Festive Finale to the Helsinki Summit

From early morning until after midnight last Tuesday, Finnish President Urho Kekkonen practically camped at the Helsinki airport. Every 40 minutes or so, he dashed down to the tarmac to greet one foreign delegation after another as they arrived to attend the summit spectacular that marked the windup of the European Security Conference (TIME cover, Aug. 4). Fortunately for Kekkonen, most delegations showed up on time--and by air. But not all. In mid-afternoon Kekkonen raced into town to the railway station to shake hands with Soviet Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev, who had chosen to make the 18-hour trip from Moscow by train. Then Kekkonen sped back to the airport (normally a 30-minute trip, but the President made it in 13) to continue the marathon ceremony.

Dramatic Moment. The purpose of the big show in Helsinki was the signing of a 35-state declaration, negotiated over the past two years, that formalized the postwar boundaries of Eastern Europe. In perhaps the most dramatic moment, the 35 delegations arrived at the conference in handsome Finlandia House almost simultaneously Wednesday morning to begin the largest meeting of national leaders ever held in Europe. West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt bounded from his seat and pumped the hand of Leonid Brezhnev; moments later he greeted a buoyant President Gerald Ford in the same way. British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, veterans of many a conference, smiled at each other across the aisle.

There were plenty of scene-stealers --bearded Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus, for instance, in his floor-length black robes--but the superstars were obviously Ford and Brezhnev. Before the signing took place, there were nearly three days of speeches by the heads of the 35 delegations; both Ford and Brezhnev sat through the entire parade of rhetoric. As the first session opened, Ford settled down in his seat, lit his pipe and adjusted the earphones that brought simultaneous translation. Brezhnev sipped a glass of tea at his work desk, fiddling from time to time with the new dentures that are said to give him considerable discomfort. Just before he was due to speak, the Soviet leader mopped his face with a handkerchief, combed his hair and underlined a few more phrases in his speech with a red ballpoint pen.

The Russians had been plumping for a European security conference ever since 1954. Hoping to make it the capstone of his career, Brezhnev had been anxious for it to be completed well in advance of the Soviet Party Congress next February, at which time he will probably retire. The long-ailing party chief remained fairly active throughout the week, though he left President Kekkonen's formal dinner on the first night after less than an hour. "Why does he do such things?" asked a slightly amused British diplomat. "He must know what everyone will say." The Soviets claimed that Brezhnev had simply left early so he could work on his speech.

Brezhnev's speech struck most listeners as moderate and conciliatory. It was devoid of any crowing about Soviet policy, except for one gratuitous reference to Lenin as an early proponent of peaceful coexistence. Of the conference results, he declared, "There are neither victors nor vanquished, winners nor losers ... It is a gain for all who cherish peace and security on our planet."

Basket Three. Most diplomatic observers were mildly encouraged by his statement that "no one should try to dictate to other peoples ... the manner in which they ought to manage their internal affairs"--though obviously he was talking more about Soviet affairs than anybody else's. Some thought he was warning that the Soviet Union would give only lip service to Basket Three, the collection of individual freedoms and rights that was the key section of the document for the U.S. and Western Europe. But there was room for optimism in Brezhnev's call for "a further development of military detente." He added that "a priority goal in this regard is to find ways to reduce armed forces and armaments in Central Europe without diminishing the security of anyone ... Uppermost in our mind is the task of ending the arms race and achieving tangible results in disarmament."

Ford's speech, delivered the following day, was a mirror image of Brezhnev's, in the sense that the points ignored by the Soviet leader were the ones stressed by the U.S. President. While Brezhnev listened to a translation through a headset and jotted notes, Ford emphasized the importance of the Basket Three principles of liberty of thought, movement, and the flow of information. He also gave measured stress to the phrase "and the possibility of change by peaceful means," citing Berlin as "a flashpoint of confrontation in the past [that] can provide an example of peaceful settlement in the future." Referring to criticism at home of his presence at the summit and skepticism about the document's validity, he warned that the Helsinki declaration could not be a hollow promise. "The people of all Europe and--I assure you--the people of North America are thoroughly tired of having their hopes raised and then shattered by empty words and unfulfilled pledges. We had better say what we mean and mean what we say, or we will have the anger of our citizens to answer. They will ask us how these noble sentiments are being translated into actions."

Most leaders went to some effort to refrain from upsetting the heady atmosphere of peace and detente with their speeches. But Harold Wilson delivered a blunt address that accurately reflected the views of Britain's Western allies. "Detente means little if it is not reflected in the daily lives of our peoples," he told the delegates. "There is no reason why, in 1975, Europeans should not be allowed to marry whom they want, hear and read what they want, travel abroad when and where they want, meet when they want. To deny that proposition is a sign not of strength but of weakness."

A Mere Sideshow. The only really angry fight at the conference was between Turkey and Greece over Cyprus. The Turks were furious that Archbishop Makarios was there representing Cyprus (instead of a figure who would somehow represent both the Greek and Turkish communities) and stormed out of the conference hall while he was speaking. Later the Turks announced that they would sign the Helsinki declaration, known as the "Final Act," with a unilateral reservation that none of its provisions would be valid for Cyprus until a "legitimate representative" of the island republic had signed. During a private meeting, Ford offered Turkish Premier Sueleyman Demirel $50 million in grant aid if he would return control of military bases in Turkey to the U.S. Angry over the U.S. Congress's cutoff of aid, Demirel refused (see story page 35).

Despite their long speechmaking sessions, the conference leaders had plenty of time for bilateral discussions. There were moments, in fact, when the conference seemed a mere sideshow, reminding some American observers of Lyndon Johnson's old line about state funerals: "They give you a chance to pay your respects--and get a little business done." Besides two meetings with Brezhnev, Ford talked privately with, among others, Britain's Wilson, France's Giscard, Turkey's Demirel and Greek Premier Constantine Caramanlis. The champion in the bilateral race was Chancellor Schmidt, who managed 14 meetings with 13 other leaders, many of them from Eastern Europe. His goals: to get the East Europeans to ease up on their reluctance to include West Berlin in agreements dealing with West Germany and to advance Bonn's already booming trade relations with the East.

Memorable Moments. The most important meetings of the conference were unquestionably the private ones between Ford and Brezhnev. The U.S. was anxious for a sign of some momentum toward a SALT II agreement and perhaps some progress in the currently deadlocked Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions talks, whose aim is to reduce military forces in Central Europe. Indeed, the U.S. believes some sort of headway is necessary before a Ford-Brezhnev summit can take place in Washington this fall. At their first meeting, over a mahogany table at the U.S. embassy, the two leaders talked for two hours and professed to be making some progress.

During the second meeting, they discussed SALT and MBFR in greater detail. Although both Ford and Brezhnev made pro forma statements that some limited progress had been achieved, the two sides adjourned without any substantive compromise.

For Gerald Ford, some of the most memorable moments of the trip occurred on the way to and from the Helsinki Conference. In Bonn, during a floating state dinner given by West German President Walter Scheel aboard a Rhine River cruise boat, Ford and his wife Betty danced exuberantly to a German band's rendition of The Field Artillery March and Dixie, though the exertion caused an exhausted Betty Ford to remain in bed the next day. He sipped a bit of local wine on a visit to the Rhine River town of Linz (the presidential verdict: "Delicious") and dropped in on a picnic attended by 3,500 American soldiers and their families in the town of Kirschgoens. Then, during a two-day journey to Poland, the President was greeted by a cheerful though not tumultuous crowd of 250,000 in Warsaw ("American VIPS are no big deal here any more," noted a U.S. diplomat). The following day he visited Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp where 4 million people were put to death during World War II. The grim-faced President placed a wreath of red and white flowers at a memorial honoring the dead of 19 nationalities.

On his way home from Helsinki, Ford planned similar short visits to Rumania and Yugoslavia, the most independent-minded East bloc nations. There, as in Poland, the implicit message of his presence would be clear: within the framework of detente, the U.S. would like to do what it can to encourage a spirit of independence in Eastern Europe.

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