Summitry: From Peking to Moscow

AND now, Moscow too. Bent on becoming a Sino-Soviet summiteer, Richard Nixon accepted an invitation to visit the Soviet capital late in May for talks with Soviet leaders that will cover "all major issues" affecting the two powers. The Moscow mission will thus apparently follow by several months the President's journey to Peking. If the world does not, in fact, move from an era of confrontation to one of negotiation, it will clearly not be because Nixon did not try.

Yet it was still to Peking that the President was looking first. Only a few days after the Moscow announcement, National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger and nine aides took off for China to make arrangements for the Nixon trip, now expected to take place early in January. After a two-day stopover in Hawaii so that they can arrive rested, the group will spend four days in Peking. While Kissinger and State Department China Expert Alfred Le S. Jenkins seek agreement on a general agenda, other aides will work out the logistics, including the possibility of using a communications satellite to facilitate press coverage.

After the China trip, if nothing upsets his plans, Nixon will become the first sitting U.S. President to visit Moscow and only the second to meet Russian leaders in the Soviet Union. Franklin Roosevelt traveled to Yalta for a fateful wartime conference with Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill in 1945. Despite the postwar chill between the two nations, recent Presidents have been more than willing to seek better relations with the U.S.S.R. by going to Moscow. But Dwight Eisenhower's plans to visit the Kremlin crashed with the shooting down of a U.S. spy plane over Russia in 1960. At the time John Kennedy was killed, talks were under way about a possible presidential visit to Moscow in the spring of 1964. Lyndon Johnson was about to announce his acceptance of a Soviet invitation when the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968.

No Euphoria. Nixon was tense and solemn as he announced his latest travel plans at an unscheduled press conference. Then he accepted questions. No, the trips to Peking and Moscow were not directly related. "Neither trip is being taken for the purpose of exploiting what differences may exist between the two nations." Yes, Peking had been informed of the Moscow plans. So had Japan and the NATO allies. Both trips will be working trips, will include both Secretary of State William Rogers and Kissinger, and will be attended by "an absolute minimum of ceremony." Said Nixon: "The purpose of both visits is not simply cosmetics. We are not taking a trip for the sake of taking a trip." He still felt that summit meetings without a probability of substantive agreements ought to be avoided, since they only "create euphoria." Added the President: "We are not making that mistake."

The go-ahead for the Moscow visit thus rested partly on a common belief in both capitals that a climate of cooperation has been achieved. As Vice President in 1959, Nixon held a famous finger-waving "kitchen debate" with Nikita Khrushchev at an American exhibition in Moscow; he was completely snubbed by Soviet officialdom when he visited Moscow as a private citizen in 1967. But shortly after he became President, he talked publicly of wanting to meet Soviet leaders eventually. He and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko privately discussed the possibility in Washington last year, but agreed that progress on access to Berlin and arms limitation must come first. Now there has been a preliminary four-power agreement on Berlin, and a consensus on limiting defensive missiles seems near in the SALT talks. Gromyko returned with a formal invitation last month, and Nixon accepted. Throughout, the matter was handled with the complete secrecy of which the President is so fond. Thus Nixon was able to complete his trinity of stunning surprises: the Peking trip, the New Economic Policy and the Moscow summit.

Although Nixon cautioned that he does not expect all of "the very great differences" between the Soviet Union and the U.S. to be resolved in a single visit, Premier Aleksei Kosygin last week contributed to the mood of better Soviet-American relations by cheerily welcoming a group of eight U.S. Governors to the Kremlin and asking them to convey his greetings to Nixon. He hailed the coming Nixon visit as a move toward cementing friendship between the two governments. But what can reasonably be expected from the meeting? The possibilities include agreement on:

NUCLEAR ARMS. Nixon hinted that arms control will top the agenda. Even as Pentagon officials were warning of a continuing Soviet arms buildup, Nixon said that he and Soviet leaders should be able to agree "that neither major power can get a decisive advantage over the other" so as to launch "a pre-emptive nuclear attack" or "engage in international blackmail." Defense Secretary Melvin Laird seemed to be arguing that the U.S.S.R. was seeking such an advantage when he told a press conference last week that the Soviet navy was building nuclear missile submarines at a rate that would enable it to match the U.S. Polaris submarine force by 1973--about a year ahead of previous U.S. estimates. He also alluded to the detection of nearly 100 large empty silos in the Soviet Union that still puzzle U.S. intelligence.

Actually, U.S. and Soviet officials concur privately that some kind of first-phase agreement arising from the continuing SALT talks will be signed by the heads of state at the Moscow meeting. This first step is expected to include a limitation on anti-ballistic missiles to just two sites for each power, and a freeze on intercontinental ballistic missiles. Compliance will presumably depend upon the ability of satellite surveillance to detect violations.

EUROPEAN SECURITY. There could be an agreement to hold meetings between NATO and Warsaw Pact nations aimed at reaching a mutual and balanced reduction of forces (MBFR) in Europe. This would deal not only with conventional forces, but also with at least two other problems that SALT is expected to leave unresolved: whether to limit shorter-range nuclear missiles and tactical nuclear weapons borne by carrier-based aircraft. The U.S. might conceivably yield to the persistent Soviet call for a broader European security conference. Such a conference would deal with the status of the two Germanys and the nations of Eastern Europe; the Russians will presumably want to formalize the existing political arrangements there. Moscow and Washington alone could not, of course, determine whether such a conference should be held, but U.S. agreement would make its realization likely.

MIDDLE EAST. At the least, the two powers could agree to avoid escalation of arms shipments to Israel and Egypt--a practice that once again seems on the verge of another round. Finding ways to encourage a settlement will be far tougher, but in the meantime the mere announcement of the pending meeting tends to reduce the probability of a new outbreak of warfare.

SOUTHEAST ASIA. As with the Peking summit, speculation inevitably arises that the U.S. may try to coax the Communist powers into applying pressure on Hanoi to negotiate a settlement in Viet Nam or join in a Geneva-style regional conference that would deal with all of Southeast Asia. But the North Vietnamese remain reluctant. Hanoi feels that it was sold out by the superpowers at the last Geneva conference in 1954, and now sees its goals within reach. Neither Moscow nor Peking seems eager to cooperate in applying pressure, although this remains a remote possibility. At the same time, Washington abounds with rumors that Nixon may just pull another surprise in November when he deals with troop withdrawals from Viet Nam; he could virtually end U.S. military involvement by a fixed date. That would reduce--if not practically eliminate--Viet Nam as an issue at both summit meetings.

Other less momentous matters could be resolved in Moscow. The Russians seem eager to increase their trade with the U.S., particularly by buying equipment to advance Soviet industrial technology. Agreement seems possible on ways to avoid military collisions at sea caused by ships observing each other's naval maneuvers; negotiations on this topic began in Moscow last week.

Despite Nixon's pro forma attempt to separate the Moscow and Peking trips the timing was elaborately arranged to minimize suspicion in each capital that he might be working in collusion with the other--the high-level diplomacy is obviously interrelated. By arranging to visit both Peking and Moscow, Nixon shrewdly made it difficult for either of the rival Communist capitals to back down. More broadly, the two visits symbolize the transition from a period in which the U.S. and U.S.S.R. enjoyed a bipolar dominance into a multipower era in which China and Japan will become increasingly significant factors in global politics. The Kremlin leaders will undoubtedly pump Nixon, however discreetly, on what he may have learned in Peking.

The impending double dose ot summitry means that the Nixon-Kissinger dream of a new era of negotiations has taken general shape. The next step is to give it substance.

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