Soft Sell

Chernenko's timely message

The private Kremlin conference room of Konstantin Chernenko has been firmly off limits to Western journalists since the Soviet President took command of the Communist Party in February. But last week the room's large double doors unexpectedly swung open. Responding to written questions submitted five days earlier by Washington Post Moscow Bureau Chief Dusko Doder, Soviet officials summoned the journalist to the Kremlin on a half-hour's notice. During a 20-min. interview, Chernenko, 73, looking relaxed and ruddy-cheeked, sounded more ready than in the past to accommodate the prospect of new dialogue with the U.S. Said he: "There are considerable possibilities in Soviet-American relations, very considerable possibilities."

Chernenko cited four issues he thought the Reagan Administration could act on to convince the Soviets of its seriousness about resuming broader talks. The steps are to negotiate a ban on the militarization of space, a mutual freeze on nuclear weaponry, ratification by the U.S. of two pending test-ban treaties signed in the mid-1970s and a joint pledge to renounce the first use of nuclear weapons, a promise that is already embraced by the Soviets. Said Chernenko: "If what the President has said about readiness to negotiate is not merely a tactical move, I wish to state that the Soviet Union will not be found wanting."

The interview may represent a slight softening of the Soviet line toward the U.S. It was the first apparent indication that progress on at least some of the four issues might permit resumption of the stalled negotiations on offensive weaponry. Chernenko's remarks were especially significant in their timing, five days before Sunday's presidential debate on foreign policy. The Soviet leader obviously wanted to help set the agenda for the discussion and perhaps give a slight boost to Democratic Candidate Walter Mondale. Indeed, three of Chernenko's proposals-the nuclear freeze, ratification of the test-ban treaties and the pledge against the use of killer satellites--are similar to planks of the Democratic Party platform. At the same time, the Soviets may have concluded that Reagan will be re-elected and wanted to leave the door open for future dealings with him.

The Administration responded cautiously to Chernenko's remarks. "When the Soviet Union is prepared to move from public exchanges to private negotiations and concrete agreements, they will find us ready," said White House Spokesman Larry Speakes. At week's end, however, the Soviets grew difficult again, issuing a lengthy rebuttal of earlier White House charges that they had violated arms-control treaties and accusing the U.S. of infractions of its own.

The Post interview is the latest in a series of Chernenko appearances evidently designed to dispel speculation that the leader's health is failing and that his nation is suffering a leadership vacuum. A few days after signing a friendship treaty in Moscow with President Ali Abdullah Saleh of North Yemen, Chernenko last week received Syrian President Hafez Assad in the Kremlin. Hungarian Communist Leader Janos Kadar, on a visit to Paris last week, insisted that all is well in the Moscow hierarchy. Said he: "It is a stable leadership, and the continuity of its leadership is the mark of its stability."

Though many Western analysts would question that assessment, the Soviets last week demonstrated once again that making conclusions about stability in the Kremlin is a perilous exercise. Only a little more than a month ago, Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, 66, was demoted from his posts as Chief of the General Staff and Deputy Defense Minister, apparently because the party leadership found him too assertive. Yet two weeks ago, Ogarkov turned up in East Berlin embracing East German Party Leader Erich Honecker on an official visit. And last week Politburo Member Grigori Romanov confirmed that the marshal has been named commander of the Western Theater, comprising all Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces west of the Ural Mountains--perhaps not as important as his previous job, but hardly a humiliation.