Voyage to Muscovy

For Europe, this is the week that might.

Just what might happen, and what, if anything, it might signify, nobody really knows. But from Denmark to the Dardanelles, the citizens and comrades of Europe were waiting with fascination as France's Charles de Gaulle flew off for his confrontation with the leaders of Russia.

De Gaulle's trip has been two years in the making, and he has applied to it the same careful preparation and mystery that he brought to his counterat tacks of World War II and his political campaigns since 1958. For months, he has been polishing Russian phrases and memorizing speeches -- he will make 19 during his twelve-day visit. His scouts have reconnoitered the high ground of Muscovy: Paris's Mayor Albert Chavanac last week toured Red Square, while French scholars swarmed through the Soviet capital discussing everything from color TV to oceanography.

The Russians have laid out a split-second itinerary for le grand Charles: he stops first at Moscow for two days, then Siberia's Novosibirsk, then Leningrad and next Volgograd, nee Stalingrad. There, the Russians imply, he may see "something no foreigner has ever seen before" -- probably a Soviet missile site. Ultimately, De Gaulle will return to Moscow for the grand finale.

Blueprint for Unity. Will the journey bring an end to the cold war or just a Franco-Russian nonaggression pact like the one De Gaulle concluded on his last visit to Moscow in 1944, which the Soviets tore up after West Germany joined NATO in 1955? Will there be a new shape to the Continent? Certainly France and Russia -- allies of old in the broad European context -- have it in their power to change the structure of Europe. De Gaulle has already generated a new atmosphere in the Western alliance, and the Russians are under considerable pressure to alter the nature of their own Warsaw Pact. Whatever the outcome of the visit, De Gaulle in Russia will have a significant impact on the changes already taking place.

On the newly opened middle ground of Germany, the debate over Russian-imposed partition acquired new dimensions last week, in a bold speech by a key West German politician. With the unprecedented TV exchange between East and West Germany less than a month away, Christian Democratic Majority Leader Rainer Barzel, 42, outlined in the U.S. a blueprint for German reunification that went far beyond Bonn's customary frozen position.

A Personal Expression. Russia's main fear has been that in a reunified Germany the Red Army could no longer "cork" the threat of German expansion --either military or economic--into Eastern Europe. To allay that fear, Barzel proposed that Germany assume "special military status" outside NATO and that Soviet troops be allowed to remain on reunited German soil. He reiterated earlier promises of a continuing German aid-and-trade arrangement with Eastern Europe and proposed an economically palatable 5% annual increase for the next 20 years as well. Barzel also suggested that the Communist Party could be "legalized" in a reunified Germany. His speech was strictly a personal expression, and had not been officially cleared with Chancellor Ludwig Erhard; thus it was both a trial balloon and the subject of domestic controversy in Bonn (see below).

The speech was only one of perhaps 3,000 made by West Germans and West Berliners on "Unity Day"--the commemoration of the June 17, 1953, East German uprising that failed. Across the Wall in East Berlin, defense ministers of the Warsaw Pact's powerful "northern tier" (Russia, Poland, East Germany and Czechoslovakia) were making plans of their own that seemed consistent--if coincidental--with Barzel's. Rumors leaked out that Moscow was planning to withdraw five divisions from East Germany. That would still leave 15 Soviet divisions in Ulbrichtland, and Moscow would undoubtedly beef them up with added missiles, but such a pullback could only add to the relaxed atmosphere for a Europe-wide detente.

Bath in Champagne. The climate was reflected as well in a splash of speeches and appearances East and West of the eroding Iron Curtain. Rumania's Party Leader Nicolae Ceausescu three times last week called for abolition of both NATO and the Warsaw Pact "since military blocs are an anachronism in political life." Hungarian Premier Gyula Kallai and East German Politburo Member Albert Norden chimed in with the same sentiments in talks at Magdeburg and Geneva. To strengthen Rumania's bargaining hand, Ceaus.escu last week played host to Red Chinese Premier Chou Enlai, who was welcomed at the Bucharest airport--quite officially --by Rumania's glare-toothed Premier Ion Gheorghe Maurer. That was a blatant show of Rumanian "independence," but Ceaugescu knuckled under to Russian pressure in another sphere: from Moscow, where Warsaw Pact foreign ministers have been closeted for twelve days, came word that the leaders of the Red alliance would meet, as ordered, in Bucharest next month.

The new climate of European Communism was evident in Finland as well, where Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin was making his first visit to Western Europe since taking office. Kosygin was all smiles and circumspection as he toured Finnish factories and fortresses. En route, he and his blonde wife Klavdia collected gifts as disparate as a hunting rifle and a Lapp raanu wall rug--and also got an unexpected bath in champagne. When Mrs. K. christened a new 3,500-ton freighter at the Valmet shipyard on Suomenlinna Island, she smashed the champagne bottle so hard that the dockside dignitaries were drenched. Giggling behind his hand, Kosygin was abubble with delight. In terms of the week's developments, and in light of De Gaulle's impending trip, so was the rest of Europe.

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