WATCHFUL WAITING IN MOSCOW

EVEN as the U.S. pondered the direction of its foreign policy under the Nixon Administration, the Soviet Union showed obvious concern about the possible new thrusts of American intentions. In one capital after another, Russian diplomats anxiously sought out their U.S. counterparts in informal attempts to learn how the policies and personalities of the new Administration may affect relations between the world's two superpowers. On the official level, Moscow has adopted a cautious wait-and-see attitude toward President-elect Nixon, despite his reputation there as a hardliner. As a West German diplomat noted: "For Khrushchev, Nixon was the epitome of the professional antiCommunist. But his successors evidently are smart enough to avoid anything that will turn Khrushchev's assessment into a self-fulfilling prophecy."

One reason for the Russians' gingerly approach is that they face some grievous internal problems and want time to solve them. Thus, though the Kremlin rulers no longer seem particularly interested in meeting with Lyndon Johnson before he leaves office, they have let it be known that they are eager to confer with the new U.S. President. A summit meeting would help restore the international standing that the Soviet Union lost with the invasion of Czechoslovakia in August. The Russians also want to reach some sort of agreement on limiting the building of anti-missile defenses, if for no other reason than that they recognize that development of the expensive systems will hurt domestic programs in the relatively hard-pressed Soviet Union more than in the affluent U.S. Besides, the Kremlin realizes that, as harmony between the superpowers grows, so does restiveness in Western Europe about U.S. intentions.

Vienna Rendezvous. Yet another sign of the Soviet desire to keep channels of communication with the U.S. relatively clear was a quiet meeting held in Vienna's elegant Hotel Imperial last week between McGeorge Bundy, president of the Ford Foundation and former national security adviser to Presidents Johnson and Kennedy, and Dzher-man Gvishiani, son-in-law of Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin and a ranking member of the state committee for science and technology. The ostensible reason for the get-together was to discuss the creation of an East-West Institute, perhaps to be located in the Austrian capital, that would serve as a site for meetings between statesmen and scholars from all over.

Even so, the Soviets remain wary and distrustful. When two lightly armed U.S. destroyers steamed into the Black Sea on a routine show-the-flag cruise, Moscow called it a "dangerous provocation"--even though the Black Sea is indisputably an international waterway open to ships of all nations. The Russians managed to sound especially self-righteous, since in recent weeks they have pulled back some 20 of the 52 ships from their flotilla in the Mediterranean. According to U.S. Navy officials, such sanctimoniousness on the part of the Russians is hardly justified; the Americans claim that the Communist admirals are doing nothing more than returning ships to their home ports to ride out the winter weather.

As the Soviets see it, they have made a remarkable diplomatic recovery in the past few months. The Czechoslovak episode threatened to impede permanently relations between East and West. It seemed for a time as if the bad old days of the Cold War had returned. But the rulers of the Kremlin have now managed to muffle that unfortunate country with a minimum of overt force. Furthermore, the acquiescence of the Prague leaders to Moscow's demands has diluted the moral outrage of the rest of the world. At last week's Czechoslovak-Soviet summit meeting in Kiev, Brezhnev and Co. engaged in a great deal of bear hugging with their Czechoslovak guests and went off together for a day of boar hunting.

Thanks largely to their efficient repression of the Czechoslovaks, the Soviet leaders have been able to patch up the quarrels within the international Communist movement that grew out of the invasion. As a result, they have won the go-ahead from their fraternal foreign brethren to convene the oft-delayed summit meeting of world Communist parties next May in Moscow. At that time, the Russians hope to strengthen their control over the international movement and perhaps even to set up a world headquarters to coordinate Communist policy, much as Stalin's Cominform did in the 1940s and early 1950s.

Fears About China. Though they have managed to reassert Soviet dominance within the Warsaw Pact countries and force the troublesome Rumanians back into the fold, the Russians still face serious economic dislocations within Comecon, the Communist equivalent of the Common Market. They also face potentially dangerous foreign crises.

They fear that new outbreaks of fighting in the Middle East could lead to another debacle for the Soviet-armed and -trained Arab armies. In that event, Moscow would face a difficult dilemma. If it stood by and allowed its Arab allies to take another beating, its own hardwon influence in the area would dis appear. If it intervened, it would risk a direct confrontation with the U.S. The Kremlin is also concerned about Chi na, especially since Peking has made overtures to the incoming Nixon Administration for a resumption of direct negotiations between the U.S. and China. Moscow naturally worries that if the Chinese are no longer preoccupied with fears about the U.S., they might feel bold enough to start serious trouble along the 3,800-mile Sino-Soviet border.

Crackdown on Dissent. If the Soviet leaders do win some respite from international tensions, they will still have their hands full at home. An upsurge of intellectual dissent, of which Novelist Alexander Solzhenitzyn has become the symbol, has prompted a crackdown that is increasingly reminiscent of Stalin's day (see box). The economy is doing well, but not well enough. Last week, as the Supreme Soviet, Russia's parliament, met in the Great Kremlin Palace Congress Hall to consider the 1969 budget, the country's chief planner rattled off an impressive list of economic achievements (1968 income up 7.2%, industrial production up 8.3%). The 1,510-odd delegates were visibly unimpressed. Instead, they complained bitterly about the shoddy quality of Soviet housing and the poor reliability of farm machinery, which plagues farmers with frequent breakdowns. As Kosygin and Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev looked on, Chairman Nikolai Baibakov, of the State Planning Committee, assured the angry delegates that he would take immediate action to correct those deficiencies. Obviously, if the Russians want to upgrade their consumer and industrial goods, they cannot embark on the construction of a multibillion-dollar antimissile network throughout the country.

The Supreme Soviet also dealt with another problem of paramount concern in Russia: youth. Many young Russians are openly uninspired by Communist ideology, bored by the endless propaganda, envious of the luxuries that life in the West offers. Reflecting the official concern, the Supreme Soviet created a new Commission on Youth Affairs, whose lofty and perhaps unattainable mission will be to try and lead the young back to Communism. Failing that, the commission can perhaps at least find some ways to control the rowdies who at present are contributing to the Soviet Union's sharply rising crime rate.

Medium Machines. To Western analysts, by far the most important news to emerge from the Supreme Soviet meeting was a 6% increase in Moscow's arms spending. As part of the new budget, the group approved the largest defense appropriation in Soviet peacetime history: 17.7 billion rubles ($19.7 billion). Actually, that figure represents only a fraction of the actual outlay. It covers only the actual housekeeping costs of the Soviet Union's military forces, ammunition purchases and the acquisition of light conventional weapons. The Soviets routinely disguise under other headings their spending for important weaponry. Outlays for nuclear-weapon research and production that run into the billions are hidden under appropriations for the Ministry of Medium Machinery Production. Similarly, the expenditures for new aircraft and warships are dispersed among budgets for nonmilitary ministries. According to Western intelligence estimates, Moscow next year will in reality spend $50 billion for armaments. That outlay rivals the U.S. defense budget of roughly $80 billion, since some $26 billion of that amount goes for the war in Viet Nam.

Guard Up. The huge Soviet defense spending seemed to buttress the contention of some U.S. diplomats that Russia's present mood of reasonableness and conciliation represents only a transitory tactical ploy. Others noted, however, that in the wake of Czechoslovakia, sizable arms shipments to the Arabs and the unrelenting demands for help from North Viet Nam, Moscow might well have increased its announced defense budget far more than it did. The fact is that defense expenditures may consume a proportionately lower share of the new budget than of the last one. In any event, the Russian willingness to bargain, however self-serving the motives, poses a challenge and opportunity to President-elect Nixon and his new Secretary of State. The Russians appear to be keeping their guard up, but without dismissing the possibility of easier relations with the U.S. That, so far, seems to be roughly the same approach that the pragmatic Presidentelect of the U.S. has decided to adopt.

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