Reciprocal Snubs

The weather was damp and cloudy as the Soviet Union's No. 1 soccer fan took his seat in Moscow's Lenin Stadium last week to watch the hometown Torpedoes defeat the Kiev Dynamos, 1 to 0. But as political observers on both sides of the Iron Curtain immediately realized, Communist Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev was also playing a game all his own. Only two days earlier, Brezhnev had abruptly canceled his plans to visit Bucharest for the long-delayed signing of a new Soviet-Rumanian friendship pact, pleading a "catarrhal ailment." His subsequent appearance at the soccer match was designed to expose the respiratory disorder for exactly what it was: a calculated snub to Rumania's independent-minded Communist Party Leader Nicolae Ceausescu.

Strictly Protocol. Brezhnev turned his ceremonial duties over to Premier Aleksei Kosygin. The Rumanians countered by sending out a welcoming delegation headed by Premier Ion Maurer, Kosygin's exact equivalent in government rank but not in real power or party stature. Crowds lining the Soviet Premier's parade route were perhaps one-tenth the size of the ones that welcomed President Nixon to Bucharest last year. Ceausescu stayed away from the formal events, including his own government's official reception and the treaty signing. He entertained Kosygin at one luncheon and spent three hours in private talks with him. As one Bucharest official noted: "We observed protocol as is befitting a sovereign nation."

Sovereignty was indeed the heart of the matter and the chief reason for the fact that the friendship pact, which supersedes a 20-year treaty begun in 1948. remained unsigned for two years. At first the Rumanians held off in protest against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Later it was the Soviets who delayed, partly to express their displeasure over Nixon's visit but more importantly to try to persuade the Rumanians to accept a new paragraph recognizing the Brezhnev Doctrine, which justifies Soviet intervention anywhere in the "socialist commonwealth." Ceausescu rightly saw the doctrine as a threat to his foreign policy of "active coexistence" with both friends and enemies of the Kremlin, and adamantly refused to agree toil.

The treaty provides that the Rumanians will aid the Soviet Union in the event of "an armed attack by a state or group of states." Tass, the official Soviet news organization, insists that this would obligate Rumania to help defend against any Chinese attack on Russia; the Rumanians, who have remained determinedly neutral in the Sino-Soviet struggle, point out that the preamble of the treaty limits military obligations to the area covered by the Warsaw Pact --which does not extend beyond Eastern Europe.

How to Swim. Though the signing removed a standing source of friction between the two nations, plenty of others remain. The Rumanians and Soviets are currently holding bilateral trade negotiations and are scheduled shortly to open meetings aimed at setting goals tor COMECON, the Communist equivalent of the Common Market, which will coincide with a new Five-Year Plan in Russia. In the past, Moscow has sought to keep Rumania's economic guy wires anchored firmly in Russia; Bucharest has resisted, arguing that the Russians were trying to keep Rumania as the vegetable patch of Eastern Europe and prevent it from industrializing. Similarly, Rumania refused to join the Soviet-sponsored International Investment Bank, which was founded in Moscow last week; every other Warsaw Pact country is a member. Despite such demonstrations of nonconformity, Bucharest is still closely tied to Moscow economically and needs Soviet help to develop Rumania's industry.

When Ceausescu visited Moscow at the height of last spring's calamitous Danube River floods, it was widely assumed that the Soviets offered him aid on the condition that he modify his irritatingly independent stance. Ceausescu held fast, even though flood damage may exceed $500 million, and Soviet relief has been virtually nil. As a current joke in Bucharest has it, "After the flood, China sent $20 million worth of aid, America sent $10 million, and the Soviet Union sent 5,000 pamphlets on 'How to Swim.' "

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