Soviet Public Treatment of President Reagan Since November 1980

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# UNCLASSIFIED FOUO

Document 2 of 2 AGAL Concatenated Database

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FULL TEXT OF ARTICLE:

1. YYYY/TS84-010

2. Report Date: 03 Feb 84

3. SOVIET TREATMENT OF PRESIDENT REAGAN SINCE NOVEMBER 1980

4. The treatment accorded an American president in Soviet authoritative statements and media commentary is a sensitive barometer of Soviet expectations for relations with Washington. Historically, Soviet efforts to promote an improved climate of relations with the United States have been accompanied by corresponding restraints on public criticism of the President and his policies.

5. Since President Reagan's election in November 1980, Moscow has twice significantly modified its propaganda line to test the prospects for reduced bilateral tensions. In the immediate aftermath of the elections, Soviet media pictured the new Administration in positive terms suggesting that it would reverse the deterioration in bilateral relations and that President-elect Reagan had moderated anti-Soviet views he had expressed during the campaign. This early period of professed optimism quickly gave way to strident low-level media criticism of the Administration and to direct, if less strident, attacks on the President himself. Soviet political leaders continued to abide by their normal strictures against attacking a U.S. president directly even though already by May 1981 they were strongly indicting President Reagan's policies. These respective media and leadership practices were followed until Brezhnev's death, with the exception of a brief interlude of more moderate comment in late 1981 between the time when the Administration agreed to begin arms control talks in Geneva and the imposition of U.S. sanctions in response to martial law in Poland.

6. Andropov's accession to power brought a second, more tentative Soviet effort to promote an improved U.S.-Soviet climate. Soviet leaders and prominent Soviet specialists on the United States muted their attacks on Washington, which had become particularly harsh in the last months of the Brezhnev regime, and expressed receptivity to any U.S. gestures for improved relations. This selective restraint on criticism--routine Soviet propaganda was little affected--lasted only until early spring 1983, when the contention over INF deployments and other issues took its toll.