Dark Hints and Painful Choices

In one speech after another, Henry Kissinger has been swinging harder and harder at an old troublemaker for Washington, Cuba's Fidel Castro. Last week during an appearance in Dallas, the Secretary used his firmest language yet, warning that the U.S. "will not accept further Cuban military intervention" in Africa and hinting darkly of "decisive action" if Havana refused to pay heed.

The focus of Kissinger's ire is the 12,000-man force that Castro dispatched to Angola last year to help Moscow bring its client regime to power. At present Moscow's Latin Hessians seem to be marking time in the former Portuguese colony, perhaps while waiting for another African assignment. One possibility is Rhodesia, where Prime Minister Ian Smith's white minority regime faces the beginnings of what could be a bloody "war of liberation."

The U.S. opposes the Smith government; after all, it speaks for a minority of 278,000 whites in a country of some 6.1 million blacks. But Washington wants a peaceful transition to majority rule in Rhodesia, and it is anxious to head off a possibility of Soviet-Cuban intervention there. For one thing, an intervention of that kind would further tear the already badly shredded fabric of detente. More directly, it would leave the Administration uncomfortably facing a choice between two painful policy alternatives:

1) Retaliate against the Cubans with diplomatic, economic or military pressure, and thus run the risk of appearing to back the Smith government.

2) Do nothing about Castro's troops, and thus allow much of the world to conclude that the U.S. can be faced down by a small, Soviet-backed country.

Thus Washington is pursuing an African policy based on what Kissinger describes as "two equal principles: support for majority rule and firm opposition to military intervention."

But how could the U.S. deal with further Cuban adventurism? Kissinger is certain to be asked that repeatedly next month when he begins a two-week African tour that will take him to eight or more countries. Some American observers suggest that Kissinger's tough talk on Cuba might be aimed partly at countering domestic critics who charge that he has been too soft on the Soviets in his pursuit of detente. In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee late last week, Kissinger tried to temper the stir created by his most recent pronouncements. He said: "There is no urgent situation at this moment that requires a crisis decision. But we want the Cubans and the Soviet Union to understand the consequences of their actions before any irrevocable decisions are made by them."

Diplomatic Deterrence. In any case the Administration has been reviewing its options--which do not seem to be great--for pressuring Cuba. As long as Castro's links with Moscow remain intact, diplomatic or economic sanctions against Havana would not be very effective. Domestic support of another showdown with the Russians over Cuba, such as occurred in the 1962 missile crisis, might be thin if Americans believed all that was at stake was the future of some white regimes in Africa.

For the moment, U.S. grumblings about Cuba remain what one White House official describes as "an exercise in diplomatic deterrence" aimed chiefly at Moscow. There are some signs that the Russians are becoming more cautious about how they use their mercenaries next. Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, for example, flew to London last week for three days of talks with British Foreign Secretary James Callaghan. Gromyko helped work out a withdrawal of South Africa's remaining 1,000 troops in southern Angola in time to blunt a U.N. Security Council showdown over the matter. Meanwhile, Mozambique President Samora Machel, whose country would of necessity be the staging ground for any Cuban involvement, assured Britain that he has no intention of inviting them in. African leaders stress that they want Rhodesia liberated by Rhodesians.

Still, the chances that political change could come in Rhodesia without bloodshed grew more remote. After three months of testy negotiations, Smith and Joshua Nkomo, leader of the divided African National Council, ended their efforts to draw up a timetable for a shift to majority rule. Nkomo demanded black rule in a year or two; Smith proposed a complex plan that would effectively postpone black rule for ten to 15 years, if not indefinitely. Said Nkomo angrily: "Smith has opted for war." Smith's defiant reply: "I do not believe in black majority rule in Rhodesia--not in a thousand years."

With that remark having appeased his party's outraged right wing, which opposed the talks with Nkomo, Smith then went on to say he would consider renouncing his unilateral 1965 declaration of independence and return Rhodesia to British colonial status. With heavy sarcasm, he suggested that the British should stop maneuvering against Smith and "come through the front door and accept the responsibility they claim they have."

Callaghan replied that Britain would be glad to come through the front door, but only on certain conditions. Among them: prior acceptance by Smith's regime of the principle of majority rule and a pledge of open elections within two years. Britain would then help negotiate the terms of a new Rhodesian constitution that would guarantee both majority rule for Rhodesia's blacks and minority rights for the Europeans who want to stay.

Callaghan's plan is most logical. Logic, however, will mean nothing if Smith's backers decide--as some fear they might--that acceptance of reality is much less glorious than a shooting struggle against ultimate defeat.

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