Kalb: Change Soviet Politics

Soviet premier Mikhail S. Gorbachev will not succeed in his stated desire to reform his country, unless he backs up his words with real political change, NBC News Chief Correspondent Marvin Kalb said yesterday as he gave a guest lecture in Government 1790.

Addressing approximately 30 students in Government 1790, "U.S. Foreign Policy," Kalb said, "Gorbachev is making a major effort to inject reform into a stagnant system. He has begun to tinker with the system, but he will fail unless he can change the monopoly of power by the Party."

True progress will require a complete reform of the current Soviet power structure, said Kalb, guest lecturer for Scott D. Sagan, fellow in the Center for International Affairs.

"If the Party rules in the name of the people there is no change, if the people rule in the name of the Party there is complete change," Kalb said.

The Heffernan Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Politics applauded the Soviets' recent candor with the Western press and said that the openness reflected the Kremlin's beginning to use the media as a foreign policy tool.

Saying that the Soviets' greater sophistication in handling the Western media is more than mere "glossiness without substance," Kalb attributed much of the increased candor to "an awareness of the power of television to project the best possible look."

While American politicians are familiar with the power of television, Soviet officials have only recently begun to use the media openly to further their own goals, said Kalb, who anchors NBC's Sunday TV interview program, "Meet the Press."

"Gorbachev is using television in the way that Reagan uses television: to get his message across," Kalb said.