The Many-Hued Policy

Both at home and abroad there has been growing perplexity about U.S. policy, which seems to view Communist governments in widely varying shades of Red. The U.S. demands a trade embargo on Cuba, yet freely sells wheat to the Soviet Union and its satellites. The U.S. deals with Moscow but refuses to recognize Peking, and has laid down separate sets of rules for dealing with Communist Yugoslavia and Poland.

Speaking last week before a conference of the International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers in Washington, Secretary of State Dean Rusk sought to resolve such apparent contradictions and point up underlying U.S. aims.

In recent years, said Rusk, "an important new trend has been perceptible. Some of the Communist governments have become responsive, in varying degrees if not directly, to the aspirations of their subjects, at least to kindred aspirations of their own. The Communist world is no longer a single flock of sheep following blindly behind one leader." Thus, he said, U.S. objectives can best be served by "adjusting our policies to the differing behavior of different Communist states--or to the changing behavior of the same state."

Some Rusk specifics:

sbTRADE. "We have never embargoed or opposed the sale of foodstuffs to Soviet bloc countries. Thus our current sales of wheat to the Soviet Union involved no change in basic policy. And from a traditional Yankee trading viewpoint we are not unhappy about swapping surplus foodstuffs for gold and hard currency which help to balance our international payments."

sbYUGOSLAVIA. "As a nonaligned state, it has gained influence among the uncommitted nations of the world. Sometimes it agrees with the Soviet Union on particular points of foreign policy, sometimes not. In brief, Yugoslavia is an independent state."

sbPOLAND. "A good deal of the national autonomy and domestic liberalization which the Poles won in 1956 persists. We apologize to none for our efforts to help the brave people of Poland to preserve their national identity and their own aspirations."

sbCOMMUNIST CHINA. "Peking incites and actively supports the aggression in Southeast Asia in violation of the Geneva accords of 1962. Peking attacked India and occupies a position from which it continues to threaten the sub continent of South Asia. Peking is attempting to extend its tactics of terror and subversion into Africa and Latin America. In other words, Peking flouts the first condition for peace: leave your neighbors alone."

sbCUBA. "There will be no retreat from our policy toward the Castro regime in Cuba as long as it continues to threaten the. security and stability of other nations in this hemisphere. Moreover, we regard this regime as temporary."

A policy based on such shadings certainly demands a far sharper sense of judgment and skill in execution than one that works from a single sweeping principle. In many quarters there is concern about whether the U.S. State Department will successfully play so complicated a game. Nonetheless, Dean Rusk aimed to fit every piece into the total U.S. attitude that Communism is anathema to free Western society. Said he: "The conflict between the Communists and the free world is as funda mental as any conflict can be. Their proclaimed objectives and our conception of a decent world order just do not and cannot fit together."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.