Bush Should Force Gorbachev’s Hand : Summit: Overconciliation by the President would send the message that the Soviets need not continue reforms.

As President Bush approaches his first summit with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, there’s reason for optimism about future Soviet-American relations. Shifts in Soviet policy toward Soviet colonies have allowed the winds of change to sweep across the Communist Bloc; long suppressed nationalist feelings surge, and throngs of peaceful protesters demand democratic change.

For the first time since 1956, the Hungarian flag is being waved fiercely, patriotically, with the red star torn out, and the Soviet Union has promised not to interfere.

The Soviets, under Gorbachev, continue to speak of reductions in both conventional and nuclear weapons systems and of troops threatening Western Europe.

And, for the first time, the Soviets are admitting their past mistakes: flagrant treaty violations and a complete disregard for international law.

That having been said, there are two approaches that Bush could take in his first head-to-head session with Gorbachev.

He could adopt the line that Secretary of State James A. Baker III has been trial-ballooning for the past few months: Let’s back up Gorbachev, give him what he wants, keep him in power. Gorbachev faces so many daunting problems inside his own country, the logic goes, let’s do what we can to back him up.

That approach is dead wrong. All of the recent advancement notwithstanding, the decision makers of the Soviet Union still consider their country the chief adversary of the United States. These battle-hardened politicos do not respond to gestures of good will on our part. They could care less about “sincerity.” An overconciliatory position by Bush would send the message to Gorbachev that he has gone far enough and can now win concessions from the West without the pain of further democratic reform.

And, if history tells us anything, it is: Once the forward progress stops, the backsliding begins.

It is imperative that Bush keep the pressure on Gorbachev to continue his steps toward democratization, economic liberalization and expanded human rights.

Gorbachev is desperate for Western investment, providing us with tremendous leverage to ensure that the Soviet leader and his regime do not backslide. Rather than patting Gorbachev on the back, we should be asking: When will we see the promised reductions of armor and troops threatening Western Europe? When will we see redeployments of forces and a change of battle plans indicating that the Soviet Union has shifted its military posture toward defense, as ours is, and away from their forward-deployed, offensive strategy?

Bush should make it clear to Gorbachev that Western funds will not flow into the Soviet Union as long as, at the other end of the pipe, massive Soviet support still flows for violence and repression in the Third World. Contrary to Gorbachev’s rhetoric, the Soviet Union continues its military commitment to the Nicaraguan communists, using Cuba as an intermediary (we must let Gorbachev know that if Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega welshes on his promises of elections and breaks the cease-fire, we will hold the Soviets responsible); in Afghanistan, it has launched the largest airborne military supply effort in history; in Angola, again using Cuba as an intermediary, it spends billions to prop up an illegitimate Marxist military dictatorship.

U.S. economic assistance, absent Soviet concessions in these areas, would in reality mean American financing of these atrocities. If Bush holds fast, however, the Soviet Union might well decide in favor of establishing long-term economic ties with the West over continuing its costly adventurism in the Third World.

Finally, Bush should remember that the monumental changes in the East Bloc are not a coincidence of history. The dramatic shifts in Soviet policy are the direct and tangible results of eight years of tough-minded and sophisticated policies by the Reagan Administration. Those who fought former President Ronald Reagan every step of the way, labeling him “cold warrior” and even “warmonger” were wrong, wrong, wrong. Those who argued for the “nuclear freeze” sent a message of weakness and vacillation; had the United States followed that course, we would surely never have reached today’s historic opportunities.

And--something of personal significance to me as a Reagan speech writer--those who complained that Reagan’s tough rhetoric was counterproductive and belligerent should consider: Calling the Soviet Union the “Evil Empire” turned out to be a powerful catalyst for change, making that empire, in fact, somewhat less evil.

Power is measured not only in warships but in forceful advocacy and strength of purpose. And, just as we should not unilaterally give up a weapon system, we should not refrain from using our economic and political leverage to the hilt. That Gorbachev will understand and respect.