The Price of Penury

Since the 17th century, under czar and commissar alike, a central facet of Russian foreign policy has been the drive toward the Middle East. Nicholas II almost secured both sides of the Dardanelles link to the Mediterranean with British help in World War I, but the Russian Revolution ended that. Stalin made an effort during World War II but was rebuffed. Not until Nikita Khrushchev came to absolute power in 1955 did the Soviet push begin to make headway.

Key to the Khrushchevian effort was Egypt, whose President Gamal Abdel Nasser he wooed with $2 billion worth of arms, agricultural aid and the Aswan High Dam. But with Khrushchev's downfall in 1964, Russian initiatives once again waned in the Middle East. Last week Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin set out to correct that. He flew to Cairo for an eight-day, fanfare-ridden series of talks and tours in the land of the pyramids.

The visit was pointedly overdue. The last ranking Russian to visit Cairo was Khrushchev himself, shortly before his ouster. Nikita had bounced around like a regular fellah, shaking hands and cracking jokes, and returned to Moscow to report to his colleagues that he had made a new aid commitment to Nasser without consulting them. It was one of the items that filled the dossier on rule by personal whim and caprice with which they denounced and demoted him. The new leadership refused to honor Nikita's check to Nasser.

Soviet penury in the area was soon repaid with poor political performance. A trend to the right set in. Nasser began mending his fences with the U.S. A moderate Prime Minister, Abdel Rahman Bazzaz, took over in Iraq. Yemen's little war cooled off, and even in steaming Syria the moderate wing of the socialist Baath Party seized the initiative from the extremists. So Moscow's new men, concluding that Nikita might not have been all wrong, have started the rubles flowing again.

Early this year, Russia offered Iran a $750 million natural-gas pipeline, Turkey a $200 million, seven-factory industrial complex, and sent Algeria a squadron of MIG-21s and two tank battalions. Iraq was promised an atomic reactor, given three squadrons of MIG-21s. Syria got a Soviet pledge of $150 million for a start on a Euphrates River dam that could prove even larger than Aswan, plus Soviet aid in rebuilding its railways and prospecting for Syrian oil. Nasser himself received four MIG squadrons, six submarines and a school of destroyers.

A further matter undoubtedly discussed last week by the visitor from the Kremlin was nonmilitary aid. Nasser needs food, and his nation has largely been fed from U.S. surpluses. However, Washington has been noncommittal on $150 million worth of grain needed this year. Will Moscow supply it? Nasser was plainly uncertain. Escorting Kosygin around Aswan last week, Nasser passed up an ideal opportunity for an anti-U.S. tirade, which could not have pleased his dour Soviet guest. However, Egypt's leader was full of praise for "U.A.R.-Soviet solidarity." Then they went off to see the sights. At the High Dam and the Soviet-sponsored projects, Kosygin was largely the unsmiling inspector general from the home office. He was received well enough--except in one exchange with an unseen underground Egyptian worker at the dam site. Peering into a 100-ft. hole, Kosygin was startled by a hollow cry from within: "Long live Nasser! Long live Gamal!" Then, as an afterthought, "Welcome, Kosygin!"

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