Promise off Progress on Arms

After two days of brutally frank talks, a Soviet concession. "In a difficult world situation, we had I difficult talks." So said West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt last week, summarizing a mission that had been fraught with perils. Washington had done little to hide its misgivings about the first visit by a Western leader to the Soviet capital since the invasion of Afghanistan six months ago. Like some of Bonn's allies, the U.S. was apprehensive that Schmidt might undermine Western solidarity by appearing as an appeaser, eager for detente for Europe at any price. Schmidt's political foes at home, mindful of national elections in October, had predicted that the Chancellor would return empty-handed and compromised.

The Kremlin's evident jubilation over his trip was scarcely reassuring. He had asked that the meeting be treated as a "working visit," with a minimum of pomp. When a tense but determined Schmidt stepped down from his white and blue Luftwaffe jet at Moscow's Vnukovo II Airport, President Leonid Brezhnev, Premier Alexei Kosygin and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko were on hand, along with a goose-stepping honor guard. Belying rumors about his ill health, Brezhnev strolled briskly across the Tarmac to greet Schmidt. The ceremony was clearly intended to convey the Kremlin's satisfaction that the Soviets were no longer considered in moral quarantine by the West.

Neither Schmidt nor his nervous allies had cause to worry about the summit's outcome. After two days of intense and often brutally frank discussion with Brezhnev and his top aides, the Chancellor returned home with his reputation as a statesman intact, and with a promise of progress on arms-reduction talks. The Soviets, reported Schmidt, had abandoned two key preconditions for entering into negotiations with the U.S. on limiting the deployment of intermediate-range missiles in Europe. "This is not a breakthrough," Schmidt told the Bundestag on his return, but "it opens a chance of preventing an unfettered arms race in this field."

In effect, Moscow had backed away from the inflexible position that it had adopted last December, when the NATO powers voted to develop and deploy a new medium-range nuclear strike force in Western Europe by 1983. The NATO force would consist of 572 Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles capable of striking Soviet territory. That force was aimed at countering the expanding Soviet arsenal of comparable weapons that already face Western Europe, which include 50 Backfire bombers and 200 medium-range SS-20 missiles. The Kremlin refused all offers to bargain with the Western allies on mutual reduction of intermediate-range systems unless NATO rescinded its deployment decision.

Last week, the Soviets indicated they would drop this precondition. Still, this did not mean that fruitful negotiations would follow. The Soviets had added a troublesome new demand that U.S. warplanes based in Western Europe and capable of striking the U.S.S.R. must be covered in any future talks. Moreover, West German diplomats pointed out, Moscow still insists that its massive deployment of SS-20s has not changed the strategic balance in Europe, as the Western allies firmly believe. The Soviets also said that Senate ratification of SALT II was no longer a precondition to begin negotiations--although the treaty would have to be approved before any new agreement on missiles could go into effect.

During nine hours of talks with Brezhnev, Kosygin and Gromyko, Schmidt failed to budge his Soviet hosts on Afghanistan, although he pressed them hard for a complete troop withdrawal. The Kremlin leaders also remained unmoved by his pleas for Soviet diplomatic pressure on behalf of the U.S. hostages in Iran. Nonetheless, Schmidt stood firm in emphasizing that West Germany could not be separated from its Western allies.

At a Kremlin dinner in his honor, the Chancellor delivered a lengthy toast in which he said that the Afghan crisis had "cast a broad shadow over East-West relations in Europe and aroused deep concern in the Third World." He warned that "those who care for peace in this world must refrain from forcing their own political, social and economic ideas" on other countries. Soviet irritation at the Chancellor's plain talk became apparent when TASS, the official news agency, inserted critical comments in a truncated text of his toast, something no Kremlinologist could recall ever happening before. Explained a Soviet diplomat in Bonn: "Schmidt insulted our hospitality by mentioning Afghanistan in his toast; he could have kept it private."

Behind the scenes, the Soviets continued to insist that the invasion of Afghanistan had been necessary to protect the country from "outside interference." Schmidt dismissed the claim as nonsensical, vainly arguing that the best course for the Soviet Union would be to withdraw its troops and agree to a neutral Afghanistan. "We had a lot of give and take," Schmidt said in Moscow. "We had obvious and strong differences of opinion, but the meetings proved clearly that it is essential to have top-level contacts for a thorough airing of views, especially when relations are not smooth."

After returning to Bonn, Schmidt dispatched his Foreign Minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, to Washington to brief President Carter and Secretary of State Edmund Muskie on the summit. Muskie expressed cautious approval of the new Soviet position on arms negotiations, saying that the Administration "will study this reaction in a constructive spirit." A rough translation of Muskie's comment: Washington will follow up on Moscow's overture, in the hope that talks can reopen on an issue too important to ignore.

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