September 22, 1977
Page 30442
DR. OLIN ROBISON ON THE SOVIET UNION
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, a recent issue of the Christian Science Monitor contains an interview with Dr. Olin Robison, president of Middlebury College in Vermont and former provost of Bowdoin College in Maine. Dr. Robison was interviewed after his return from the Soviet Union, where as a guest of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he spoke on the policies of the Carter administration.
Dr. Robison's 20 year interest in Soviet affairs, demonstrated by involvement in exchange programs between young American and Soviet leaders and yearly American-Soviet conferences, has led to the formation of personal friendships with Soviet educators, researchers, and officials in the Soviet Foreign Ministry. In Dr. Robison's view, these exchanges provide a valuable channel of understanding between the United States and the Soviet Union, outside the context of formal diplomacy.
In the interview with the Christian Science Monitor, Dr. Robison discusses the personal insights he has gained into the causes and cures of misunderstandings between the two countries.
It is a most informative interview, and to share it with my colleagues I ask unanimous consent that the interview published in the newspaper's August 25 edition be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the interview was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
DETENTE OVER DINNER — COLLEGE PRESIDENT SHARES UNOFFICIAL DIALOGUES WITH SOVIETS
(By Richard M. Harley)
MIDDLEBURY, VERMONT.— When Middlebury College President Olin Robison recently spoke in Moscow as a guest of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he discovered that he had become something of a minor prophet.
Back in 1975, with the American election looming on the horizon, he had predicted on a similar visit to Moscow that any Southerner who could beat George Wallace in the South would be the next President of the United States.
"They remembered that," laughed Dr. Robison on his return from Moscow several weeks ago.
"Never mind the fact that at the time I was thinking of Terry Sanford, not Jimmy Carter. Terry had just had the good wisdom to invite me to be his foreign policy adviser in the campaign, and of course, I was thinking that that showed him to be a man of great sagacity!"
In July, just six months into the Carter administration, Dr. Robison again found himself before an Academy of Sciences audience. This time he spoke on the new administration's policies. But in the discussion that followed, he soon found that the winds had shifted since his last talk.
Although the Soviets were still curious about the new American policies, they also wanted to know about President Carter's much-publicized religious faith, a curiosity that kept Dr. Robison fielding questions for another two hours from some 50 America-watchers and researchers at the Academy.
Such dialogues may seem out of the ordinary to most Americans, but they are actually nothing new. Unofficial dialogues and exchanges between Soviets and Americans began to blossom in the early 1960s and increased through the Nixon-Kissinger-Ford detente era.
Even though detente presently seems to have stalled, the exchanges still manage to roll on. In the next year alone, for example, Dr. Robison expects to host a half dozen ranking Russian officials at his rural Vermont home, alongside a lazy, meandering "Otter Creek" that seems about as far removed from Moscow and Soviet affairs as one could imagine.
U. S.-Soviet exchanges most often are arranged not at the top levels of government but by middle level officials, educators, scientists, artists, or private citizens, who seek to gauge which way the winds are blowing, and how relations between the two superpowers might be improved.
Dr. Robison's contacts with the Russians go back to a trip to the Soviet Union in the late 1950s while he was still a student at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. His interest in Soviet affairs continued after his ordination as a Baptist minister and through his subsequent work with the Peace Corps and the State Department. But most contacts developed in recent years while he held administrative posts at Wesleyan University, Bowdoin College, and Middlebury College.
Helping to head a government-funded program of exchanges in the late 1960s between young American political leaders and the Soviet Committee on Youth Organizations, Dr. Robison led many Americans to conferences all over the U.S.S.R. He has further taken part in a program of yearly American-Soviet conferences launched in the early 1970s by the United Nations Association.
For Dr. Robison, the exchange provide a valuable channel of understanding between the superpowers — even at times when U.S.-Soviet relations have been fraught with friction. And over the years be has developed personal friendships with Soviet educators, researchers, and officials in the Soviet Foreign Ministry.
In July Dr. Robison was again the guest of the Institute of United States and Canadian Studies, a part of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The insights he has gained into current U.S.- Soviet misunderstandings were the subject of the following, interview with the Monitor:
Most of us do not often find ourselves in conversations with the Soviets. How would you characterize your relationships with your Soviet friends?
The sessions are always cordial. Everyone wants very badly to treat people with gracious hospitality, and at the same time good conversations take place.
What kinds of conversations?
I remember one evening last year in which a very distinguished Russian was a guest here at Middlebury. We had a superb discussion on whether the cold war had been necessary. I had taken the position that it probably was, that any time you have great competing powers — especially from different cultural backgrounds — something like the cold war is probably necessary to get things sorted out.
How did the Russian respond to that?
Well, he wasn't having any of it. He said it was our fault. They didn't have anything to do with it. Finally, after this went on for nearly four hours, one of the guests said to my Russian friend, "Let me be straight about this. Are you saying that the cold war was exclusively the fault of the Americans?" And he said, "Oh, no. I didn't mean to say that. It was partly Churchill's fault!"
Did he laugh at that?
Yes, he did have the grace to laugh at that.
We read a lot about reactions around the world to the American stance on human rights. Did you find in your most recent trip to Mcscow that President Carter's open statements on human rights are as serious a concern for the Russians as the Western press leads one to think?
Yes, and I'm reasonably sure that the human rights posture of the new government has had more to do with changing the overall atmosphere of U.S.-Soviet relations than have, say, the armaments discussions. One senses in talking with the Soviets that they are angry, frustrated, and intensely indignant over President Carter's statements on human rights.
Why indignant? How can we understand that reaction?
Many Russians feel that President Carter does not view them as equals and that the President has singled them out for special censure. They believe that he has taken the high moral ground from which he can talk down to them. More than anything else, the Soviets want the leadership of the United States to treat them as equals. I think it would be difficult to overstate how important that is.
Did the Russians themselves actually say this?
One ranking Soviet official said to me, "The relationship [between the U.S. and the Soviet Union] cannot go forward unless the President is prepared to deal with us as equals." He claimed that Presidents Nixon and Ford had been prepared to do this, or at least were moving in that direction. Then he added, "I don't see that readiness now. There's no preparedness to deal with us on an equal footing, either in SALT [strategic arms limitation talks] or other matters."
So the very rights policy that many Americans hope will promote equality and respect for the individual comes across to the Russians as a statement of U.S. superiority?
Russian friends repeatedly said to me that they felt we were trying very hard to put them in the worst possible light internationally. One ranking official said, "We view President Carter's statements on human rights as a well thought out, well-planned campaign of psychological warfare. It is a special instrument to be employed in the struggle against the socialist countries."
How did you respond to that?
I said, "That's a strong statement; that's a terribly strong statement. I'm going to read it back to you. Did you really mean to say what I have written down?" He said, "That's exactly what I mean."
What about the administration's statements that the U.S. human rights policy is a general one, with no particular country singled out as a target?
They either do not hear or choose not to believe these statements. I asked many of my Russian friends, "Can you conceive of circumstances in which the President would speak out on human rights and it would not be seen by them as anti-Soviet?" The consistent answer was, "No, it's aimed at us."
I understand that your recent talk at the Soviet Academy of Sciences drew questions about Jimmy Carter's religion?
Yes, indeed. They are intensely curious: They've read a great deal about the fact that he is serious about his religious commitment, that he's a regular churchgoer.
Where do they get their information?
From many of the same sources we do — primarily our own press. The professional people in the Institute of U.S. and Canadian Studies read most major U.S. newspapers and periodicals. They are fascinated with the religious side of the President's life, but they feel a bit uneasy about it. They're quick to admit that they do not understand it, and want to know more.
Why the curiosity? Presumably they don't want to be converted?
Oh, no. Intellectual curiosity. Academician Georgi Arbatov, my host and the director of the Institute, asked me to talk to him and his colleagues about the fact that Mr. Carter is perceived to be a religious man. Knowing, as he does, my own Baptist background, he wondered if I would comment on what it means to be a Baptist, and how this might affect the way the President makes decisions. Still others, when asking about the President's human rights stance, would say, "Is he doing this because of a missionary zeal that comes from his religion?"
How did you reply?
I said that Jimmy Carter's stance on human rights is consistent with his Baptist religion, but not exclusively the product of it. And I suggested that distinctiveness of the President's approach to human rights may reflect the way evangelical Christianity — such as President Carter's Baptist faith — differs from more liturgical forms of Christianity — such as the Russian Orthodox Church with which the Russians would be familiar. Participation is the clearest statement of faith in the liturgical churches. But the Evangelical shows his commitment by proclamation, by talking about it. So perhaps with the Baptist and human rights, a commitment to the cause is not enough:
you've got to be prepared, in religious terms, to bear witness to your commitment.
One would expect the Russians to know something about such aspects of Western Religion, but perhaps we should not take that for granted?
In the Institute of U.S. and Canadian Studies, not a single one of the 300 researchers specializes in the religion of the United States. No young Russian is going to make it up the professional ladder by studying religion.
Two years ago, my wife Sylvia lectured at the Institute on the history of religion in American political life. She stressed to the Russians that any understanding of American life had to include an appreciation of the role religion has played in the formation of American values. My Russian friends accept this on an intellectual level, but have not been prepared to commit any resources to such studies.
Apart from religion and human rights, what exactly did the Soviets expect when Jimmy Carter was elected?
Shortly after last November's election, I was invited, along with other American members of a United Nations Association working group, to meet with our counterparts in Moscow. At that time they were, of course, curious about the implications of the election. Those of us then in Moscow described President-Elect Carter as a man in the mainstream of the Democratic Party. The Russians, however, convinced themselves from our statements plus their own analysis of the American scene, that there would be no changes of consequence under the new administration.
So given such expectations, the shifts in President Carter's policies from his predecessors must have come as a bit of a shock to the Soviets?
I think that any change in style or substance in U.S. foreign policy would have made them anxious. After all, they had dealt with Secretary Kissinger for eight years. In that length of time they had at least become comfortable with their ability to predict where the U.S.-Soviet relationship was going.
Why has it been so hard for the Soviets to adjust to the new American approach?
I find no appreciation in Moscow of the fact that the new President had to put some distance between himself and the previous administration, if not in substance, then at least in style. And in both of these I think President Carter has done just that.
But also, I don't think my Russian friends have a very accurate understanding of the relation between American public opinion and presidential behavior. They are reluctant to accept the idea that public opinion forms the boundaries within which a president can operate. They are equally reluctant to admit that Soviet behavior in the last three or four years has not been conducive to a favorable political climate for detente in this country.
Reluctant in what way?
They don't want to hear that Americans think the Soviets behaved badly in Angola and Portugal, and that this was not in the spirit of detente. "What do you mean?" they would say. I pointed out that during detente, most Americans thought we had all agreed to curb our competitive instincts for a while — sort of like the Indianapolis 500, which they all know about, in which a yellow flag means that although the race is on, nobody can pass anyone else. But the Soviets were seen to be racing ahead despite the yellow flag, and no new American president could come into office and fail to address this perception.
Are there aspects of U.S.-Soviet differences that need to be better understood by Americans?
I would say yes: The most basic is not to lose sight of the profound value differences in our two societies. Their history is so different from ours. They are a people who did not participate in the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment or the 20th century discussions of Wilsonian democracy, of restructuring the world into a more harmonious order.
Where our society has placed a higher value on personal freedom and liberty, they have given greater emphasis to social structure and public services. Thus the Soviets — from the time of their revolution — have defined the most important "human rights" as food, housing; employment, and domestic order. The fact that we do not agree with this order of priorities should not obscure our understanding that it is a different value system. Acknowledging the differences must surely be the first step toward finding common ground on which to build understanding.
What, in your view, does the existence of such cultural differences mean for the future of the American stand on human rights?
It means that if we're going to go forward in the human rights policy, I think we're going to have to be progressively more skillful, sophisticated, and discerning — perhaps more pointed, and less general. And the Soviet Union is going to have to become perhaps a little less edgy in all this, or else the atmospherics within which the relationship between our two countries is progressing are going to become very bad indeed. The atmospherics matter. They count. And the overall posture that we have toward each other does form the context in which concrete relations are formed.
What future do you see for American-Soviet dialogues like the one in which you have participated?
One result of detente was that many levels of communication were established between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. We now have about 200 agreements of one sort or another with the Soviets, ranging from joint space efforts, joint research in science and technology, and cultural exchanges of artists, dance troupes, young political leaders, and so forth.
And lest we think that, in the present period of strain, we're slipping into a cold war situation, a significant number of Americans and Russians continue to move back and forth between the two countries with some ease. We know it's been useful for them. It's equally useful for us. And that, it seems to me, serves the cause of peace.