A Yellow Light on the Road to D

The dimensions of detente, including its ground rules and responsibilities, have disturbed many Americans ever since Richard Nixon declared it the keystone of his foreign policy. Not that anyone really doubts or deplores the advantages of peaceful accommodation between the world's nuclear superpowers. Rather, there are persistent fears about the Soviet determination to use detente not as a pathway to peace but as an easier route to political and military advantage. One constant concern is that agreements on limiting strategic weapons will eventually work against the U.S. Another is that for the sake of preserving detente, the U.S. has become almost a partner in immorality. Washington, maintaining that peaceful relations with Moscow are paramount and that it has no business interfering in Soviet internal affairs, looks the other way when Moscow expels dissenters like Solzhenitsyn and compels dissatisfied Soviet Jews to remain.

Concern over detente increased last week after Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's latest visit to Moscow. Kissinger left Washington with high hopes for progress in the three days of negotiations, specifically with regard to the second round of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and more generally in the brittle areas of Middle East relationships, military-force levels in Europe and U.S.-Soviet trade. But hopes were deflated by the unexpectedly hard line on the part of Soviet negotiators. By the time Kissinger headed for home--and his wedding (see THE NATION)--he was visibly worried over the diplomatic crevasses that had appeared in place of diplomatic bridges. For Nixon, who counts on strong accomplishments abroad to offset political problems at home, the results could only be disheartening. What was to have been a triumphal presidential trip to a Moscow summit in June to sign a SALT II agreement may now turn into a slugfest to reach any kind of agreement at all.

At the outset, the negotiations appeared to justify Kissinger's optimism and confidence. Since this was the Secretary's sixth trip to Moscow in two years, the Russians were sure-handed in orchestrating what they now call Operatsia Kissingera. Sleek convoys of Zil and Chaika limousines flowed between the Secretary's guesthouse in the Lenin Hills and the Kremlin's Spassky Gate. Tables groaned under caviar, salmon, sturgeon, steak, beef Stroganoff, fruits and Georgian wines. There was even a special celebration for Kissinger's daughter Elizabeth, who was traveling with her father and who turned 15 in Moscow. She received a birthday cake from the American embassy, a present from Soviet Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev and VIP seats for herself and Brother David, 12, at the Moscow Circus.

When the talks got under way, Brezhnev was as cheerful as the Moscow sun flooding his office. He confided to U.S. newsmen that he still smokes at a furious pace in spite of a cigarette case with a time lock on it that he keeps hidden in his desk. Referring to the fact that Pepsi-Cola will soon be distributed in the Soviet Union--one of the accomplishments of detente--he said: "Maybe we can teach our people to drink less vodka and more Pepsi-Cola."

Once the meetings began, however, serious differences surfaced. Items:

SALT II. Buoyed by assurances from Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin that progress was possible, Kissinger hoped for a "conceptual breakthrough" in offensive missiles. In the SALT I agreement of two years ago, the two sides agreed on temporary numerical limits for ICBMS and submarine-launched missiles and limits on anti-ballistic missile systems. The U.S. was allowed 1,054 land-based missiles and 710 submarine-launched missiles, v. the Soviets' 1,618 land-based missiles and 950 submarine-launched missiles. The Soviet advantage in numbers of missiles was presumably counterweighed by U.S. superiority in accuracy, sophistication and numbers of nuclear bombs, since more U.S. missiles carry multiple warheads.

Last week's discussions were aimed at extending the 1972 agreement into the field of multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles -- clusters of nuclear warheads that can be fired together but aimed separately. The U.S. still leads the Soviets in MIRV technology and total number of warheads, while the Soviets have a strong edge in throw weight, or the ultimate explosive force that its larger missiles can land on a target. The aim was to find a formula for what U.S. negotiators call "essential equivalence." The U.S. wants to set a limit on the total payload carried by land-based, sea-based and airborne delivery systems; the U.S.S.R. wants to limit the total number of warheads, which would give Moscow a sizable advantage, given the bigger Soviet warhead.

Despite lengthy discussions, the two sides were unable to agree on numbers and formulas that would create genuine parity between their nuclear forces. Kissinger's estimate of the situation was that "there was no breakthrough, but we made definite progress. There's a chance for agreement but no guarantee." Observed one high U.S. diplomat on the homeward flight from Moscow: "It did not go as far as Dobrynin had said it might. Perhaps the Secretary was too optimistic in following his lead."

THE MIDDLE EAST. The Soviets are unmistakably furious at Kissinger's successful solo diplomacy in arranging the disengagement between Israel and Egypt. They are angry not only because of the resulting loss of Soviet face and increase in U.S. prestige, but also because of what they consider a calculated insult by Kissinger. When he and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko were traveling in the Middle East in February, they complained, Kissinger avoided meeting with him. The State Department counters that before he left Washington, Kissinger agreed to meet Gromyko, but never received a reply.

The Soviets are also annoyed with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat because of what they see as his lack of gratitude for Soviet arms. Said one Soviet host at a party for the visiting Americans: "Sadat with Kissinger is like a woman who opens her dress and offers herself." Sadat replied in kind. In an interview last week with the Beirut newspaper Al-Anwar, Sadat said the Soviets had deliberately deceived him by telling him that Syria had agreed to a ceasefire on the first day of the October war.

Kissinger agreed to reinstate consultations between the superpowers over the Middle East. But he dodged a Brezhnev request that forthcoming disengagement talks between Israel and Syria be shifted back to Geneva so that both superpowers can participate. If that happens, Kissinger fears, a settlement would be delayed or even doomed. Last week Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan arrived in Washington for the beginning of these disengagement talks, carrying with him maps that outline a proposed Israeli withdrawal of twelve miles on the Golan Heights, with a U.N. buffer zone and a no-man's land between Syrian troops and new Israeli positions. Forces on both sides would be thinned out as they have been in the Sinai. An exchange of P.O.W.s first, however, is an Israeli prerequisite.

TRADE. The Soviets are eager for increased trade with the U.S., but they want longterm, low-interest credits from Washington to finance it. These have been blocked in Congress by Senator Henry Jackson's trade-bill amendment, which ties the issue to the emigration of Soviet citizens. Reportedly this was the only area in which Brezhnev showed any substantive give. The Russians have offered to maintain the emigration of Jews at the 1973 level of 35,000, or even increase the total, if the Jackson amendment is softened and if Moscow receives most-favored-nation status, meaning lower tariffs.

The trade talks indirectly reflected an issue that hung over the entire 20 hours of discussion: Watergate. The Soviets said Kissinger had assured them that Nixon would not be impeached, much less convicted. But for all their public insistence that Watergate does not concern them, the Soviets, with their shrewd understanding of power, perceive Nixon as standing on shaky ground. It is not Moscow's policies but the President's powerlessness to pressure Congress, the Soviets told their U.S. visitors, that has tied up the trade bill. As the talks wore on, it became increasingly evident that Moscow has decided to move slowly until it has a better idea of what might happen in Washington. Obviously the Russians will not hesitate to use Nixon's domestic discomforts as a lever for international gain.

Watergate is a less significant factor in other areas of U.S. foreign relations, but that could quickly change. While Europe is trying to avoid embarrassing Nixon, its present mood of irritability with Washington is not helping him; a Nixon decision to postpone a spring visit to the Continent brought no real regrets. Peking sees Nixon's predicament as a sign of internal American weakness, but the Chinese have domestic predicaments of their own.

The week's events in Moscow were a buffeting for detente, but not a fatal thrashing. Provided that progress seems possible, Kissinger may return to Moscow next month to prepare Nixon's visit. If the President's trip takes place at all --it may well be scuttled by the impeachment inquiry--it will probably include talks at Pitsunda, Brezhnev's Black Sea hideaway, late in June.

In a formal communique at the end of the meetings, both sides pledged to pursue "the established policy aimed at making the process of improving Soviet-American relations irreversible." Nevertheless, before his departure, Kissinger also used one exchange of lunchtime felicities to issue a careful warning: "If we attempt to take advantage of each other, attempt to blackmail each other or deal with each other from a strong position, there can be no peace. We can bring about lasting peace if we deal with each other cooperatively and recognize that neither can gain a permanent strategic advantage, either militarily or politically, anywhere." As Kissinger likes to stress, detente is not necessarily a love feast, but it is nothing at all if either side tries to turn it into a device for unilateral rather than mutual gain.

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