of the fact that in the nuclear age, the self-preservation of our two countries can be guaranteed only by the avenues of dialogue.”

The U.S. secretary of state is also the father of five children, an experienced gourmet cook, an ardent golf and tennis player and an avid devotee of ballroom dancing, Pravda told its readers--surprising revelations in a country where most citizens know virtually nothing about the lives of their own leaders.