BANGING THE BINS OF HISTORY
the United States giving Gorby more than his due
THE events taking place in the world today are sufficiently striking in them- selves, I should have thought, to make hyperbole unnecessary. But one should not underestimate the capacity of liberal Americans, from Lincoln Steffens onwards (I have seen the future — and it works!'), to go overboard -whenever the Russian Bear gives a friendly grunt. Before Mikhail Gorbachev retreated into the tragedy and rubble of Soviet Armenia, he had received a series of accolades in the US media, especially from those heavyweight portions expected to provide sober and considered counsel, more suited to a Roedean lacrosse Champion. Sitting in Washington, reading this gush, I found it positively girlish; indeed with a change of accent and ceteris Paribas much of it could have been penned by Eleanor Brent-Dyer or Angela Brazil. Gorbachev's speech, wrote Robert J. Kaiser on the front page of the Washington Post, was 'as remarkable as any ever delivered at the United Nations'. It 'de- parted dramatically from the traditions of Soviet rhetoric', echoed Michael Dobbs in a neighbouring column. It 'underscored the dramatic transformation in Soviet atti- tudes'. What Gorbachev was doing, Kaiser added, was to 'change the rules the world has lived by for four decades'. He had 'invited the world' — then, in the excite- ment, that fatal propensity to transcend metaphor — 'literally to beat its swords into ploughshares'. His unilateral reduc- tion of Soviet forces was 'unprecedented'. It was 'a commanding performance by the Pre-eminent political actor on the world stage today', which had 'seized the initia- tive, challenging the ingrained habits and beliefs of two generations'. The 'boldness' of the speech was 'remarkable', and if 'the world succeeds in actually taking this new road, future historians may look back at today's speech as an extraordinary turning Point', It described 'a brave new world'. In short, concluded Mr Kaiser, running out of superlatives, 'his speech challenged 43 Years of post-war confrontation'. All this Under the headline 'Post-War Rules Dumped in the Dustbin of History'.
• Over the page, Mary McGrory was lining up her adjectives too. 'A Smashing
Performance' was her title. It was as though Gorbachev were 'running for presi- dent of the world'. His speech was 'an experience in political oratory', which 'un- furled a blueprint for saving the planet and democratising the world'. This was 'cosmic stuff, an announcement of a new,order ' — in which, would you believe it, 'the Soviet Union will march side by side with, although a step ahead of, other nations towards peace and reason on earth'. Gor- bachev, trilled Miss McGrory, was 'ele- gantly suited, his voice was mellow, his fiercely intelligent face was composed ... all suavity, purpose and importunity'. The sight of the man from the Kremlin enunciating Wilsonian idealism', she wrote, was a shock to Messrs Reagan and Bush: 'It was all infinitely worse than our two presidents had anticipated.' So `Gor- bachev's face as he left lunch suggested that he knew he had put them on notice that the stalling might not be enough of an answer to a speech of such stunning magni- tude.'
To do the newspaper justice, the Washington Post's leading article, though headed `Mr Gorbachev's Sensation', adopted a less excited tone: 'for all the crackle of boldness and promise', it warned, the Soviet leadership 'has yet to prove itself a fully reliable and enduring partner in the emerging new world'. That is putting it mildly, and it is worth noting that, at present, Soviet forces have stopped withdrawing from Afghanistan, which they invaded a decade ago, and are even being reinforced. The Post's qualifications were by no means echoed by the New York Times, which was positively ecstatic in performing as Gorbachev's flackman. 'Perhaps not since Woodrow Wilson pre- sented his Fourteen Points in 1918', it began, 'or since Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill promulgated the Atlan- tic Charter in 1941, has a world figure demonstrated the vision Mikhail Gor- bachev displayed yesterday at the United Nations.' (Incidentally, what were the Fourteen Points and what did the Atlantic Charter say? As someone who makes his living writing history I have to know these long-forgotten things but do you, dear reader? I don't suppose many people who take the New York Times do.) So Gor- bachev is now Wilson-Roosevelt-Churchill rolled into one. And there was more to come. According to the New York Times he is also 'Breathtaking. Risky. Bold. Naïve. Diversionary. Heroic. All fit. So sweeping is his agenda that it will require weeks to sort out.'
Reading this flatulent stuff in the Amer- ican establishment press gave me, once again, the uneasy feeling that there are distinct drawbacks in being part of an alliance led by a people prone to indulge in what Aneurin Bevan called 'emotional spasms' of idealism. On the aircraft head- ing back to England it was a relief to turn to the London Times and find, under the heading 'Words to be Weighed', a far more sceptical approach. The leader was not grudging. It called the speech 'stirring' and 'welcome' — a 'reminder of how far the Soviet Union has come'. But it was all very well, it continued, for Gorbachev to make 'confident assertions' that his country 'would soon have legal guarantees of free speech and free assembly'. They were either over-optimistic or 'a deliberate attempt to mislead' his hearers. 'Just be- cause such statements as these are made at a world forum does not make them true', the Times added. It had a lot of questions to ask about these and other aspects of the speech, including the unilateral arms- reductions.
Not all Americans, I should add, swal- lowed the Gorbachev-bait. One of the great merits of big US papers is that you do hear many different voices in them. Almost alongside its twittering leader, the New York Times printed some robust remarks from William Safire, a hard-nosed columnist in the best Mencker tradition. Gorbachev, he argued, was simply making 'a virtue of necessity'. He had `no choice but to cut military spending'. His altruistic justification for his cuts was 'a combination of audacity and mendacity'. The speech was shrewdly calculated to persuade 'the more gullible viewers' that they were listening to 'a genuine yearning for an end to Soviet expansionism instead of a rationale for a temporary retreat caused by economic necessity'. So, said Safire, let us be gracious about accepting what economic necessity forces Mikhail Gorbachev to offer'. But 'let's not be snookered into trusting a man who has double-crossed and ousted just about every colleague who put him in place'. He was a master at playing off factions at home: we 'must not let him get away with it abroad'. Safire concluded: `So — thanks for the tanks. Next . . . how about tearing down the Berlin Wall?'
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