Gorbachev entertains - Mikhail Gorbachev at Washington summit - column

National Review, July 9, 1990 by William F. Buckley, Jr.

Gorbachev Entertains It was a wonderful scene, that much of it that television let us in on. Seated on the royal thorne: Mikhail I, founder of Gorbachevism. And fanned out before him, the distillate of American cultural prestige, ranging from the Director of the Library of Congress to Jane Fonda.

Gorbachev had warmed them up with a half hour's impromptu remarks. At least, one must hope they were impromptu, because if they were prepared, they were miserably prepared. His mood was genial, and he lapsed quickly into the vernacular-didactic: Einstein addressing high-school sophomores on the nature & habits of the Fourth Dimension. See, capitalism isn't something you can just usher in. Any more than you can just usher in a baby! It takes nine months! So that all those protests here and there in the USSR are to be expected, because there are birthing pains. Understand? The class nodded their heads, and chuckled.

We then saw, or read about, recitals by class members done to catch the fancy of the king. I saw Henry Kissinger, who with that gift he has for total solemnity pronounced peace the most important objective, which is half-true, and well-known to Dr. Kissinger to be exactly that: all his life he has fought for peace with freedom. The New York Times' Bill Keller wrote, "Mr. Kissinger reportedly recounted how President Nixon, his former boss, had been hampered in pursuing detente by hard-liners within his Administration." These are words unquestionably misreported, since what the Nixon Administration primarily lacked was hard-liners, as Mr. Kissinger's two books amply, and eloquently, document.

But there is no question that, in closing, standing at the lectern opposite the king, Henry had a little . . . lapse. He said that he was "confident" that Gorbachev would do the right things to bring peace to the world, and then he said that he "hoped" President Bush would do the right things. The presence of Mr. Gorbachev is said to be hypnotic, and Mr. Kissinger has had several encounters with him. But it was at least amusing, at most disconcerting, to hear our most original foreign-policy thinker express, within the bounds of a single sentence, Confidence that Soviet leadership would go in the right direction and mere Hope that U.S. leadership would go in the right direction.

Then we heard from Professor John Kenneth Galbraith. What he said was thaa he hoped to see a world order in which plural systems could co-exist peacefully. You have to remember that Professor Galbraith is more worried than Gorbachev about the survival of socialism. Since the birth of socialism takes not nine months, but 99 times nine months, Mr. Galbraith needs to be reconciled to the unlikelihood of socialism succeeding anytime during the lives of his grandchildren. But Gorbachev was unquestionably reassured that J. K. Galbraith would not lead a war movement against a de-socialized Russia.

The next episode was by all accounts the most charming. It brought to mind that wonderful moment at Bretton Woods in 1944 when planning was being done to found the United Nations. Already there was gridlock. The Soviet Union, with its usual subtlety, wanted the San Francisco founding conference to begin on May 1. We are pushing for April 10. The wrangling went on for hours when finally the voice was heard of a member of the British delegation. He proposed the date of April 25. "Why April 25?" the presiding official asked. "It's my birthday," said the secretary. And . . . April 25 it was.

The next person to approach the lectern was Van Cliburn, and the guests must have wondered whether his intention was to move on to the piano and play a medley combining the Soviet national anthem and the Star Spangled Banner. But no! He siad he wanted Gorbachev to meet his mother, Rildia Bee. There were tremors of amused delight by the cognoscenti, and the interpreter hesitated in relaying in English Mr. Gorbachev's words. Someone with a smattering of Russian thought he had said something like, "That lady can have one of my dachas when she comes to visit." But that wasn't it at all, though whatever one got through the interpreter was appropriately maternal, perhaps a reference to the nine months of gestation that had been necessary for Van to be born with such skills.