One Success

AMIDST OPPOSING BARRAGES of propaganda, proposals and counter-proposals, policies and punditeering, there is hope that something of lasting benefit may yet come out of this week's summit meeting. Soviet officials have given the State Department a list of Russian spouses of U.S. citizens who will be allowed to leave the Soviet Union, and while this move can easily be dismissed as politically motivated, insincere, and cynical, it may very well be the only lasting success of the frenzy of summit diplomacy that has gripped the two superpowers for several weeks.

Allowing nine spouses and one family to leave Russia does not signal a shift in Soviet policy. According to State Department officials, the spouses constitute only a third of the number of Soviet citizens waiting for permission to rejoin husbands or wives in the U.S. Yet neither superpower has given any indication of making substantive policy changes before, during, or after the summit.

Both sides' preparations for the summit meeting seem to be focused more on making political mileage than on meeting the other guy halfway. The recent disclosure of a letter from Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger '38 to President Reagan opposing arms control agreements at the summit should have come as no surprise; the Reagan administration has never been firmly behind arms control. Like the Soviets, this White House has myopically viewed the summit as a prime propaganda opportunity. Don't expect statesmanlike achievements from such cynics.

The propaganda excesses preceding the summit have been surpassed only by the frenzy of media hype surrounding the event. The excitement of the thousands of journalists covering the story is way out of proportion to the summit's likely outcome. There may be an agreement at the summit on curtailing chemical weapons. There may be other arms control accords. Both superpowers may even decide to abide by such agreements. Perhaps years of antagonism and jingoism will give way to cordial relations. Perhaps all this will happen in the six hours of summit talks planned at Geneva.

Perhaps. But at least, among all these what-ifs, the reuniting of a few families may go down in history as the great, and not insubstantial, achievement of the 1985 summit.