Summit Tales, Live From Moscow : Will the ‘Nancy, Raisa Show’ Supersede Super Meeting’s Real Events?

They walked hand in hand, smiling, telegenic and within yelling distance of the traveling White House press corps.

It was Sunday, the Moscow summit was barely an hour old and Raisa Gorbachev was leading Nancy Reagan on a ceremonial tour inside the historic Kremlin. Then came the sting of shouted questions from afar.

“Are you two getting along better?”

“Was Don Regan wrong about what you supposedly said about Mrs. Gorbachev?”

The media sniper this time was NBC’s tough, aggressive Andrea Mitchell. And her reference was to former White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan’s claim in his recently published memoir that America’s First Lady once remarked about Mrs. Gorbachev: “Who does that dame think she is anyway?”

If the summit between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev needed an official start, this was it, inevitable shrill speculation that their wives were still feuding just like (gulp) Krystle and Alexis on “Dynasty.”

A summit soap opera? In fact, both first ladies insisted they were getting along fine.

“I would say it was quite a performance on everyone’s part,” said Mitchell later on NBC’s “Sunday Today” program, stepping out of character to sound like a gossip columnist. Who does that dame think she is anyway?

“It was very clear that this was a picture the Soviets wanted to present,” Mitchell added.

And it was very clear that this image of the two women as clawing felines was a picture that at least some of the media wanted to present in a quest to emphasize the cosmetics of diplomacy over substance.

Do Nancy and Raisa really dislike each other? Save it for the Enquirer. The only relationship that matters on this trip is the one between their husbands.

“Sunday Today” co-anchor Garrick Utley nevertheless provided an apt title for this event that is shaping up as a tale of two summits: “Husbands and Wives.”

Given the weight of TV’s Moscow coverage, meanwhile, it’s no wonder that St. Basil’s Cathedral is becoming as familiar to news watchers as the White House lawn where network correspondents stand for their nightly reports.

The big three networks and CNN began originating nightly newscasts from Moscow last week in advance of this week’s summit.

Ronald Reagan set foot on Soviet soil for the first time at 3:05 a.m. Sunday, while most of America slept. His arrival and the Gorbachevs’ greeting of the Reagans 45 minutes later in ornate St. George’s Hall were captured live by ABC and CNN. NBC aired the ceremonies later in the morning.

In their opening speeches, Reagan and Gorbachev resumed their battle of proverbs. “It is better to see once than to hear 100 times,” said Gorbachev, apparently referring to Reagan’s past harsh rhetoric about the Soviet Union based on secondhand impressions rather than his own observations.

Regardless of its outcome, a summit at least provides interesting pictures, this time including Soviet camera coverage of those opening remarks. Several times as Reagan spoke, the camera studied Gorbachev’s face. As it did, you found yourself trying to probe his mind.

By many accounts, Reagan is intensely human and relatively easy to read. And those assessments are bolstered by the rash of so-called kiss-and-tell books about his Administration.

Even with glasnost , however, there will be no juicy exposes of Gorbachev, leaving outsiders to draw their own conclusions about his private thoughts.

Thus, as the camera searched his face, you wondered what he was thinking. At one point while Reagan spoke, Gorbachev took out a white handkerchief and wiped perspiration from his upper lip. Does he always carry a handkerchief? How did he decide what suit to wear Sunday? What tie? Did he sleep well Saturday night? Did he dream? Is he worried about sustaining glasnost? Is he confident that his policy of perestroika or reform will work? Does he enjoy summits, this being his fourth with Reagan?

There is some talk about holding American/Soviet summits annually.

Whatever else that might accomplish, it would be disastrous for the network news divisions in terms of budget and productivity. If anything, the present summit coverage demonstrates anew the inadequacy of a 22-minute national newscast and the need for perestroika in network news.

In the best of times, network newscasts have room for only a microcosm of events. Even the best and smartest journalists cannot overcome such time limitations. And now, with so much of their resources devoted to the Moscow summit, they are required to ignore almost all of what is happening elsewhere in the world.

On Friday night, for example, “The CBS Evening News” devoted less than three minutes to news unrelated to the summit. ABC’s “World News Tonight” and “NBC Nightly News” did only a little better, with about six minutes each.

The summit is undeniably the week’s major story. For those who rely on the networks for world news, however, Friday was the day that much of the rest of the world ceased to exist. And more such days are probably coming.

Out of sight, out of mind. In other words, it is better to see once than to hear 100 times.