Gorbachev's "Charm Offensive"

By George Russell

The French daily Le Monde called it Operation Seduction. Officials in the government of French President Francois Mitterrand referred to it as a "charm offensive." In Washington, a Reagan Administration official huffily described the four-day visit to France last week as "more Gucci diplomacy."

Whatever it was called, Mikhail Gorbachev's first foray to the West since he became General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party last March was freighted with a variety of expectations. But in addition to the matters of policy raised in his travels, one important question for many Kremlinologists was whether Gorbachev would continue to display the skills of salesmanship that have won him a reputation as the Great Soviet Communicator.

The answer seemed to be both yes and no. As Gorbachev and his elegant wife Raisa boarded a blue-and-white Aeroflot Il-62 jetliner for the return voyage to Moscow last Saturday, the Soviet leader could not claim any great victory on substance. On the public relations front, Gorbachev had also experienced some of the perils of the open, Western-style image making that he and his Kremlin advisers are striving to cultivate. Even so, he projected himself as an impressive, energetic figure whose pursuit of traditional Soviet goals is at least as dogged as that of any of his predecessors. Said a French foreign policy specialist: "What it confirms about Gorbachev is his ability and his political sense, but also his traditionalism in ultimately defending Soviet interests."

Gorbachev's choice of France for his first official trip to the West was shrewd. Under Mitterrand, the country has continued to demonstrate its long- standing status as the most independent-minded of the Western allies. The Socialist President has publicly taken issue with Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), better known as Star Wars. There is also a historic precedent for special ties between Paris and Moscow, nurtured by the late Charles de Gaulle and continued by his successors as a means of enhancing France's role in world affairs.

On the other hand, Mitterrand could hardly be described as a pushover for Soviet blandishments. After taking office in 1981, he suspended the frequent Franco-Soviet summit meetings that had been, as a Mitterrand adviser put it, a "liturgical institution" of detente. On a visit to Moscow last year, Mitterrand took the ailing Kremlin leadership of the day to task for its treatment of Nobel Laureate Andrei Sakharov. Moreover, the public mood in France these days is viscerally anti-Soviet. Said a French official: "Nowadays, everybody is repelled by the Soviets, who have discredited themselves in so many ways."

Gorbachev's latest image-making effort began the day before his arrival in France. The General Secretary took part in an extraordinary hour-long interview with three French questioners, which was broadcast in both the Soviet Union and France. The session revealed little that was new. In a 20- minute opening statement, Gorbachev, who cut a sober, dark-suited figure while seated behind an ornate Louis XV-style writing table in the Grand Kremlin Palace, struck the broad themes of his upcoming trip. He lauded recent Soviet arms-control initiatives and declared that "we are ready for other radical decisions." He even invoked De Gaulle as a source of inspiration. Said Gorbachev: "Ours is a Gaullist approach. We must live in the same house."

At first Gorbachev did not flinch when his interviewers began asking questions about human rights in the Soviet Union. Asked about the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate, he responded blandly that Jews enjoy more "political and other rights" in the U.S.S.R. than in any other country. The exceptions to Soviet emigration policy are limited, he asserted, to people who "know state secrets." Challenged about the fate of Soviet Dissident Anatoli Shcharansky, imprisoned since 1978, Gorbachev declared that the man had "breached our laws and was sentenced by court for that." But Gorbachev flushed and swallowed hard when Interviewer Yves Mourousi asked whether it is true that there are 4 million political prisoners in the Soviet Union. The Soviet leader called the question "absurd, that recalls the propa- ganda of (Josef) Goebbels," the Nazi minister.

Soviet television, remarkably, did not censor any of the prickly questions and answers from its domestic broadcast. That may have been a signal, however, that Gorbachev intends to be as tough as his predecessors on human rights issues. Despite its audience of 7 million, Gorbachev's interview ran second in the French ratings to a showing of The Burned Barns, a film starring Alain Delon and the late Simone Signoret (see MILESTONES).

By the time Gorbachev's jetliner touched down at Paris' Orly Airport, any damage to his composure was long forgotten. After the General Secretary and his wife strode down the gangway onto the red carpet, they were greeted by President Mitterrand. Gorbachev reviewed an honor guard, then sped off for the center of Paris in a 20-car cavalcade surrounded by 50 motorcycle police. Along his way, the Champs Elysees had been decked out with red hammer-and- sickle flags beside the French Tricolor.

For all the pomp and circumstance, it seemed that some of the sizzle had gone out of Gorbachev's celebrated style. From the moment of his airport appearance, the General Secretary seemed faintly subdued. Unlike some of the off-the-cuff speeches that he has delivered at home, his remarks in Paris often had a formulaic quality, as if written by committee.

The source of that impression was not hard to locate. Along with his energetic new Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, Gorbachev was followed closely by aides who have been writing speeches for Kremlin leaders for nearly 20 years. Among them were scholarly, multilingual Andrei Alexandrov-Agentov, a foreign policy adviser since 1966, and rubicund Leonid Zamyatin, head of the Soviet Central Committee's international information department since 1978. Zamyatin in particular appeared to confirm that there was a conscious attempt to temper the General Secretary's ebullience. He soon quoted his boss to the effect that "there is no Gorbachev style. Therefore, there can be no new style of leadership."

Old or new, there were plenty of opportunities for Gorbachev to ply his foreign policy wares. At the presidential Elysee Palace, he was once again welcomed by Mitterrand; then the two men slipped into a second-floor salon for a two-hour 15-minute get-acquainted session. By and large, their talks were a broad examination of the East-West climate, and especially of the balance of ) conventional and nuclear military forces in Europe. Both men mentioned Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. Mitterrand, who has expressed reservations about the U.S. program, carefully avoided any remarks that could make it appear he was siding with Gorbachev.

Eventually Gorbachev retired to the nearby Marigny Palace to change for a state dinner. When the Soviet First Couple returned to the Elysee, Mitterrand and Gorbachev staged a public reprise of several elements of their private chat. After a meal of oyster soup, sole a la Dieppoise, saddle of lamb Provencale and iced nougat, Mitterrand urged both superpowers to find a "reasonable compromise" in Geneva next month. Calling Franco-Soviet cooperation a "fundamental element of our foreign policy," the French President reiterated his country's opposition to space weapons, without mentioning SDI.

Gorbachev's reply artfully established his ease with French culture. Once again he saluted General De Gaulle, this time along with Victor Hugo and Antoine de St. Exupery ("We are all passengers on the same boat, which is earth"). Then Gorbachev lambasted any "attempt to transfer military rivalry into space, as if there wasn't enough of it on earth." Finally, he added, "If those who push this matter insist on continuing their dangerous course of action, the world will find itself facing hard times."

Next day the Soviet leader faced a few hard times himself as he encountered some of the risks of p.r., Western-style. For the morning's first public event, Gorbachev traveled to the Arc de Triomphe for a wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. As the 28-car motorcade moved up the Champs Elysees, the General Secretary raised his hand and gave an occasional wave out of the window of his armor-plated Peugeot 604 limousine. There were precious few people to wave back. For blocks along the route, only a few of the insatiably curious leaned against police barricades.

At the Arc de Triomphe, another minor embarrassment waited. Amid a group of Tricolor-waving veterans who attended the memorial ceremony, a member of a Jewish veterans association raised a flag emblazoned with the Star of David in support of Soviet Jews. The protester was gently but firmly hustled away. At a follow-up reception in the capital's imposing city hall, Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac told Gorbachev that "French public opinion would appreciate it" if the Soviet Union made a "gesture" in favor of Jews who wished to leave the country.

Then it was the turn of French Premier Laurent Fabius. After an hour-long chat with Gorbachev, Fabius recounted that he had handed the Soviet leader a list of ten pending human rights cases that are of special interest to the Mitterrand government. Said Fabius: "We had a very live conversation." Gorbachev's response came during the speech to the National Assembly in which he called for separate nuclear arms negotiations with Britain and France. "The Soviet Union attaches the most serious importance to ensuring human rights," he declared. But he added that "it is only necessary to free this problem from hypocrisy and speculation." After the speech, Gorbachev strolled with Raisa along the Seine to the French Foreign Ministry for lunch with 135 diplomats and dignitaries. There he heard Premier Fabius raise the issue of human rights again. Gorbachev's face became momentarily expressionless.

French authorities were more circumspect in allowing other citizens to make their views about Soviet policy known. Before Gorbachev's arrival, thousands of Parisians took part in demonstrations protesting the treatment of Soviet Jews and the state of human rights not only in the U.S.S.R. but also in such client states as Viet Nam and Afghanistan. While Gorbachev and his wife attended their Elysee dinner, more than 1,000 people paid about $2.50 each to attend a screening of the U.S. movie Sakharov and to hear speeches by prominent emigres. Police arrested about 30 demonstrators, including Soviet Mathematician Leonid Plyushch, who defied a ban on demonstrations outside the Soviet embassy.

After an evening of opera at Versailles, Gorbachev gave perhaps his most compelling public performance in the wake of his final private session with Mitterrand on Friday. During a joint one-hour, 45-minute press conference in the Elysee's crystal-chandeliered Salle des Fetes, Gorbachev was at times expansive and jovial. At others -- when questioned yet again about Jewish emigration, for example -- he chopped the air with stiffened fingers and reddened with barely controlled anger. Gorbachev joked about what he described as U.S. arms-control flip-flops, and lectured the international press on its "responsibility" to serve the world's political leadership. He reacted with aplomb as Mitterrand publicly announced his rejection of Gorbachev's proposal of separate arms negotiations with Britain and France. Finally, the Soviet leader issued a warning: "We don't want to be more clever than the < U.S., and we would advise them not to want to be more clever than us."

Afterward, while Raisa continued to give Paris a taste of her brand of Soviet chic (see box), Gorbachev made contact with France's working class. Accompanied by French Foreign Trade Minister Edith Cresson, he journeyed to a Parisian suburb for an hour-long tour of a highly roboticized Peugeot auto factory. The Soviet leader tried out the latest model sedan, then donned protective goggles to inspect the plant and chat with workers about wages and factory conditions. So determinedly upbeat was the visit that Soviet Ambassador to France Yuli Vorontsov jokingly told a Peugeot executive, "You're getting so much free publicity out of this, you really ought to give us a car."

The entourage later visited a museum dedicated to the father of Soviet Bolshevism, Lenin. That evening, it was Gorbachev's turn to entertain President Mitterrand and his wife Danielle at the stolid concrete Soviet embassy near the Bois de Boulogne. After his guests departed, the General Secretary held a late-night tete-a-tete with former President Valery Giscard d'Estaing. The following morning Gorbachev returned to the embassy for meetings with, among others, French Communist Party Chief Georges Marchais.

After Premier Fabius bid the Soviet couple adieu that afternoon, a weary high French official delivered his assessment of Gorbachev's marathon effort. "I can tell you, he made good use of his public forum," the official said. "He knows what he wants. He is firm, but he is not without flexibility and subtlety." So far as his major objectives in Paris were concerned, however, the Soviet leader's charm and subtlety yielded little in the way of substantive results.

With reporting by Jordan Bonfante and Adam Zagorin/ Paris