Globetrotters with No Compass?

By Ed Magnuson

Disarray in foreign policy is under fire at home

The Reagan Administration last week could not be fairly accused of ignoring foreign affairs. Vice President George Bush was in Paris, where he held what he called "warm and friendly" talks with France's new Socialist President Francois Mitterrand (see WORLD). Secretary of State Alexander Haig returned to Washington after a two-week trip that included stops in Peking, Manila and Wellington, New Zealand, where he sought to solidify America's ties with its allies in the Pacific. Special Envoy Philip Habib was still shuttling in the Middle East. At home, however, a honeymoon tolerance of the Administration's shaky start in foreign affairs was ending. Some barbed questions were being asked: Did Reagan really have any foreign policy? Did those globetrotters have any central policy compass to help them reach compatible goals?

For many, the answer was clearly no. The ever cautious and gentlemanly Cyrus Vance, Jimmy Carter's Secretary of State, appeared on NBC's Meet the Press to brand the timing of Haig's announcement in Peking that the U.S. had agreed "in principle" to sell lethal weapons to China as "needlessly provocative" to the Soviet Union. "It smacks of bearbaiting rather than dealing seriously with the problems," Vance said. Later in the week, he charged that the arms proposals for China "virtually removed any influence we have left over the Soviet Union. We played the China card in no-trump."

Democrats in the Senate were blunter. "Except for his anti-Soviet reflexes, this President has no foreign policy," said Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts. Stormed Alan Cranston of California: "Reagan doesn't have a policy on nuclear nonproliferation. He doesn't have a policy on arms limitations. He's clearly groping for a Mideast policy. He has no human rights policy, and may never have one now. His policy on El Salvador--first he blew it up, then he blew it down. His policy on arms sales is to spew them everywhere. This Administration desperately needs a sense of direction."

Those concerns were increasingly echoed in the press. In the generally friendly Wall Street Journal, Columnist Norman C. Miller declared that Reagan "hasn't got a comprehensive strategy, and he often seems naive or bellicose when addressing foreign policy issues." An open admirer of Haig, Syndicated Columnist Joseph Kraft wondered in print: "It may be he is not a deep person, that his ideas are all on the tip of his tongue, that what sounded like strategic thoughts were merely a parroting of notions picked up from Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger and others he served along the way." Kraft gave the Secretary the benefit of the doubt, praising him as "the only highly placed person in the Reagan Administration with a feel for global strategy." Nonetheless, concluded Kraft, "the U.S. is now heading, almost blind, into what could be a very dangerous storm with the Soviet Union."

The Administration last week did little to dispel the sense that there is confusion at the top. First, two of Haig's aides sharply criticized the performance of U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick in working out a Security Council resolution condemning Israel for its air strike on Iraq's nuclear reactor. The attacks angered Reagan and forced an embarrassed Haig to disavow the criticism. Then, at his Senate confirmation hearings, Eugene V. Rostow, Reagan's nominee to head the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, admitted that the Administration does not yet know where it wants to go in limiting strategic weapons. The Yale law professor startled the Foreign Relations Committee by saying all too candidly: "It may be that a brilliant light will strike our officials. But I don't know anyone who knows what it is yet that we want to negotiate about." Rostow estimated that the Administration will not be ready for any serious new SALT talks for at least nine months. Under pressure from the Senators, he promised to try to stake out a bargaining position earlier.

The doubts on Capitol Hill have already created opposition to specific Administration proposals. A majority of members of both chambers (54 Senators and 225 Representatives) took the rare step of asking the President to cancel his plans to sell Saudi Arabia five electronic surveillance planes (AWACS) as well as fuel tanks to extend the range of the Saudis' U.S.-made F-15 jet fighters. The Administration had hoped that Congress would be more receptive to the Saudi sales after Israel's attack on the Iraqi reactor. Earlier this month, both Senate and House, by overwhelming margins, passed resolutions that criticized the Administration's unusual stand-alone vote against a World Health Organization proposal to limit the sale of infant formula in the Third World.

The President has yet to make a foreign policy address but denies the conclusion that some have drawn: no speech, no policy. Reagan joked about the issue recently before the Republican National Committee. As proof that there is a clear policy, he quipped: "Just the other day Al Haig sent a message to Brezhnev that said, 'Roses are red, violets are blue, stay out of El Salvador, and Poland too.' " But the subject is far from a laughing matter, as the rising tide of worry and protest seems to demonstrate. A new Harris poll showed last week that only 49% of Americans approve of Reagan's handling of foreign policy.

As he revealed with some clarity at his June 16 press conference, Reagan is simply not comfortable yet with foreign policy subjects, despite his skill at dealing one-on-one with visiting world leaders. His most trusted aide, Edwin Meese, is overburdened with domestic matters and is no more familiar with diplomatic problems than his boss. Richard Allen, the low-profile National Security Adviser, runs a disorganized shop that is vastly reduced in influence since the days of Henry Kissinger and later Zbigniew Brzezinski. While this downgrading was a proper corrective to the inflated power of the National Security Council, Allen has had trouble carrying out the more limited but necessary function of funneling advice to the President.

The restoration of the Secretary of State as the top foreign policy spokesman and formulator has not worked well either, since the White House does not fully trust Haig. Although he knows the turf, he is not seen as a team player. The sometimes abrasive Haig, who can be charming and nondogmatic in private sessions, has lost battles he should have won by failing to articulate his ideas clearly and by failing to cultivate friendships in either the White House or the Cabinet. Finally, the Administration made a fundamental miscalculation: it assumed that the outside world could, and would, wait while the Reagan team got its domestic house in order.

Administration officials concede that there is some organizational confusion. But they insist that there is an overall policy, and that their seeming obsession with the Soviet Union is based not only on ideology but on the perception that the U.S. is in a position of weakness in relation to the U.S.S.R. Because the U.S. will shortly face a "window of vulnerability" in the nuclear balance, the Administration argues, it must rapidly build up its military strength and form new alliances to discourage Soviet belligerence. This attempt to achieve a "margin of safety" underlies more specific policy decisions, for which State Department officials have plausible if not totally convincing explanations. Items:

China. The Haig team contends that the press overplayed the understanding on weapons, since, in fact, as one aide said, "there is no decision to sell arms." Besides, insisted a Haig adviser, "we are not playing the China card, not looking for short-term gratuitous insults to the Soviets. There is no connection between a sound relationship with China and a sound relationship with the Soviet Union." While Haig had suggested before his trip that arms might be discussed in Peking, he nonetheless should not have been surprised by the attention the announcement attracted. Moreover, it would be naive to think that anything done between the U.S. and China would not have a connection with U.S.-Soviet relations.

Arms Limitation. Some Pentagon planners and NSC members prefer to give only lip service to new negotiations with Moscow on strategic weapons; they want to stall until the U.S. military buildup is well under way. But Haig, along with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, views arms control as inextricably tied to such major U.S. defense decisions as how to deploy the MX missile and whether to build a new B-1 bomber. Haig is well aware that the European allies are worried by the lack of a U.S.-U.S.S.R. arms dialogue. While Haig's team may end up sending Moscow a proposal for deep reductions somewhat similar to the Carter proposal of 1977 that the Kremlin promptly scorned, the new Administration is preparing its approach in a more methodical--and, to some, maddeningly slow--manner. The Administration's plan is to start before the end of this year with discussions on limiting tactical nuclear weapons in the European theater and see how that goes, meanwhile preparing its broader SALT positions.

Nuclear Proliferation. Haig, as well as Under Secretary of State James Buckley, insists that selling conventional arms to friendly nations is one way to increase their sense of internal security and decrease their interest in developing nuclear weapons. Buckley told a Senate subcommittee that Pakistani President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq had given him "absolute assurances" that his country is not developing nuclear bombs, although it will not permit inspection of its planned 130-megawatt nuclear power plant. Buckley also said the U.S. totally disagrees with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who urged "all peace-loving nations of the world" to help Arabs develop nuclear weapons to offset Israel's nuclear capability--a capability admitted last week for the first time by former Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan. Insisted Buckley: "There is no justification for any nation to acquire this technology."

Middle East. Haig advisers feel that the Reagan Administration is developing solid relationships with moderate Arab states as well as Israel. This, they say, is why the U.S. was able to weave its way through the Israel-Iraq blowup without alienating either side. A senior official reports that the Habib mission is "going pretty well" and says that Saudi attempts to help solve the Lebanon crisis are due in part to their interest in Haig's proposal to create an anti-Soviet strategic consensus in the area. Critics say that the Saudis and other Arab moderates are skeptical of the U.S. concern about Soviet intentions. They also complain that the Administration has virtually ignored the question of Palestinian autonomy, which Arabs see as the key to any Middle East settlement. But Haig's aides contend that he will press for movement in the stalled Egypt-Israel autonomy talks after next week's Israeli elections.

According to State Department officials, a series of comprehensive policy studies on these and other major problems is under way. Perhaps the most significant is a secret 60-page report on Soviet-American relations, compiled over the past five months by representatives of the Pentagon, CIA, NSC, and State, Treasury and Commerce departments. The report is now on Haig's desk awaiting his approval. Developed under the supervision of Walter Stoessel, a former Ambassador to Moscow and now Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, it amounts to what one official calls "an epitaph, without tears, for detente." TIME Diplomatic Correspondent Strobe Talbott has learned that the study supports the frequent refrain of Reagan and Haig that the Soviet Union may be fading as a world power because of dwindling support among Communists at home and in Eastern Europe, its ineffective economy and the steady growth of its non-Russian population.

That assessment is not seen as contrary to the Administration's vocal contention that the U.S.S.R. remains a militaristic adversary with which the U.S. must contend. The internal strains are viewed in the study as a possible cause of Soviet expansionism, especially in the Third World. The study emphasizes that renewing U.S. and allied military strength is the most practical means of imposing restraint on the Soviets, while holding out promises of trade and other cooperation if their behavior changes. The report sees a strong linkage between Soviet conduct throughout the world and the state of U.S.-Soviet relations. But it also urges flexibility in such linkage, stressing that future Soviet actions--most notably in Poland--are of greater concern than past excesses like the invasion of Afghanistan. One thrust of the paper is that if the Soviet Union does not move militarily into Poland and stops stirring up trouble elsewhere, a new thaw between Washington and Moscow might yet be possible, despite the stridency of the Administration's anti-Soviet rhetoric.

Such a possibility was enhanced, however slightly, by President Leonid Brezhnev, when he passed up a chance to escalate the war of words in a speech last week to the summer session of the Supreme Soviet. He mentioned the U.S. only once, charging that it was evading talks on arms limitation and was bent instead on "an arms race unprecedented in scale." Under the circumstances, that was mild rhetoric.

If the emerging foreign policy papers offer hope of providing clarity and consistency to the Administration's views of the world, one thing more seems urgently needed: the studies must be speeded through the bureaucratic maze and reach the President's desk. He--and the nation--needs all the expert guidance on world affairs that Ronald Reagan can acquire and master.

--By Ed Magnuson.

Reported by Laurence I. Barrett with Reagan and Gregory H. Wierzynski with Haig

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett with Reagan and Gregory H. Wierzynski with Haig

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