Keeping the Lines Open

By WILLIAM A. HENRY III

A meeting in Geneva, despite tension and criticism

When Secretary of State Alexander Haig and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko last met, recalls one senior American official, "There was no name calling, and not a lot of rhetoric." But that was in September, and there was also no crackdown in Poland. Since then, U.S.-Soviet tensions have escalated into sanctions. Nonetheless, to the relief of European allies and the discontent of many American conservatives, Haig and Gromyko will meet again this week, in Geneva. "It's going to be a pretty frosty atmosphere," says a Haig assistant. Even so, notes William Hyland, once a policy aide to former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, "The most interesting thing about the meeting is that it will take place."

The decision to go ahead with the long-scheduled talk, at a time when President Reagan has characterized the situation in Poland as "deteriorating," has highlighted sharply contradictory views about what U.S. foreign policy should be. The White House position, as propounded by Haig, is that "in time of crisis, communication between governments is more, rather than less important." But critics are arguing that the Administration does not grasp the need to back up denunciations of Soviet pressure on Poland with clear, telling actions. In this view, the very decision to talk gives the Soviets a propaganda coup. Concedes one State Department official: "Everybody in Poland will see Haig and Gromyko sitting down together. It will look like the U.S. Government approves martial law."

Indeed, the Soviets are eager to have the meeting demonstrate that the crisis over Poland has passed. In a conciliatory speech, Premier Nikolai Tikhonov said last week, "The Soviet Union is not seeking confrontation. We are doing everything we can to direct the course of events into constructive dialogue." Haig, mindful of appearing soft on the issue of Polish repression, de-emphasized the talks by saying he would attend only one day of meetings, not the planned two. He also told aides that he would deflect questions of a summit meeting soon between Reagan and Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev and would resist efforts by Gromyko to bargain toward the Soviets' key objective, a date for reopening general strategic arms talks (START). Instead, said an aide to Haig, the Secretary would deal almost exclusively with "Poland and the whole range of Soviet activities detrimental to our interests and those of our allies."

This is a reversion to the concept of linkage, the idea that all the major problems in Soviet-American relations are connected. Intolerable Soviet behavior in one area, by this reckoning, must affect U.S. cooperation elsewhere. The Reagan Administration adopted this policy a year ago, but seemed to be edging away from it. Haig now plans to bring up items like the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and warn that the course of events in Poland will affect START negotiations. Said a State Department spokesman: "The Secretary has emphasized that the continuing repression of the Polish people, in which Soviet responsibility is clear, obviously constitutes a major setback for constructive East-West relations."

Haig decided to go ahead with the meeting in part because the NATO allies favor a steady East-West dialogue. Western Europe in particular sees the encounter as helpful to the Geneva-based U.S.-Soviet talks on limiting medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe. U.S. participation in those talks on Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) has been the allies' quid pro quo for allowing the installation of new U.S. missiles in Europe.

Haig has stressed that INF talks should not be halted by the crisis over Poland. Said he: "These INF talks must be dealt with outside the context of more normal East-West relationships, because there are fundamental advantages to the U.S. in continuation." One advantage is entirely practical: the Soviets install an additional SS-20 missile every five days, according to the State Department; the sooner a limitation pact is in effect, the smaller will be the ballistic threat looming over Europe.

Even if the Polish crisis had not arisen, Haig might not have been ready to launch the broader START talks with Gromyko. Although technical preparations are fairly far along, top U.S. officials "just haven't taken the fundamental decisions" on policy yet, says one arms control specialist. The bargaining package will be ready "by early spring," projects Eugene Rostow, chief of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. But that deadline could be postponed because of the divergent views of the arms control agency, the State Department and the Pentagon. As one beleaguered combatant puts it, "The Soviets rank about fifth on our list of enemies."

The Administration's delay and disorder in foreign policy have brought mounting criticism. The attack last week that attracted the most public notice, and caused the most consternation at the White House, came from Henry Kissinger himself, an architect of detente who has grown more mistrustful of the Soviets and hawkish toward them since leaving office. In two articles for the Op-Ed page of the New York Times, Kissinger charged the Administration with failing to lead the West in the Polish crisis and with lacking a coherent approach to the world. Though he said, "I continue to believe that the Administration embodies the best chance for free peoples," Kissinger urged public debate on a grain embargo against the Soviets and a credit freeze on debt-ridden Poland. He called for a suspension of all high-level U.S. talks. Instead of seeing a clear and potentially effective response, lamented Kissinger, "freedom-loving Poles who looked West saw dithering procrastination, sophisticated justification for impotence, or rhetoric incapable of rising to serious action."

Administration officials refused to comment. But former Kissinger associates speculated that if he were still in office, he would have been among the first to warn of the risks and difficulties of reacting so forcefully. Haig's reaction was visceral. Rather than take Kissinger's critique as an intellectual challenge to Administration policy, which it was, the Secretary of State told aides that he saw it as a power grab--a ploy by Kissinger to get his old job back.

--By William A. Henry III. Reported by Gregory H. Wierzynski/Washington

With reporting by Gregory H. Wierzynski

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