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On his domestic policy: "Our most important, top priority task" is to bring about "radical improvement" in the performance of the Soviet economy, but this does not necessarily mean setting "new records in producing metals, oil, cement, machine tools or other products. The main thing is to make life better for people." He pledged both to "further strengthen centralization in strategic areas of the economy" and "at the same time . . . to broaden the autonomy of production associations, enterprises, collective and state farms." He would accomplish this, he said, in part by using "such tools as profit, pricing, credit and self-sufficiency of enterprises," all designed to achieve less, not more, central control. Contradictory though his program might be, Gorbachev implied that his stress on revving up the Soviet economy would require a relatively peaceful, stable relationship with the rival superpower if he is to realize his goals. At the end of the interview, he asked his visitors to "ponder one thing . . . What are the external conditions that we need to be able to fulfill those domestic plans? I leave the answer to that question with you." The answer he clearly meant to be given was relaxation of tension and slowing of the arms race, if only Washington would let that happen. But throughout the interview, he made clear that he, like his predecessors, wanted detente on Soviet terms.
On his glad-handing personal style: "It is nothing new in my practice . . . I did that kind of thing in Stavropol," the southern Russian region where Gorbachev got his start. "Maybe on occasion when I have been traveling in the country, the press has given it more prominence . . . But also I should say there was a need to go out and meet people more . . . It is not a question of whether I enjoy that style or not. You cannot work otherwise." If such remarks came from a Western politician, they would seem routine, but it is difficult to imagine any other Soviet leader discussing personal style as a tool of governing. Most have taken the stony approach of Andrei Gromyko, longtime Foreign Minister and now President of the U.S.S.R., who once told a Western interviewer, "My personality does not interest me."
That was not the only way in which Gorbachev gave the impression of being a new type of Kremlin leader. He sprinkled his remarks with knowledgeable but unostentatious references to an American newspaper columnist, Third World poverty and the technology of Star Wars weaponry. He displayed a talent for vivid metaphor unheard in the Kremlin since the days of Nikita Khrushchev. Sample: "Certain people in the U.S. are driving nails into this structure of our relationship, then cutting off the heads. So the Soviets must use their teeth to pull them out." He made political points with biting humor, at one point inviting the U.S. to reply to what it views as Soviet propaganda "according to the principle of 'an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' " For example, Gorbachev went on, if Moscow announced a suspension of nuclear tests (as it did seven weeks ago), "you Americans could take revenge by doing likewise. You could deal us yet another propaganda blow, say, by suspending the development of one of your new strategic missiles. And we would respond with the same kind of 'propaganda.' "