Toward the Showdown

Who were those two men quaffing a friendly beer together in the Bundestag cafeteria? They were, as it happened, none other than West Germany's two foremost political rivals. Only the week before, Opposition Leader Rainer Barzel had tried and failed by a bare margin of two votes to overthrow Chancellor Willy Brandt. But over beer and in countless hurried conferences, the two men were seeking to find a mutual way out of a severe parliamentary crisis that threatened to have grave repercussions far beyond the borders of the Federal Republic.

The crisis centered on the treaties of Moscow and Warsaw, which Brandt negotiated in 1970 as part of his famed Ostpolitik. The treaties have become keystones to further progress in East-West detente; other major diplomatic initiatives, including the Big Four agreement that seeks to eliminate Berlin as a source of cold war tensions, will go into effect only after the ratification of those two pacts.

Soviet Word. Brandt had originally intended to submit the treaties to the Bundestag for ratification last week. But in the wake of the narrowly won no-confidence test and a subsequent tie vote in the Bundestag on a budget appropriation, he feared that the coalition of his Social Democratic Party and the Free Democrats would no longer command the necessary majority to pass the treaties. Rather than risk a defeat, Brandt postponed balloting for one week so that he and Christian Democrat Leader Barzel could have an opportunity to work out a solution.

The Christian Democrats are in a quandary. They are publicly opposed to the treaties, but do not want the responsibility of rejecting them. They know that they would then be regarded both in East and West as unreliable partners in the search for detente. In their meetings, Barzel and Brandt sought a compromise in a joint declaration that would overcome the reservations of the Christian Democratic Union. Among other things, the declaration would state that the treaties --which recognize the Communist seizure of former German lands after World War II--do not preclude the eventual reunification of Germany and the right to self-determination of all Germans, including those in East Germany. In a gesture aimed at helping the passage of the treaties, Moscow's ambassador in Bonn, Valentin Falin, passed the word that the Soviets would "take note" of such a declaration--provided the language was not too harsh.

Heated Quibbling. Unfortunately, neither Brandt nor Barzel could get all their party members to go along with the declaration. There was still heated quibbling over the declaration's wording. There was also great pressure on both men from their own parties to resist compromise. But Brandt, who is eager to have the treaties passed before President Nixon goes to Moscow later this month, decided that he could wait no longer. He scheduled the showdown vote for this week.

The outcome may well be decided by the struggles within the C.D.U. leadership. If Barzel and other members of the party executive feel sufficiently reassured by the final draft of the declaration and are satisfied by the Soviet response to the West German statement, they may allow Christian Democrat deputies to vote according to the dictates of their consciences. In that event, there would be more than enough C.D.U. crossovers or abstentions to ratify the treaties with a slim but nonetheless decisive majority. But if the Christian Democrat leaders order their members to vote no, the treaties are virtually certain to go down to defeat.

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