Some Cheering, Some Trouble

Widely discounted in advance as mainly a theatrical spectacular, the 35-nation European Security Conference at Helsinki held no great dangers for President Ford. Indeed, he nimbly and confidently stepped through all of the required public paces and signed the Helsinki declaration (see THE WORLD) with a warning that "we had better say what we mean and mean what we say or we will have the anger of our citizens to answer." But as he turned homeward this week, with stops in Rumania and Yugoslavia. Ford could count on very few of the personal political gains that customarily follow a presidential trip abroad. His stature at home may, in fact, have slipped a bit.

No Way. The reasons are varied. For one thing, many Americans paid little attention to the rhetoric and ceremony at Helsinki or the crowds that cheered Ford as he joined in an impromptu folk dance in Bucharest. Residents of Los Angeles were more concerned over their inept baseball Dodgers. No speech in Helsinki could have distracted New Yorkers from grumbling about the city's financial crisis. Where there was a response, it seemed small and partisan. In Cleveland, only about a fifth of the crowds at the city's annual All Nations Festival gathered to hear Dr. Michael Pap, director of the Soviet Institute at John Carroll University, denounce the "psychological victory for the Soviet Union." Near by, one lone picket carried a placard protesting FORD'S SURRENDER OF THE BALTIC NATIONS AT HELSINKI.

Unfortunately for Ford, the Helsinki Conference both coincided with, and helped to inspire, a curious rise in skepticism about the value of detente. The Communist triumphs in Viet Nam and Cambodia, the growing Communist threat in Portugal and, to a lesser extent in Italy, have apparently set off a reflex action in many Americans of taking their frustrations and disappointments out on the Soviets. While Moscow is hardly remote from any of these events, it is not the main villain. Part of the trouble is that detente, so highly touted by its originators, had aroused unrealistic expectations. On a more down-home level, a number of Americans worry that new wheat sales to the Soviets will bring a rise in U.S. food prices.

Most conservatives have always mistrusted detente. Liberals still overwhelmingly favor the idea but have grown more wary. Many are insisting that the Ford Administration should demand more specific concessions from the Russians as the Soviet contribution to this mutual policy. Others object to what they regard as contradictory tendencies within the Administration toward the Soviet Union. New York Post Columnist James Wechsler, for example, charges the Ford Administration with glaring inconsistency when the President exchanges toasts with Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev at the same time that Defense Secretary James Schlesinger bewails the loss of anti-Soviet intelligence bases in Turkey as "an American tragedy." Many sincere sympathizers with Israel also have taken a strong anti-Soviet stand because of Moscow's backing (in fact, relatively restrained lately) of the Arabs. Such observers see a paradox in the acceptance at Helsinki of Soviet territorial conquests in Eastern Europe while Israel is being pressured by many of the same world leaders, including Ford, to return lands it captured in 1967.

The new doubts about the results of detente will not necessarily last. Much depends on whether a satisfactory SALT agreement can be achieved. Some of the carping is also simple partisanship. Any policy that Richard Nixon launched, Henry Kissinger executed and Gerald Ford might use to improve his chances for election is sharply opposed by many Democrats.

Certainly politics was in the air on Capitol Hill while Ford was away. Rushing toward a midsummer recess, the Democratic-dominated Congress broke the momentum of Ford's veto hold over legislation he opposes and challenged aspects of his foreign policy. Ford has vetoed no fewer than 36 bills, and the Congress has either accepted or failed to override all except four of those vetoes. But last week both the House and Senate easily nullified his veto of a health-services bill that provides $2 billion for such needs as nurses training, community mental-health centers and rape prevention. Ford had complained that the bill would cost too much. A single new override does not mean, of course, that Congress has lastingly undercut Ford's veto strength.

Prime Battle. In foreign affairs, Administration head counters detected so much congressional opposition to a Ford proposal to sell Hawk ground-to-air missiles to Jordan that the White House prudently withdrew the plan. The House overwhelmingly approved a $31.1 billion appropriation for military weapons, including such controversial Administration projects as the B-1 bomber and a nuclear strike cruiser, but the Senate refused to agree; a joint conference committee will reconsider the issue in September.

The prime political battle in Washington to which Ford returns is the stalemate between White House and Congress over energy. Each party knows that whatever is done to reduce energy consumption will be highly unpopular, and each is maneuvering to force the other to take the heat. The House last week rejected a Ford plan to lift price controls on domestic oil gradually over 39 months. Congress voted instead to extend controls for six months--a bill that Ford, in turn, has vowed to veto. If he does and is sustained, the controls will expire on Aug. 31 and gas prices will rise, but who would be blamed most in the struggle is unclear. What does seem clear is that Ford's personal fate is much more likely to be determined by the nitty-gritty details of the domestic economy than by the lofty atmospherics of global summitry.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.