Men of the Year: Ronald Reagan & Yuri Andropov

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but don't take it seriously'?" Still, war by accident or miscalculation is a terrible risk for both sides, and the risks become greater as missile flight times become shorter. The Soviets are already dropping hints that they may adopt a "launch on warning" strategy. This means that they would automatically fire their missiles as soon as they picked up signals that U.S. missiles were on their way. The U.S., also fearing sneak attack, may be driven toward the same strategy. Confidence-building measures might help dissuade both from adopting that idea, which is supremely dangerous because it means a wayward blip on a radar screen could touch off a holocaust.

> Seek regular and frequent contacts with Soviet officials at every level. Though the old Nixon-Brezhnev idea of annual summits seems unrealizable for a long time to come, Washington could promote more frequent exchanges at the foreign minister, ambassador and assistant secretary levels, supplemented perhaps by meetings of uniformed military men. The belief has grown among U.S. conservatives that merely agreeing to talk is itself a concession. But no American interest is likely to be compromised if Secretary of State George Shultz and Gromyko, say, were to agree to meet several times a year. Each side needs to hear what the other is really thinking—fully, frankly, in private, in person and often. In the absence of frequent contact, both sides will be doomed to keep practicing what former British Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington has christened "megaphone diplomacy." Says former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger: "Our weakened ability to communicate with the Soviets adds modestly, though measurably, to the risk of a clash of arms and detracts markedly from the cohesion of the alliance."

> Adopt a realistic trade policy. Though Reagan has learned not to say so out loud, associates say he still believes that the U.S.S.R. could be badly damaged, and forced to cut back on its military buildup, if the West cut it off from trade contacts. That is a delusion: inefficient as the Soviet civilian economy is, the Kremlin could squeeze it further to continue piling up arms. The Soviet public will do what it is told, partly because it has no choice, but partly because it responds vigorously when it believes the motherland is being threatened. Sporadic U.S. attempts to invoke sanctions against the U.S.S.R., notably Washington's fumbling efforts to block the building of a pipeline to carry Soviet natural gas from Siberia to Western Europe, have embittered U.S. relations with NATO allies, costing Washington more than it could hope to have gained in damage to the Soviet economy.

Thus the U.S. should renounce, and let it be known that it is renouncing, the idea that trade sanctions can prod the Soviets into changing course, and should shift to a policy of straightforward self-interest. It should trade with Moscow when that offers mutual advantage, as in the case of the grain deal. Simultaneously, though, it should maintain tight controls on the export of high technology that the U.S.S.R. can turn to military use, an effort in which the Europeans have begun to cooperate. Such a policy would not in itself do much to promote better U.S.-Soviet relations, but it would deprive the Kremlin of a wedge that it has proved all too skillful at driving between the U.S. and its allies.