Unwilling Talkers

SO JUST WHAT was Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko trying to tell us when he wore grey flannel to his session with President Reagan? Was that a sign that the Soviets were willing to accept drastic reductions in vodka stockpiles--only, of course, in return for equivalent cuts in U.S. Gold Medalists? Had he been able to convince President Reagan to countenance competing assymetries--that is to acknowledge that the Soviet lead in vodka did not amount to first-strike capability, but was instead neatly balanced off by, at least this year, American Olympic athletes?

Such was the level of discourse emanating from our capital last week in the wake of the overcovered and mostly inconsequential first-ever meeting between Reagan and a senior Kremlin official. No one doubts the existence of political cynicism in years divisible by four, and certainly political cynicism was the modus operant of the day; the Reaganauts have an election to win, after all, and the Russians world opinion to placate. Only in an Administration which pushes for high-level meeting in its fourth year, which signs no arms-control agreement, and which deep-sixes no arms-control agreements, and which deep-sixes any movement towards arms control, can the Gromyko-Reagan rumba be deemed of significance.

But beyond satisfying the political needs of the moment, the tete a tete was interesting only in the degree to which it obfuscated the United State's slaggardly approach-fully shared by the Soviets-toward making do with its adversary. Reagan mouthed all the right words in his peacenik-comelately rounting before the U.N. General Assembly, but to those who have been watching with some discrination the foreign policy deeds of his Administration, they rang hollow. A brief capsule of this history is highly instructive.

Ronald Reagan came into office pledging to leave the Soviet Union on the "dustbin" of history, and with his blessing, his minious proceeded to scuttle just about any chance for an accomodation with the evil empire. Granted their chances were not propitious, given the beligerent Russian frame of mind and intransigence on Euromissiles, but they were non-existent under the maximalist approach to arms control favored by Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger '38 and his Svengali, Ricahrd Perle, who have had the President's ear on these matters.

Propose "deep cuts" that you know the Soviets will reject out of hand--this has been the tact pursued by Administration negotiators wary of the utility of arms control and confident that the only way to meet the "threat" is to build more weapons. This is the attitude that colored the U.S. zero-zero proposal on short-range missiles in Europe, and which helped scotch the reasonable "walk-in-the-woods" compromise under which NATO deployments would be scaled back for a reduction of Soviet SS-20s. It is the same attitude which, in the strategic talks, asks Moscow to rein in their landbased missiles while Washington proceeds with its build-up on air and sea-launched nukes. It is the same attitude that enables the Republicans to make the disgraceful attack on Democratic foreign policy as somehow unpatriotic.

Now comes the unsurprising news, courtesy of a new book by Time diplomatic correspondent Strobe Talbott, that all along these negotiations, Reagan has failed to understand many of the basic disarmament policies of his government. Why should Gromyko take us seriously? Why, indeed, given the record, should we take the sudden about-face in U.S. approach, Reagan's soothing words, and the apparent pell-mell scramble for a Chernenko-Reagan summit seriously?

It is quite clear that the Soviets have shared Washington's aversion for a constructive relationship. If you claim you are for peace, you don't walk out out of nuclear negotiations, nor do you brutalize dissidents Andrei Sakharov or Anatoly Sharansky. But in a U.S. election year, Russian behavior is not at issue. Administration behavior is, and despite last week's pretty show, nothing should obscure the hard truth that Ronald Reagan has failed miserably in the task of making this world a safer place.