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NORMAN A. GRAEBNER (Charlottesville, VA, U.S.A.)

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NORMAN A. GRAEBNER (Charlottesville, VA, U.S.A.) NORMAN A. GRAEBNER (Charlottesville, VA, U.S.A.) GORBACHEV AND REAGAN Outside Geneva's Chateau Fleur d'Eau on a wintry 19 November 1985, a coatless Ronald Reagan awaited the ap- proaching Mikhail Gorbachev. The American President, as the official host of this first day of the Geneva summit, had set the stage for his first meeting with the Soviet leader with great care. He led Gorbachev and their two interpreters to a small meeting room with a fire crackling in the fireplace for a pri- vate conversation. The people in the neighboring conference room, Reagan began, had given them 15 minutes "to meet in this one-on-one.... They've programmed us-they've written your talking points, they've written my talking points. We can do that, or we can stay here as long as we want and get to know each other...." The private conversation lasted an hour. During a break in the afternoon session Reagan steered Gorbachev to the chateau's summerhouse for a tete-a-tete before the fire. At the end the two leaders achieved little, yet both re- garded the summit a success. Separated by twenty years, they recognized in each other a warmth and sincerity that promised future success. Reagan observed that Gorbachev scarcely re- sembled his predecessors in his intelligence, knowledge and openness. Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze noted, "[W]e had the impression that [the President] is a man who keeps his word and that he's someone you can deal with ... and reach accord." The two leaders, pursuing complementary agendas, had approached the Geneva summit along highly' dis- similar paths. At Geneva Gorbachev faced the necessity of protecting his country's international status while he rescued it from the costly, overextended and debilitating international role to which his predecessors had assigned it. For him Afghanistan headed the list of expendable commitments; yet he could not sanction the ignominious withdrawal of Soviet forces from that bordering state without affirming the decline of the USSR as a world power. Such a challenge was scarcely predictable a 232 decade earlier. In 1975 Leonid Brezhnev had been Party Secretary for more than ten years-an era that witnessed the greatest economic progress in Soviet history. To some observers the USSR had effectively challenged the economic predomi- nance of the Western world. Brezhnev's long succession of ap- parently triumphant foreign ventures seemed to reflect his country's intrinsic power. His most spectacular diplomatic achievements were his summit meetings with Richard Nixon in Moscow and Washington; these carried Soviet international prestige to its highest point of the postwar era. Elsewhere the Soviet Union could take satisfaction from the American defeat in Vietnam; the exertion of force to control the politics of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan; the movements toward so- cialism in Angola, Mozambique and Ethiopia; the intensifica- tion of radical revolts in Latin America, especially in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Still Brezhnev's visual successes at home and abroad scarcely concealed the crumbling foundations on which they rested. After 1975 the Soviet economy began to lose its momen- tum, falling behind the advanced nations in productivity, sci- entific development and the employment of high technology. Dissident economists attributed the decline of the Soviet econ- omy, not to temporary phenomena such as bad weather or inepti- tude, but to rigid central planning that destroyed initiative and morale. By 1979 the Soviet economy had ceased to grow. The populace soon experienced shortages of food, housing and con- sumer goods. The system of special privilege compelled count- less citizens to survive through bribery and corruption. The burgeoning cynicism led to moral decay-absenteeism, drug addiction and alcoholism. Global communication made the Soviet multitudes aware of the contrast between Western progress and Soviet stagnation. Iurii Andropov, Brezhnev's successor, recognized the need for reform but was too old and infirm to face the challenge. His successor in early 1984, Konstantin Chernenko, was even less capable of doing so. Mikhail Gorbachev's rise to power within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had been steady; the contrast between the promise of his leadership in March 1985 and the decline of the previous decade was profound. At the time of Chernenko's death the disillusionment with the Soviet system had pervaded every element in Soviet society, from generals and bureaucrats to intellectuals, laborers and housewives. In April the .
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