Soviet Cards

Pipeline goes against the grain "This is kind of like a fight inside a family," said Ronald Reagan at his press conference last week. French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson, who had likened the feud to a "progressive divorce," also tried to restore a modicum of household harmony. Said he: "In every good marriage, at times one talks about a divorce." After the transatlantic clash provoked by Washington's embargo on technology for the Soviet gas pipeline from Siberia to Western Europe, both the U.S. and its allies assessed the damage, found it considerable and decided to downplay the disagreement.

Not that the impasse, which one White House expert says "has caused the most disruption in the alliance in 20 years," has been resolved. The Reagan Administration insisted again last week that it is committed to the sanctions. But France and Italy have rejected the embargo outright, and West Germany and Britain announced that they would encourage companies to honor construction contracts signed with Moscow.

But the heated rhetoric seems to have cooled. One reason for the verbal cease-fire is the realization that the dispute, which began with an attempt to put pressure on the Soviet Union, is playing right into Moscow's hands. "If the Kremlin had plotted this policy," said Republican Senator Charles Percy of Illinois, "they couldn't have done a better job."

In addition, the Reagan Administration found itself in the awkward position of pressing for the sanctions in the same week that it authorized negotiations for a one-year extension of the agreement to export grain to the Soviet Union. The fact that the proposal was merely for an extension, rather than a new long-term agreement, did not impress the Europeans. Said Italy's Minister of Industry Giovanni Marcora: "We are expected to sacrifice our interests so that the U.S. does not sacrifice its own."

Indeed, Secretary of State George Shultz and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger opposed the decision to extend the grain sale at all. But Reagan bowed to pressure from hard-pressed U.S. farmers. Said Agriculture Secretary John Block: "We have always offered about all they would buy. We're thinking of ourselves, and we should be."

At his press conference, the President drew a somewhat spurious distinction between the grain and pipeline deals: "The technology for the pipeline is mainly only obtainable from the U.S. Grain, the Soviet Union can get in other places." He said that the grain deal will require Moscow to pay out hard currency, which it could otherwise use to build up its military. More important, however, was that this money would go to U.S. farmers, whereas the pipeline benefits only Western Europe.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.