Three-Front Diplomacy

By Ed Magnuson

An American offer, a Russian riposte and an election-year ticket to Peking

It began as one of those rare weeks when the Reagan Administration not only had pulled its often disjointed foreign policy act together but was scoring practical successes as well. A U.S.-assisted truce took effect among Lebanon's warring factions. President Reagan, in prime oratorical form, unveiled his new arms control initiatives in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly. The performance earned praise from U.S. allies in Western Europe and put pressure on the Soviet Union to show similar flexibility. On a five-day visit to China, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger revealed that relations between Washington and Peking had unexpectedly improved to the point where summit meetings between Reagan and Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang will be exchanged next year. To top everything off, Reagan persuaded Congress to pass a war-powers resolution ratifying the continued deployment of U.S. Marines in Lebanon for 18 more months (see WORLD).

The President's U.N. speech left the next move to Moscow. The U.S.S.R.'s reaction was thoroughly chilling. Some top Administration foreign policy officials had been hoping that Soviet leaders would duly note that Reagan had not sought harsh retaliatory penalties against the U.S.S.R. because of the shooting down of a South Korean airliner by a Soviet Su-15 interceptor, despite all the condemnatory rhetoric out of Washington. And Soviet President Yuri Andropov had remained publicly silent about the air atrocity, leading some in the Administration to wonder whether he might wish to pick up Reagan's cue and offer some fresh arms control proposals of his own. But when Andropov finally did issue a statement last week (he has not appeared in public for more than a month), he used the most caustic language hurled at the U.S. by any Soviet leader since the waning cold war days of the 1960s. Andropov in effect not only said nyet to any imminent breakthrough in the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) talks in Europe but raised questions about future negotiations with Reagan on almost any subject.

Andropov's blast certainly killed any remaining slim chance that the NATO-backed deployment of U.S. Pershing II and cruise missiles in Europe will not begin, as scheduled, in December. Once that happens, the Administration's entire arms control philosophy will face an acid test. Either the new U.S. missile presence will pressure the Soviets to bargain more seriously in Geneva, as the Administration has long predicted they would, or the U.S.S.R. will carry out its threats to employ "countermeasures"--and the superpower arms race will be off and running anew.

eagan had clearly sought to take a statesmanlike stance in his U.N. address. Speaking to a jammed General Assembly, with only the vacant chair of Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko testifying mutely to the Washington-Moscow hostility, the President tried to direct world attention beyond the demise of Flight 007, which he mentioned in only a few brief but pointed sentences. Instead, he drew a more upbeat picture of "the dreams" of the U.N. founders, who expected the multinational conclave to "speak with the voice of moral authority" in the world. Reagan then delivered a line that got wide attention in Europe: "A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought."

In that spirit, the President outlined three concessions on Euromissiles that, he said, "address concerns that the Soviets have raised at the bargaining table." First, if the Soviet Union will agree to some global limitation on the number of medium-range missiles, the U.S. will no longer insist on putting all of its missiles permitted under that numerical ceiling into Europe. It would hold at least some in reserve, presumably in the U.S., though with the right, Reagan said vaguely, to deploy them "elsewhere." Second, the U.S. is willing for the first time to consider placing unspecified limits on aircraft that can carry nuclear missiles, as long demanded by the Soviet Union. Finally, if the Soviets will dismantle an agreed-upon number of their 243 SS-20 missiles, each with three warheads now targeted at Western Europe, the U.S. will agree that its countering force in Europe will contain fewer single-warhead Pershing missiles than the 108 now planned. It was the first time that the U.S. explicitly expressed willingness to reduce the planned number of Pershing as well as cruise missiles in Europe. Said Reagan: "The door to an agreement is open. It is time for the Soviet Union to walk through it."

Largely crafted by U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, the 23-minute speech raised no rafters; the applause from the delegates at its end lasted only 40 seconds. When a reporter sought the reaction of Soviet Ambassador Oleg Troyanovsky, who sat impassively next to Gromyko's empty chair, he replied: "You didn't expect me to applaud, did you?" Nevertheless, when Troyanovsky postponed his own scheduled address, many delegates thought that the Soviet leaders might want time to fashion a positive response. "We hope that the Soviet Union will carefully consider its reply," said West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, adding that Reagan had addressed "precisely the issues the Soviets have raised with us privately." His nation, which is scheduled to accept the first U.S. Pershing II deployments in December, is the main target of the superpower propaganda war over the European missiles. Declared Dutch Foreign Minister Hans Van Den Broek: "It would be extremely unwise for the Soviets to react negatively."

But after a tantalizing silence, they did just that. Andropov virtually slammed Reagan's "open door" in the U.S. President's face. Referring directly to Reagan and his Flight 007 rhetoric, Andropov charged that "it is an unattractive sight when, with a view to smearing the Soviet people, leaders of such a country as the U.S. resort to what almost amounts to obscenities, alternating with hypocritical preaching about morals and humanism." The U.S., he declared, was pursuing "a militarist course" and trying to justify "dangerous, inhuman policies" by piling "heaps of slander on the Soviet Union and on socialism."

Though the Soviet leader did not address Reagan's arms proposals in any detail, he dismissed them merely as "prattle about some sort of flexibility." He clung to the long-held but fallacious Soviet assertion that there now exists a nuclear balance in Europe, even though the NATO forces have no land-based nuclear missiles in that regional theater capable of reaching the Soviet Union, while the Soviets could blast Bonn or Paris within 20 minutes with their SS-20s. With evident sarcasm, Andropov argued that "the essence of the so-called new move by the U.S. comes down to a proposal to have the two sides agree on the number of Soviet medium-range missiles to be dismantled and on the number of American missiles to be deployed in Europe in addition to the nuclear potential already possessed by NATO." He was referring to French and British missiles, mainly on submarines, that Soviet negotiators insist must be counted in any INF agreement; London and Paris argue that these weapons are independent defensive weapons, apart from NATO.

It is true that the NATO aim is to reduce Soviet missiles in return for the U.S.'s decreasing its planned introduction of new ones. That insistence is based on the premise that there must be a Western counterbalance to the Europe-targeted SS-20s. So Andropov was not entirely wrong in contending that the tactic of the U.S. in the INF talks has been "to play for time and then start the deployment." One key U.S. arms control official concedes that the INF talks are an exercise "not in arms control but in alliance management." In this U.S. view, the Soviets will not take arms control seriously until NATO demonstrates enough will and unity to deploy its own counter-SS-20 force. Without question, the Andropov attack was targeted at public opinion in Western Europe. While arguing that "the arms race can and must be terminated," Andropov added a threatening note. He charged that America's European allies are "hostages" of the U.S. and are helping to "implement the ambitious militarist plans of the U.S. Administration." But if the U.S. deployment proceeds, he warned, "the Soviet Union will be able to make an appropriate response and its words and deeds will not be at variance."

While Andropov did not spell out exactly what that "appropriate response" might be, Washington has been rife with speculation that the Soviets might station submarines with nuclear missiles off the U.S. coasts and break off the INF talks. Still, key White House officials, perhaps wishfully, saw Andropov's speech more as an attempt to frighten European populations about the planned U.S. deployment than as an outright rejection of the Reagan proposals. Despite the Soviets' latest psychological offensive, however, the prevailing view among Western Europe's leaders was that the debate over missiles in Europe has run its course and that deployment will proceed.

The simultaneous Strategic Arms Reduction Talks, set to resume this week in Geneva, also seemed likely to remain stalemated. Their prospects not only were shaken by the Andropov blast, but Reagan is having almost as much difficulty negotiating with Congress, his State Department and the Pentagon as with the Soviets. Some key legislators still threaten to vote against final funding for MX-missile deployment in the U.S. unless the Administration takes a more flexible position in START, as it has now done in INF.

The overall mood in Washington and Western Europe was one of deep worry. As Stefano Silvestri of Rome's Institute for Foreign Affairs put it, the tone of Andropov's reply seemed "to suggest the bad temper of Khrushchev at the beginning of the '60s, and that of course brings memories of the Berlin crisis, the Cuban missile crisis and all the rest." Against that gloomy backdrop, it was tempting last week to conclude that as relations with the Soviet Union deteriorated, the Ad- ministration was playing its China card, cozying up to the world's most populous nation and the U.S.S.R.'s other main rival. But summit meetings are not arranged in a week. A long series of obstacles had to be overcome (see box) before Weinberger could announce that China's Zhao will come to Washington in January and Reagan will go to Peking in April.

The warming of the relationship had been carefully nurtured by the Administration, which clearly has sought the summit more eagerly than have the Chinese. Reagan can score political points at home next April by appearing statesmanlike, dealing with world problems in distant China, while the Democratic candidates are cutting each other up in primary campaigns back home. Every President since Lyndon Johnson has made a major trip in an election year--and L.B.J., in 1968, did not seek reelection. Reagan's conservative critics already saw the China summits as one more step in what one called "the sellout of Taiwan." In fact, Reagan has been an outspoken champion of Taiwan and ambivalent about China. Last week's summit announcements were therefore a significant move--a decision to resume the pursuit of better Sino-American relations while taking on the delicate task of conducting triangular superpower diplomacy.

No great breakthrough is expected in the China talks. The way may be cleared for U.S. nuclear reactor producers to sell their products to China for power production. New consulates may be opened by each nation, one in Chicago, the other in Chengdu, which is some 950 miles southwest of Peking. Though hardly expected to pass up the opportunity to remind Reagan of "the Taiwan problem," the Chinese will be pleased to greet him: his visit will be yet another twist in the continuing diplomatic but psychological warfare that Peking is waging against Moscow. Declared one White House official last week: "There are no stars in anyone's eyes on either side this time. But both sides see the importance of building the relationship." Indeed, after Andropov's outburst, any easing of friction between the U.S. and China acquired two-edged significance. --By Ed Magnuson. Reported by Laurence I. Barrett/Washington, Bruce van Voorst/United Nations, with other bureaus

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett, BRUCE VAN VOORST This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.