Old Anxieties

Washington and Bonn at odds

The U.S. is indecisive and unpredictable. The President rarely consults his allies, and when he makes a major foreign policy decision he ignores their sensibilities. That, during most of Jimmy Carter's tenure in the White House, was the plaintive refrain from Bonn. It was why West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, though personally uncomfortable with Ronald Reagan's conservatism, welcomed the change in U.S. leadership. Is Schmidt satisfied now? Well, not really. One of the reasons, paradoxically, is that Reagan is displaying some of the firmness that Carter lacked, but it is not the kind that Bonn expected. "Washington bashing is In again," a Western diplomat in Bonn lamented last week.

The Chancellor's latest burst of anxiety was caused by Reagan's announcement last month that the U.S. would begin to produce the neutron bomb, a weapon opposed by the vocal pacifist left wing of Schmidt's Social Democratic Party (S.P.D.). Although Reagan said the weapons would be stockpiled in the U.S., the device's combination of low blast and intense radiation over a small area make it suitable for warfare in Western Europe in the event of a Soviet invasion. The S.P.D.'s left-wingers are interpreting the decision as further evidence that Washington, despite its verbal assurances, is not sincerely interested in pursuing negotiations with Moscow to reduce the awesome nuclear arsenal already in Europe. Charged Egon Bahr, their most prominent spokesman: "It has become quite clear that the Americans want to transfer the risk [of nuclear war] to us."

Outwardly, Schmidt reacted coolly to the U.S. decision. In a television interview from his summer retreat north of Hamburg, he said that West Germany would accept the neutron weapon if other European NATO members would, and if arms negotiations with the Soviet Union failed. In private, he gave vent to what one insider described as a "bout of exasperation" reminiscent of the anger Carter used to trigger. The Chancellor has reason to be worried: he has vowed to resign if, at its congress next spring, his party reneges on an earlier pledge to station medium-range Pershing II and cruise missiles in West Germany beginning in 1983, while arms talks are going on between Washington and Moscow. The neutron weapon decision drew fire not only from hard-core pacifists but from some moderates usually loyal to Schmidt.

U.S. officials are playing down their differences with West Germany. For Secretary of State Alexander Haig, repairing Carter-era damage in relations with Western Europe remains a high priority. But his efforts have been hampered by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who fears that lack of Western European resolve may have an adverse effect on the U.S. public's willingness to accept increases in defense spending. Haig tried to persuade Reagan to delay a decision on the neutron weapon; if Bonn was not informed of the President's plans until 36 hours before the announcement, State Department officials explain, it was because Haig believed to the last that he could win.

Americans, in any event, can draw comfort from evidence that pacifist sentiment in West Germany, while politically troublesome for Schmidt, does not necessarily equate with anti-Americanism. Recent polls confirm that West Germans remain overwhelmingly faithful to the Atlantic Alliance; the latest survey shows that the number of West Germans who favor close ties with the U.S. has increased from 49% in January 1980 to 56% today.

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