Talking Quietly

A Bonn-P.L.O. dialogue

The Palestine Liberation Organization has been responsible for considerable terrorism in West Germany and thus should be high on Bonn's enemies list. But for some time, West German officials have been conferring secretly with the P.L.O. on ways to curb political violence.

Last August Libya's radical leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, visited Wiesbaden for treatment of liver and kidney ailments. There he got a phone call from West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who asked that Libya join other countries which have pledged not to give refuge to West German terrorists. Gaddafi not only agreed, but said he would give additional antiterrorist aid to Bonn if needed. Bonn took him up on that offer in November, after four members of West Germany's Red Army Faction wanted for the 1977 slaying of Industrialist Hanns-Martin Schleyer were freed by Yugoslavia and rumored to be in a P.L.O. camp. When Bonn's Interior Minister, Gerhart Baum, flew to Libya to discuss the case, the Libyans offered to establish direct contact between Bonn and the P.L.O.

Representatives of both sides met for the first time in Lebanon, in January. The P.L.O. security chief, Abu Hoal, assured a delegation from Bonn's antiterrorist unit that his organization was not harboring the Schleyer killers. Other discussions have followed, including a Beirut meeting two weeks ago between a legislator from Schmidt's Social Democratic Party and P.L.O. Chief Yasser Arafat. Bonn officials hope that such contacts will give West German terrorists a sobering sense of isolation. As for the Palestinians and the Libyans, they apparently want to dissociate themselves from pure anarchists like the Red Army Faction killers. In any case, says a West German antiterrorist expert: "We are talking."

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