A SEVERE CASE OF ANGST IN EUROPE

EUROPE is shaken and unsettled. The sudden presence of 275,000 Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia has provoked a pervading sense of unease from Helsinki to Rome, tipped the military balance of power on the Continent in favor of the Warsaw Pact, and raised continuing worries about the reasonableness of the Soviet leaders.

In both Yugoslavia and Rumania, fears intensified last week that they might be the next target for Soviet oppression. Meanwhile, a new and unlikely country joined the ranks of the anxious. It was Austria, whose political neutrality was written into the 1955 treaty that ended the victorious nations' occupation of Hitler's unwilling wartime ally. Since then, the Austrians have scrupulously avoided any sort of cold war entanglements. Even so, the Soviets, angered that Austria has become a haven for Czechoslovak refugees (see following story), lashed out at the Austrians, charging, among other things, that the country's press sought to "blacken and revile" Warsaw Pact forces in Czechoslovakia. As improbable as any Soviet invasion seemed, the prudent Austrians considered dusting off an old contingency plan to move government headquarters westward from Vienna to Innsbruck in the event the Red Army marched into the country's eastern region, which until 13 years ago was the Soviet occupation zone.

Propaganda Barrage. Nowhere is Europe's new mood of angst felt more keenly than in West Germany. Last week, as the Bundestag met for a two-day debate on the new threat to West Germany's security, Chancellor Kurt Kiesinger expressed his people's anxiety in careful, guarded terms. "The events in Czechoslovakia compel us to exercise a high degree of vigilance," he said. "While the nuclear balance has diminished the threat of an all-out nu clear war, it also made a conventional attack by a potential enemy no longer seem impossible."

Though the West Germans may be unduly fearful, their worries are understandable. There are now more So viet troops along West Germany's border than at any time since 1945. In recent months the Soviets have directed a propaganda barrage against Bonn that far exceeds any previous Russian effort. Moscow has accused the Federal Republic of just about every crime in the Communist lexicon, from "openly reviving Hitler's criminal policy of expansion" to "stubbornly attempting to prepare for World War III."

Relaxed Atmosphere. Part of the Soviet bluster obviously is intended for consumption in Eastern Europe, where rantings against West Germany may help divert attention from the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia. But the Soviets undoubtedly hope to accomplish more than that. In their view, West Germany represents the chief threat to the status quo in Eastern Europe, and behind much of the Soviet hostility lies the success of West Germany's Ostpolitik. Until two years ago, the West German government refused to have any political dealings with the Communist countries in Eastern Europe, a rigid cold war stance that suited the Krem lin's own aims well. Then in came the Grand Coalition, whose Foreign Minister, Willy Brandt, initiated the radical policy of attempting to establish diplomatic relations with the East bloc.

The West Germans hoped that by making friends in Eastern Europe they would create the relaxed atmosphere in which divided Germany might someday be able to unite. At the outset of the Ostpolitik, the mood in Europe was one of detente. The Soviets seemed willing enough to let Charles de Gaulle traipse around the East bloc and talk about bridge building. But it was quite another thing when West German diplomats and industrialists began arriving with the sort of offers that tempted Eastern bloc countries to look suddenly Westward. Rumania asserted its inde pendence from Moscow by trading ambassadors with Bonn; Hungary was toying with the idea of doing the same thing. Czechoslovakia accepted a West German trade mission, and it was to West Germany that Party First Secretary Alexander Dubcek looked for the loans he needed to revitalize his country's economy and free it from Soviet domination.

Consequently, the Soviets moved to block West Germany's diplomatic and economic penetration into Eastern Europe. At the same time, in a cleverly co--ordinated set of moves, the Soviets have made it far harder for the West Germans at home to keep their own political house in order. One quandary for Bonn is the existence of the far-rightist National Democrat Party, which now attracts some 9% of the West German electorate. For months the government has been contemplating legal action to suppress the N.D.P. But now that the Soviets have attacked it, West German political leaders are reluctant to take any action that might appear a concession to Soviet demands. The other problem came into being only last week when a group of Communists in Frankfurt publicly proclaimed the founding of a new party that pledges its allegiance to the democratic concepts of the West German constitution. The allegiance device is a tactical ploy that attempts to circumvent the West German law under which the old party was outlawed as an "antidemocratic party."

A Second Finland. The question is whether the Soviets will limit their at tacks on West Germany to words. Almost all Western military experts, including most West German commanders, feel that the Soviet Union would not risk starting World War III by actually invading the Federal Republic. Nonetheless, ordinary West Germans cannot help feeling physically threatened by the Red Army. Impressed by the swiftness of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, many West Germans fear that Russian tanks might punch across the border so fast and at so many points that dozens of cities would be overrun before NATO got around to repelling the invasion with its tactical nuclear missiles. In that case, much of West Germany would become a nuclear battlefield--or fall to the conquerors without a riposte.

West Germans can take scant com fort from the state of their own defenses. The Bundeswehr, which is 52,000 men short of its planned 508,000 force level, showed only two weeks ago, in the Black Lion maneuvers, that it was far too inadequately trained and equipped. Wrote Der Spiegel, the big West German newsmagazine: "The Federal Republic's military situation has never appeared so hopeless as today."

Former Common Market Chief Wal ter Hallstein mused aloud on whether the Soviets might not succeed in reducing West Germany to the status of a second Finland--fearful, quiescent and accommodating. Seeking to avoid any words that might provoke the Russians, Kiesinger repeatedly edited and rewrote his Bundestag speech. As he explained to his associates: "We must not hold a lighted match under the tail of an already enraged bear."

That Old Wrecker. For the long term, the West Germans feel that the only realistic guarantee for their security lies in a unified Western Europe. At week's end, German officials welcomed that old wrecker of European unity, Charles de Gaulle, to Bonn on his annual visit with somewhat mixed feelings. On the eve of the French President's arrival, Brandt issued a public statement that had an unmistakable meaning for the French. "I would be sorry for every step that we must take without France," said Brandt. "But no one could be satisfied if we stood still or moved in circles."

De Gaulle's hosts were stung by his failure to join at once with the other major Western allies in warning the Soviet Union after the invasion of Czechoslovakia that any aggression against the Federal Republic would be met by force. They were further disappointed that the French had just used their veto at Brussels to reject a preferential-tariff proposal that would have opened the way for Britain's eventual inclusion in the Common Market. As a result, the West Germans were now thinking about organizing a Common Market that would include Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia but omit France, if necessary. Some Germans were also contemplating the creation of a unified European defense force, another idea that French intransigence blocked back in 1954. Inadvertently, the Soviets were rendering Western Europe an important and perhaps historic service by turning attention once more to the need for some sort of political federation.

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