What the Russians Kept

President Nixon's Moscow visit last May ended with a joint communique that included agreement on "measures to prevent incidents at sea and in airspace over it between vessels and aircraft of the U.S. and Soviet navies." By indirection, the Russian exodus from Egypt has honored this pledge in one key sea. TU-16 Badger reconnaissance planes that have long overflown the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean from Egyptian bases have ended such flights and gone home. The games of "chicken" that scrambling U.S. carrier pilots played with them have stopped.

Although the airfields from which the Badgers flew have reverted to Egypt, the Soviets hope to retain the use of Egyptian naval bases at Alexandria and Mersa Matruh. From Cairo's viewpoint, that could be an acceptable exchange for a continuing flow of spare parts and equipment replacements for the Egyptian armed forces and for economic aid. The naval bases are well out of view and thus Soviet personnel would not be a political embarrassment for President Sadat.

As a safeguard against the possibility that Egypt might some day reconsider and order Soviet sailors home too, the Russians reportedly are seeking additional port privileges elsewhere along the Mediterranean littoral. Such ports have a variety of uses; the U.S., although it operates a "naval train" from Norfolk to the Mediterranean to replenish the Sixth Fleet, also maintains naval facilities in Spain, Italy and, commencing fairly soon, Greece.

Such ports are essential to the Soviets because their Mediterranean squadron, like the Sixth Fleet, is a permanent strategic force, not merely a factor in the Egypt-Israel confrontation. Thus if Moscow allows the fleet to be displaced, the Russians would lose face--and power--everywhere in the Mediterranean.

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