Toward the Era of Negotiations

FOR the first time in 17 months, the planes and cannon of Israeli and Arab alike lay motionless in the troubled Middle East, silenced by a cease-fire that was brought about by patient diplomacy and the realistic fear of Russia and the U.S. that they were approaching an undesirable confrontation. In Bonn, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt prepared to fly off to Moscow this week to sign a hard-won treaty with the Soviet Union that in effect marks the close of World War II in Eastern Europe.

In the inexorable march of history, wrote Hegel, there occur moments when the sheer weight of accumulating events finally produces a decisive change. August 1970 may well go down as one of those moments, the beginning of the elusive "era of negotiation" that has been forecast by Richard Nixon.

It is a measure of this anxious age that anything resembling good news is immediately regarded as suspect. Thus it must be remembered that both agreements face many tests. The cease-fire arrangement is only the precondition for reaching a Middle East settlement; the chances for a "just and lasting peace" remain slim. By the same token, only future Soviet actions can tell whether the German-Soviet accord will merely confirm the existing division of Europe or whether, as Chancellor Brandt hopes, it will provide an opportunity to overcome that division gradually. Moreover, other crucial negotiations are still deadlocked. As David Bruce assumed his new post as chief U.S. delegate to the Paris talks, the Communists scorned his call, repeatedly made by other Americans in the 77 previous sessions, for some serious movement in the negotiations.

Second Thoughts. Still, last week's events can hardly fail to affect other interrelated diplomatic opportunities. U.S.-Soviet cooperation in the Middle East is almost certain to aid the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks in Vienna. SALT, in turn, will probably affect negotiations in the Soviet-Chinese-American triangle. The Chinese, who fear Soviet-U.S. collusion at their expense, intend to resume talks with the U.S. soon in Warsaw. Undoubtedly Russia's nervousness about China contributes greatly to the Soviet desire to establish peaceful relations in Europe and to cooperate with the U.S. to avoid another round of war in the Middle East.

The Soviet Union continues to give strong backing to the Arabs. But by their unwillingness to encourage and finance another round of war with Israel, the Soviets have forced both Arabs and Israelis to consider the rough outline of a possible settlement. If negotiations proceed successfully, the most plausible scenario is that Israel will relinquish the bulk of the territories it conquered in the Six-Day War in return for ironclad guarantees that the Arab states will accept Israel's existence. From such an agreement, a number of benefits might ultimately flow: the reopening of the Suez Canal, a solution to the problem of the Palestinian refugees, Arab-Israeli cooperation in the development of the desert, even a Middle East Common Market.

In Europe, the Soviets hope to use improved relations with Bonn as a means to help convene a European security conference. In the conference, the Soviets hope, among other things, to gain the West's full recognition of present European borders and to establish a security system that would reduce Western Europe's reliance on the U.S.

Secret Pacts. Twice before in this century, Germany and the Soviet Union have come to diplomatic agreements. The first time was at the Rapallo Conference of 1922, at which the Weimar Republic of Germany and the Soviet Union reached a rapprochement. More significant, the infamous (and short-lived) secret pact engineered by Molotov and Ribbentrop in 1939 was called a "nonaggression pact," but its main consequence was to allow Germany to attack Poland, thus plunging the world into war.

The prospect of new Soviet-German cooperation presents promise as well as peril. The promise is that the two powerful nations that hold the geographic keys to Europe have at last decided that peace is the only sensible solution. The peril is that the Treaty of Moscow will cause the West to succumb to a false sense of security that could again end in disillusionment. The accord might also tempt the Eastern Europeans to move too far and too fast in seeking accommodation with the West. If that happens, Soviet leaders may decide to reassert the Brezhnev Doctrine--just as they did in Czechoslovakia two years ago. Because of the dismal failure of Soviet-style Communism to develop healthy roots in Eastern Europe, Communism may face greater risks than the West by the creation of a more relaxed atmosphere.

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