Out of All Proportion

A contradictory hot-and-cold atmosphere pervades current East-West relations. On one hand, the U.S. and Soviet Union are resuming their critical Strategic Arms Limitation Talks in Helsinki this week. Last week the two powers agreed in Moscow to continue working toward compatible docking systems for their spacecraft, which could lead to eventual joint ventures beyond the earth. Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, on his way home from a U.S. visit, became the first Soviet official of his rank ever to visit West Germany; while there, he conferred with Bonn's Foreign Minister Walter Scheel and hinted that a break-through might he near in the big-power talks on Berlin, which reconvene this week. But there has also been abundant evidence of a chill in other areas, such as Cuba and the Middle East. And then there is the strange, still unresolved U-8 affair:

In the midst of his recent 2 1/2-hour meeting with Russia's Andrei Gromyko, President Nixon was quietly handed a bulletin torn from the White House wire-service printer. It quoted an announcement from Tass that Russian authorities were detaining four men, including two U.S. generals, whose plane had crossed the Soviet-Turkish border and been forced down in Armenia. Compared with the Middle East, Berlin and other problems the two men were discussing, the incident seemed minor. Yet by last week, for reasons that still mystify Washington, the Kremlin had blown it up to an episode of major proportions.

Unusual Risk. The Russians refused to let American officials see the men for five days, thereby violating the two-year-old U.S.-Soviet consular treaty, which specifies that access must be provided within a four-day limit. Then they disregarded the treaty a second time by denying further visits until early this week. Moscow filed a harsh complaint with the State Department, linking the incident with the Soviet Union's longstanding objections to the presence of U.S. military bases near its borders.

Soviet propaganda stepped up the tone even further. Using language reminiscent of the worst days of the cold war, Tass called the small, seven-seat U-8 Beechcraft a "warplane" and went on to claim that U.S. overseas bases were "hotbeds of aggression, intervention and espionage" created by "the mad desire of U.S. imperialism to dictate its will to all mankind." Pravda hinted that the U.S. had "reincarnated" the policies of John Foster Dulles. It also made an absurd comparison between the U-8's accidental overflight and the U-2 spy-plane affair of 1960. While the two flights "might have had different concrete aims," said Pravda, both were "aimed against the state interests and security of the U.S.S.R."

The severity of Kremlin rhetoric stunned U.S. officials. As Gromyko may have been advised by Moscow before reaching the White House, the plane was unarmed and carried no spy gear. A twin-engine cruiser, it had set out from the eastern Turkish city of Erzurum, carrying the head of the U.S. military-aid mission in Turkey, Major General Edward C.D. Scherrer; his deputy for ground forces, Brigadier General Claude M. McQuarrie Jr.; Major James P. Russell Jr., the pilot; and Colonel Cevdat Deneli, a Turkish liaison officer. Their mission was to inspect Turkish forces at Kars, some 20 miles from the Soviet border.

Pilot Russell apparently was using his automatic direction-finder (ADF), a standard navigational device that "homes" on a radio beacon. Though

ADF is a routine procedure, it entails an unusual risk along the Russian-Turkish border. The Soviets sometimes adjust their own, usually stronger beacons to the same frequency as those across the border. In fact, the U.S. is convinced that at least once, in 1959, they deliberately overrode a signal from Turkey to lure a U.S. military transport across the border and attack it. That incident took 17 U.S. lives.

Tough Reply. There was no evidence that the Soviets deliberately tried to attract Russell's craft. But U.S. experts are convinced that the plane accidentally locked on to the Soviet beam and followed it across the border. Ground observers who reported that the craft zigzagged into Soviet airspace twice probably saw the pilot trying to correct his original error. However, two Russian MIGs swooped down and forced it to land near Leninakan. There the four men were taken into custody.

Initially, U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers tried to deal with the matter, through quiet diplomacy. Toward week's end it became obvious that such an approach was not going to work, and Rogers approved a tough U.S. reply to Moscow's protest. The U.S. note complained of the consular treaty violations and made it clear that the U.S. saw "no justification for any further delay" in the officers' release.

Hint of a Swap. What were the Soviets up to? For one thing, they may have been trying to pressure Turkey into returning the father-and-son pair who carried off the first successful hijacking of a Soviet aircraft last month, killing an 18-year-old stewardess in the process. Turkish President Cevdet Sunay, however, declared that the matter would be handled not as a political decision, but by Turkish courts, where it is still pending.

Moscow's determination to punish the hijackers undoubtedly increased last week, when a second Aeroflot craft, a small passenger plane, was successfully diverted to Turkey by two students. The two asked for political asylum, claiming that they want to go to the U.S. American officials, determined to avoid a double standard for hijackers, are not likely to grant that wish, unless the students are first tried in Turkish courts. In any case, their deed could complicate the fate of the four military officers.

The straying U-8 also gave the Soviets a chance to take some new potshots at U.S. bases near their borders. In all likelihood, Moscow is more concerned about the bases as symbols of U.S. influence than as spying centers, the reason usually stated in their propaganda. Both sides keep track of each other in many ways, including espionage. But they do not require airfields near each other's borders. Since the early 1960s, both have used high-flying satellites for aerial intelligence gathering. In addition, both Russia and the U.S. send "elint" planes and ships, equipped with electronic monitoring gear, within a few miles of each other's shores.

The Kremlin note complained nonetheless that "general military activity" of the U.S. near Soviet borders has been responsible for ten violations in the past three years, including the U-8 affair. However, none involved spying missions. Five of the violations occurred when U.S. polar-bear hunters overflew several small Russian islands in the Bering Strait. Three others concerned U.S. commercial flights along the polar route to Japan. Another involved a U.S. fighter-interceptor that flew over Soviet-held Big Diomede Island while chasing off a Soviet bomber near the Aleutian Islands.

In the same three-year period, one Soviet bomber crossed U.S. boundaries in the Aleutians and 15 Soviet ships--some of them crammed with electronic gear --entered U.S. territorial waters. One tanker was seized for a pollution violation and was released after the Soviet government paid $1,500 in fines.

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