Ronald Reagan and the Soviet Union.

ROBERT MASSIE is for many reasons one of the most interesting men in America. He is the author of Nicholas and Alexandra, a book rich and readable and timelessly informative about the lives of that strange and inept couple who presided over the liquidation of the dynastic era in the Soviet Union, and the author also of Peter the Great, a biography of the titanic figure who founded modern Russia and created St. Petersburg so to speak as an act of royal will. Both books won every prize in sight and deserved to do so, while their quiet and self-effacing author, and his studious and talented wife, Suzanne, continue to pursue their studies of the Russian character, transformed now into what we tend to call the Soviet character. But perhaps it is less than that. Perhaps it is not a transformation but merely an accretion. This is a subject of deep scholarly and human interest. Like asking: Did Hilter become a part of Germany, or did Hiltlerism die in that bunker in Berlin in April of 1945?

Recently, in an exchange in front of college students, Robert Massie faced the question: Is it right for the President of the United States to go about saying that the Soviet Union is an "evil empire," and that its leaders spend their time cheating and lying? The strain on Massie's gentle and thoughtful face was apparent. As a scholar of ancient and modern Russia he knows that, indeed, that is how, substantially, Soviet leaders behave. And yes, if the word "evil" is useful in describing the corporate practices of a state, that's approximately the right word to describe the Soviet state.

But--"No. President Reagan shouldn't say that kind of thing publicly."

We are going to be hearing a great deal in the hectic political months ahead on the question whether the United States, with Reagan in the White House, can have a proper "working relationship" with the Soviet Union. It is Massie's point, really, that diplomatic protocols transcend truth and righteousness. It is a very subtle point because, of course, it binds one side alone. We establish protocols by which the Soviet Union is guided--in the demands it makes on us. The press seldom even bothers to report the routine denunciations of the President of the United States by the leaders of the Soviet Union. This is taken for granted. But paradoxically, the Soviet Union is bound by Western protocols in respect of itself. So that when the President of the United States says such things as that the leaders of the Soviet Union are cruel and conniving, and that history has passed judgment on the superstitions of Marxism-Leninism, these are taken by the Soviet leadership as effronteries that (Massie maintains) do in fact get in the way of the painful evolution of a modus vivendi.

But he makes the point that others must at all costs says what the President is denied the privilege of saying. Diplomatic correctness is for diplomats: A Churchill or a Roosevelt at Yalta, to show solidarity with Stalin, may pose with him and exchange oleaginous toasts about Stalin's great qualities as a leader. For a historian or a journalist to ape such language is to profane the entirely different muse that should guide our behavior. Fellow-traveling in diplomatic intercourse by Western leaders, Robert Massie would say (except that he would say it better), is a transcendent requirement of leadership. Fellow-traveling by other than leaders is blasphemy.

What we are then left with is one of those difficulties that inhere in democracy. Because the President of the United States is thought of as a moral leader. So that when a President says that he "likes old Joe," or when a President looks into the eyes of Chinese mass-executioners and toasts their health, there is a moral ripple effect. The democratic constituencies of such leaders take seriously these displays of warmth. And then the temptation grows to invest moral credibility in the leader's words and associations. And all kinds of difficulties arise. Call it a dilemma. Mr. Massie should write a book about that dilemma. I shall give it a very special prize.