A Brief Chat in Warsaw

Arriving three minutes late because of a heavy snowfall, the black Chrysler Imperial swung through the massive gate and came to a stop in front of the three-story brownstone Chinese embassy in Warsaw. U.S. Ambassador Walter J. Stoessel and three colleagues strode past a gold-painted statue of Mao Tse-tung framed with light bulbs and upstairs to a large room lit by glass lanterns. There, over porcelain pots of tea, they sat down opposite Chinese Charge d'Affaires Lei Yang and his three aides. After a lapse of two years, the Sino-U.S. ambassadorial talks were on again.

The meeting lasted only 75 minutes --the shortest of the 135 sessions held since 1955. U.S. sources denied, however, that the brevity was a bad omen. For one thing, Stoessel did most of the talking, while the Chinese refrained from the time-consuming polemics that marred many of the earlier exchanges. The meeting was also free of the arguments that used to be aimed at Moscow in the days when the talks were held in Warsaw's Myslewicki Palace. It was no secret that the Poles bugged the palace proceedings for Moscow's benefit. Indeed, Stoessel's predecessor, John Gronouski, once said: "It was pretty clear that part of what the Chinese were saying was not said to us. It was being said to the Soviets." Interestingly, it was the Chinese who suggested that the resumed talks be held alternately in the Chinese and American embassies.

At last week's session, Stoessel stressed U.S. interest in easing travel restrictions on journalists, students and scholars. He also raised the question of the fate of six Americans believed held in China. But he avoided such major issues as Viet Nam and Taiwan.

Modified Maps. Though Stoessel characterized the exchange as "useful," from Moscow's vantage point it seemed quite harmful. With the Sino-Soviet border talks in Peking stalemated, the Russians fear the possibility of a Sino-American deal. Accordingly, a day after the Warsaw meeting, the Soviet Defense Ministry's newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda violently attacked Peking for "carrying out an expansionist, adventurist course toward China's neighbors."

A further sign of Moscow's fear of an attack came to light last week from an unusual source. Studying recently published Soviet maps, U.S. cartographers have discovered that the locations of countless towns and physical features have been moved arbitrarily by as much as 25 miles. A Western Russian rail center, for example, was shifted ten miles from its true location on a lake shore. Significantly, many distortions involved places in Asian Russia--because they are potential targets for Peking's steadily improving missile capability.

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