Soviet Defense Chief Scores a Good-Will Victory

After viewing a daylong display of American power, pride and pageantry, Soviet Defense Minister Dimitri Yazov chatted with Marines, handed out enameled pins and joked with generals during his first visit to the United States.

“We are on a good-will tour,” the cordial and grandfatherly Yazov said Wednesday. “We have come to show the American people that we have sincere and friendly feelings towards the Americans.”

High-ranking U.S. and Soviet officials heralded Yazov’s visit, touting it as glasnost trickling down to each nation’s stronghold, the military forces. He is the highest ranking Soviet military official to visit California.

After viewing North Island and shaking hands with F-14 Tomcat jet fighter crewmen, Yazov took a helicopter to an amphibious assault ship and then a Hovercraft to Red Beach at Camp Pendleton.

As soon as Yazov had taken his seat on a bluff overlooking the sandy dunes, rubber boats and amphibious assault craft zipped through the water, depositing men on shore. Marines stormed the beach, and planes roared overhead, dropping simulated bombs. The ground shook, officials covered their ears, and the Marines surged forward, each toting about 70 pounds of equipment.

A watchful Soviet Adm. Vladimir Z. Khuzhokov, a member of Yazov’s entourage, said, “It’s good. Your boys are just like our boys. Just the same boys.”

Dust swirled, engines roared and yellow smoke bombs clouded the simulated combat area. An announcer, first in English and then in Russian, told the assembled dignitaries about the attributes of each craft.

Toward the back, a row of Marines gathered. And, as the announcer described the capabilities of the CH-46 Sea Knight transport helicopter, one Marine pilot groaned. “Oh, no, don’t tell the Russians about that,” he said.

For him and others, the new, friendly light cast upon the Soviet was unfamiliar.

“Here come the Russians. I’ve been trained to hate Russians,” said Rear Adm. John W. Adams. “It’s kind of odd. Now, I’m welcoming them. It’s an initiative that can do nothing but help the entire world. Ultimately, if it’s successful, it would cost me my job--I think that would be wonderful.”

Many of the Marines seemed pleased with the pat on the shoulder that Yazov gave as he walked down the line chatting with the men who had stormed the beach. Others showed off the Soviet enamel pin he’d placed in their hands.

“He said he hoped we are the best for our service, like his men are for his,” said Cpl. Robert Denully of Seattle.

“He asked about our camouflage and wished me success,” said Lance Cpl. Robert Wargo of Waterbury, Conn.

As the day wound down at Camp Pendleton, one Soviet military official turned to a flight crewman and wished him the best: “May you have the same number of takeoffs as you do landings.”

The equipment shown to the Soviet contingency violated no security restrictions. And officials and experts agreed that it was probably all hardware that the Soviet military already knew about.

‘Ripening of Detente’

“Certainly both sides know everything there is without visiting the sites,” said Leon Aron, an expert on Soviet affairs studies with the Heritage Foundation in Washington. “But this is public diplomacy. We’ll see more of these visits. The military is always the last to jump on the bandwagon of detente because they are the people responsible for the security of nations. The visits by military show the maturity in the ripening of detente.”

Talking about his Monday meeting with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney at the Pentagon, Yazov, through and interpreter, said, “We talked about . . . opportunities for contact. Those might be visits between warships. Those might be exchanges between scientists, air force elements, military bands and just exchanges between parties of soldiers and enlisted men.”

Yazov, who joined the Soviet Army in 1941, was first appointed Soviet defense chief in June, 1987. He replaced 75-year-old Marshal Sergei L. Sokolov, who was fired after a West German teen-ager flew a single-engine Cessna from Finland more than 400 miles over Soviet territory and landed in Moscow’s Red Square, next to the Kremlin.

Yazov’s six-day trip to the United States reciprocates the August, 1988, visit to the Soviet Union by then-Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci.

Yazov is scheduled to travel to Phoenix today for a tour of Luke Air Force Base before continuing to North Carolina to see Ft. Bragg.

On Friday, he will return to Washington, where he will host a reception before his departure that night.