The Gorbachev effect

Press, 8 March 1988, Page 12

The Gorbachev effect

'From

the “Economist,” London

HAS Mr Gorbachev become too popular for Western comfort? Mrs Thatcher, herself not exactly immune to. the Soviet leader's famous charm, seems to think so. She is said 'to have told a private meeting; of N.A.T.O. ambassadors in Brussels this month that the West is in danger of being seduced into dropping its guard, and that “the Russian bear was easier to deal with when it looked more like a bear than it does now.”

No doubt she had been looking at some of the opinion polls taken in Western Europe over the past year. They show, that Mr Gorbachev’s impact on the minds of Europeans has been striking. In West Germany, according to polls taken for “Der Spiegel,” Mr Gorbachev has become the first Soviet leader ever to get a higher popularity rating than an American President (even President Nixon at the height of the Watergate scandal was preferred to the unloved Leonid Brezhnev). West Germans continue to distinguish deary between leaders and the countries they represent. America is still more popular than Russia. But the gap has narrowed.

When asked over the years by the researchers of I.N.F.A.S. to rank affection for the two countries on a scale from minus five to plus five, Germans have consistently given America a score of between plus 1.6 and 2.0.

Russia’s score was minus 1.6 in 1980, but by last month it had improved to plus 0.5. ' . Mr Gorbachev’s success in West Germany; may be ; what worries politicians in other; Western countries imost, but West Germans do not appear ;to be Iniquely impressionable, i Polls utting the same questions in everal countries are rare! . Two of the few have been a urvey in nine! West European ountries co-ordinated last Spring y Datagroep of Holland, ;and a

M.Ci.R.I. poll taken last November! in Britain, France and West Germany. Both J suggest that Britbns and West Germans iare the i most impressed with ; Mr Gorbachev’s efforts, and that the French are the most sceptical.

Nearly two-thirds of the 6064 people interviewed in the Datagroep survey thought that public views of Russia had recently grown warmer. But West Europeans are keener on some of Mr Gorbachev's policies than on others.

Just over half of those asked judged the Soviet Union’s "attempt to achieve peace and disarmament” to be "positive”; only a quarter passed trie same verdict on its human-rights policies.

If Mrs Thatcher has reason to worry that Mr Gorbachev is changing Western attitudes, she might also reflect on her own role in the process. The British seem second to none in their enthusiasm for Mr Gorbachev. Could that in part be a result of the) flattering attentions the Prime Minister has been happy to receive from Mr Gorbachev? - After her visit to Moscow last March, 58 per cent of Britons asked in a Gallup poll said they thought Russia “really wanted to be;friendly with the West,” and only 33 per cent thought its advances should be treated with “the greatest of suspicion.” Copyright — The Economist.