The Men Who Made It All Work

All that Bernie Aronson knew about Yuri Pavlov before they met last June had been gleaned from the transcripts of Pavlov's meetings with Elliott Abrams, Aronson's predecessor as State's top Latin American hand. In keeping with the nature of Soviet-American relations during the Reagan era, the Pavlov-Abrams sessions were contentious and polemical. Aronson feared he would confront a tough hard-liner -- and Pavlov felt the same way. Instead, each found a kindred spirit. If Pavlov were an American, he would probably be a liberal Democrat. The two diplomats now describe themselves as friends, and Aronson's is the only American home Pavlov has ever visited.

One demonstration of the trust that blossomed from their friendship occurred during a London meeting last August. Panama's Manuel Noriega wanted diplomatic , relations with Moscow. Pavlov asked Aronson's advice, which was predictably negative, and the Soviets passed. In the Reagan years, it is unlikely that Moscow would have forgone such an advantageous diplomatic move simply because of U.S. sensibilities. Like many such small gestures, that one too registered on Bush's calculus of Washington's stake in Gorbachev's success.

Aronson, 44, grew up in a middle-class home in Rye, N.Y. After graduating from the University of Chicago, he became a VISTA volunteer in Kentucky. He later worked to overthrow the corrupt administration of United Mine Workers President W.A. (Tony) Boyle and then, back in Kentucky, he helped win a landmark coalworkers contract in 1974 -- an effort immortalized in the film Harlan County, U.S.A.

A Democrat who wrote speeches for Walter Mondale and Jimmy Carter, Aronson was also author of Ronald Reagan's 1986 address that rescued a $100 million aid appropriation for the contras by calling for a purge of their Somocista leadership. "Bernie was pushing for a bipartisan Central America policy long before it became fashionable," says Secretary of State James Baker.

Pavlov, 58, spent his childhood in Velikiye-Luki, a town of 100,000 people 250 miles west of Moscow. In 1938 his father, a Communist Party functionary, was accused of exploiting the area's peasants. He was imprisoned by Stalin's secret police, and his library at home was sealed. "I walked by that room every day," says Pavlov. "I will never forget." As soon as he could read, Pavlov pored through a tome on Stalin's 1930s trials. "From my father's experience, I knew that many had been unjustly treated," says Pavlov, who dates his distrust for dictatorships from that awakening.

Pavlov remembers his early schooling as little more than a continual drill in Marxism-Leninism. "I recall one of my friends being asked to analyze a political point," he says. "Our teacher said that two of his three observations were correct because they accorded with Comrade Stalin's views. But the third deviated from the official line. The only explanation for my friend's heresy, the teacher said, was that the devil had taken over part of his brain. That's what school was like."

Pavlov nonetheless made good grades and was admitted to Moscow's prestigious Institute for International Relations. He joined the Soviet foreign service in 1954. "The Gromyko years were drudgery," says Pavlov. "The ministry was unimaginative and dictatorial. With Shevardnadze, it is a constant intellectual debate. He is a pleasure to work for."

Pavlov's first ambassadorial posting was to Costa Rica in 1982. His five years in Central America's only true democracy reinforced his reformist inclinations. "The Soviet Union was never as closed a society as you in the West believe," says Pavlov. "Among friends, one's innermost thoughts have always been expressed. Today, with glasnost, the circle is just wider."