World Waits

In a recent interview Henry A. Kissinger, former secretary of state, described what he wished President Reagan would tell the world about why he was going to Geneva.

“I’ve come to two perhaps seemingly contradictory views,” he would begin. “One is that I must deal with the Russians, and no agreement can last that does not reflect their interests as well as ours.” Then Reagan would explain that such an agreement was impossible in the present climate but that he would engage General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev “in a conceptual dialogue” over the next year or two that would “lead to an agreement that 15 years from now people will still be proud of.”

Some of what Kissinger conjured up weeks ago was left unspoken Thursday evening. But the President seemed to have in mind just such a dialogue--”a dialogue for peace that endures beyond my presidency,” as he put it, “facing our differences frankly and honestly . . . cooperating wherever possible for the greatest good of all” despite disagreements on fundamentals.

That seemed neither to promise too much nor to ask the world to settle for too little, and certainly made his warning against euphoria unnecessary. After weeks of spy thrillers, of exchanges of mind-numbing numbers on arms control that never quite convey the awesome power of the nuclear weapons that the numbers represent, it was as refreshing as it was honest.

Reagan and Gorbachev lead countries with profoundly different views of politics, economics, history and the future. This is a country of pluralism and democratic processes and an economy based on risk and reward. Theirs is an economy of bureaucratic planning with a government whose decisions reflect the consensus of the governors and not the consent of the governed. For as long as anyone can foresee, they will be in competition for the hearts and minds of the rest of the world. The best that anyone could hope for from Geneva would be the faint glimmerings of ways to compete without blowing one another up.

Reagan put it more elegantly: “Despite our deep and abiding differences, we can and must prevent our international competition from spilling over into violence.”

As a run-up to the summit, the brief address was obviously tailored for both foreign and domestic audiences. His picture of thousands of Soviet and American students living in each other’s homes and studying in each other’s schools most assuredly would build constituencies for peace, as he said, if it could be brought off. We would not endorse his notion of cultural equality between the Bolshoi ballet and the Beach Boys, but the idea of renewing joint space ventures with Soviet cosmonauts has genuine appeal.

Can he be as persuasive with Gorbachev as he is with his countrymen? The world will find out next week.