Middle East: Anxious Visitors

THE Soviets," a foreign diplomat in Cairo said last week, "are never comfortable dealing with uncertainties." If that is so, Moscow must have been painfully uncomfortable after the past month of turmoil in Egypt, one of its principal clients.

First, U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers, exploring the possibility of reopening the Suez Canal as part of an interim settlement between Egypt and Israel, was received with great cordiality by President Anwar Sadat. Next, Sadat established himself as Gamal Abdel Nasser's true heir by nipping a plot against him and staging a swift, authoritative series of arrests and dismissals that reached deep into the government and army.

Thus, when Soviet President Nikolai Podgorny flew into Cairo last week aboard a gleaming 11-62, his chief object was to find out what it all meant and to safeguard the Soviet stake in the Middle East. This he managed at visit's end by signing a 15-year friendship treaty with Sadat that provides for continued Soviet military, economic and cultural aid and, significantly, contains a promise by Egypt to pursue a socialist course regardless of who is in power. The treaty then ensures that Russia's influence can be perpetuated in spite of any U.S. diplomatic successes.

Four days before Podgorny's visit, Soviet Ambassador Vladimir Vinogradov had paid his first call on Sadat since the internal upheaval. Vinogradov reportedly invited Sadat to Moscow to brief Russian leaders on the situation. Sadat declined; it would have looked too much like a summons. Podgorny thereupon invited himself to Cairo along with a delegation that included Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and First Deputy Defense Minister Ivan Pavlovsky.

An obvious agenda item was Rogers' visit. Moscow was already unhappy that the U.S. had got much of the credit for sponsoring the cease-fire that had remained in force in the Middle East since last August. A successful Washington peace plan on top of that would be a severe blow to the Soviet image as the decisive power in the Middle East, anxious though the Russians are to have the Suez Canal reopened.

The Russians had also come to probe the political complexion of Sadat's new government. Since the days of Nikita Khrushchev, who once admitted to Sadat that "we cannot drive people into paradise with a stick," Moscow has hoped that the Egyptians would eventually find their own way into the socialist Eden. Egypt's only political party, the Arab Socialist Union, appeared an ideal ideological instrument for the journey; it was certainly no accident that Ali Sabry, Sadat's principal competitor for power, was until last month both the dominant voice within the A.S.U. and the Egyptian leader closest to Moscow.

Now that Sadat has ousted Sabry and the "antiparty clique" from the union and promised to make it "genuinely democratic," the Russians were curious to find out exactly what he had in mind. Finally, the Russians were interested in checking out Sadat's post-coup credit rating.

Euphoric Mood. Sadat was in no mood to break with his principal patrons, even though he realizes that Washington can more easily arrange peace with Israel than can Moscow. Nor does he want to antagonize the Soviets at a critical moment with an unseemly show of independence. Thus, Egypt's President went out of his way to be cordial last week, even to the point of making some sharp anti-American remarks. "The U.S., with its military and material support of Israel," he said, "has actually thwarted peace endeavors, enabling aggression to gain ground."

This attitude, he added, "is spoiling all peace efforts and pushing the Middle East toward an explosion whose consequences cannot be predicted by anybody." This was the kind of sentiment Podgorny had come to hear. It enabled Sadat to show he is no softy. At the same time, it served to damp down a mood of euphoria in Egypt about the possibilities of peace and domestic improvement. Sadat has encouraged that mood, but it could get him into difficulty if nothing comes of it.

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