A temperate climate for superpower relations and the Soviet Union`s fascination with the Kennedy clan earned U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy a half-hour, prime-time spot on state-run television Sunday night.
The Massachusetts Democrat gave a 10-minute address on bilateral affairs, space defenses and human rights before answering questions from a television commentator.
The segment was taped during Kennedy`s visit here last week, during which he conferred with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and met a group of Soviet citizens separated from American spouses.
Kennedy, who has returned to the U.S., said Saturday in Washington that Soviet authorities had agreed to permit 19 more citizens to emigrate, including several long-term ”refuseniks.”
During his TV appearance, Kennedy restated views on domestic and international affairs that are well known to anyone familiar with the liberal Democratic leanings of America`s most famous political family. But such lengthy and relatively unbridled advocacy of a mainstream American viewpoint is unusual for Soviet television–although it is becoming less so.
President Reagan gave a historic New Year`s message to the USSR over Soviet television on Jan. 1, limited by prior agreement to five minutes. His brief speech at the conclusion of November`s superpower summit was
unexpectedly broadcast live from Geneva.
Before that, the last American president to speak over Soviet TV was Richard Nixon, during his 1972 visit to Moscow opening the era of detente.
Soviet viewers are often given interviews with representatives of avowedly left-wing organizations in the U.S.
In addition, snippets of interviews from a spectrum of American politicians and analysts are broadcast when their views are at least different from those of the Reagan administration or–even better–similar to Kremlin policy.
”The greatest task of our time, the greatest human responsibility of all time, is to preserve and protect the world, where all that stands between us and the possibility of permanent extinction is the push of a button, the flight of a missile and the flash of a nuclear fireball,” Kennedy said.
The senator repeated his opposition to ”the militarization of space,”
a stance welcomed by the Kremlin, but stated his support for continued research into missile defenses within the constraints of the antiballistic missile treaty.
Kennedy defended strengthening U.S. conventional forces and ensuring military readiness. He also voiced support for a verifiable ban on nuclear tests. He said that his brother, the late President John Kennedy, considered the limited test ban treaty ”the most important contribution he made for peace.”
Reagan has thus far rejected a Kremlin call to join the USSR`s moratorium on nuclear tests, claiming it is a public relations ploy that could not be adequately policed.
Describing himself as an ”eternal optimist,” Kennedy sought to strike a sympathetic chord with Soviet viewers by discussing the loss of his brother, Joseph, in World War II, which found the U.S. and USSR fighting side-by-side. He also spoke of other family tragedies: the deaths of brothers John and Robert by assassins` bullets, and a son who lost a leg to cancer.
The late President Kennedy is rivaled only by Franklin Roosevelt for name recognition among the Soviet people. A Moscow theater currently is staging a play detailing JFK`s handling of the Cuban missile crisis.
Several who have seen the production described it as ”politically correct” while allowing the actor portraying Kennedy stage time for advancing American arguments on the superpower confrontation.
”The Soviet Union and the United States have endured tension, confrontation and deadlock at the bargaining table, but we have never stepped over the brink into humanity`s final and suicidal war,” the senator told Soviet viewers.
”We will find ourselves at odds far into the future in philosophy, economics, in our conception of human rights,” he added. ”We will state our separate views, and I hope we will always debate them in peace.”
