A View Across the Atlantic

"Citizen" Schmidt speaks of missiles, peace and Germans

In his new role as a self-described "citizen of our Atlantic community," Helmut Schmidt has become, if anything, even more outspoken than during his eight years as Chancellor of West Germany. He still has harsh things to say about U.S. leadership of the alliance. But he remains a firm believer in checking Soviet expansion, and, like his successor Helmut Kohl, he is committed to the NATO "double-track" decision. Excerpts from Schmidt's keynote address to TIME'S Atlantic Alliance Conference:

The debate within the West right now is dangerously wide. The central dilemma is that we lack one commonly accepted, underlying grand strategy for political, military and economic behavior. The Europeans want continuity and no upheaval every fourth year at every change of Administration in the U.S.

American perceptions of the world situation have been in constant flux since the end of the Nixon-Ford-Kissinger era. It is not only the Russians who find it difficult to forecast what comes next, but also the Europeans. One hears too many conflicting noises [in Washington] and one feels that there is too little consideration for the European allies and their psychology, their necessities.

The Russians have a psychopathic anxiety complex of potentially being overwhelmed, which goes hand in hand with an inferiority complex. They see three main dangers. There is the fear of Germany, certainly since [Hitler's] invasion on June 22,1941. There is the fear of the U.S., beginning in the 1950s. Third, there is the fear of China, beginning in the early 1960s with the split between Mao and Khrushchev. These are the threats which the Russians feel and which they talk about when they meet in the Politburo and exchange views about strategy.

The international behavior of the Soviet Union [under Andropov] will not necessarily differ much from the behavior under Brezhnev, except that Brezhnev as a person was deeply afraid of the possibility of war. How does Andropov compare with him? My feeling is, if I may oversimplify, that Brezhnev was a Russian soul as we think of a Russian soul from having read Dostoyevsky or Pushkin, whereas Andropov is a modern computer filled with Russian software.

It is a preposterous misreading of the psychological situation in Russia to believe that by denying [the Soviets] grain or by denying them some pipes you can bring the Soviet Union to her knees or even make the Politburo compromise. The Politburo, like any tsar in the past, will be in a position to rely not only on the ability but the willingness of their nation to suffer. If challenged by an arms race or if told by their Politburo that they now have to sacrifice a little in their private standard of living in order to make it possible for the Soviet Union to keep up with the Americans, the Russian nation would respond positively, as it always has.

There has always been an enormous imperial drive from Russia. To think that this is only a consequence of Communist ideology is just mistaken. The greatest periods of expansion of the Russian empire happened under the tsars. Stalin was, so to speak, rather modest at the end of World

War II compared with the tsars. I would think that on average, the international behavior of the Soviet Union is 75% Russian and perhaps 25% Communist.

Some people say the Russians have overtaken us. These people talk of a window of vulnerability. But the Soviets have only decreased their inferiority. They are still vastly inferior and they will remain so. Both superpowers have large windows of vulnerability. We want the balance of military capabilities to be maintained. We saw that balance endangered by the enormous buildup of Soviet SS-20 missiles. I am responsible for the double-track decision as far as German participation goes, and I have not really changed my mind.

If public opinion in West Germany, Italy, Belgium and perhaps even Holland is convinced this autumn that America has undertaken every necessary and pos sible effort in the Geneva negotiations and that it was just the Russians who prevented any result, then I think you will see a convincing majority of public opinion that will accept deployment. If you fail to take a decision in the meantime about the deployment of just 100 MX missiles in America, the situation may be very different. People in many European places will ask why [Americans] want us to put their missiles on our soil and are not able to put their own missiles on their own soil.

Given the openness of world societies, to believe that deterrence of the Russians can happen in the future through a strategy which our own peoples do not accept would be a great mistake. An adversary will be deterred only if public opinion believes that we will have the guts and the legitimacy to use [nuclear] weapons. Why should an adversary believe that we are going to use them if our own public and our bishops and our parliaments tell us that we must not use them?

We [West Germans] have, as a divided country, put all our eggs in the Western basket. I cannot foresee any political development within this century which would make us change. We have understood that equilibrium between West and East cannot be maintained if the Federal Republic of Germany does not put its own full weight into the Western basket. We joined NATO, to which, in the event of war, we will provide 1.3 million fully trained and fully equipped soldiers. This is what a country can do within seven days if it has not abandoned conscription. On the other hand, we do not like this loose talk about our being the battlefield.

Germany is about the size of Oregon, with a couple of exceptions. In Oregon you have 2.5 million people and in Germany there are 60 million. In Oregon you have no nuclear weapons, in Germany there are 5,000. In Oregon you have the National Guard and perhaps the Reserve Officers' Training Corps Program and maybe an airbase or two used by the Air Force. In Germany, there are not only the German forces but American forces, French forces, British forces, Dutch forces, Belgian forces, a Canadian detachment and a Danish general. Think of your own country living under such conditions in such a densely populated area.

From here in Hamburg, if you get in your car it takes you just 25 minutes to reach what you call the Iron Curtain. If you are allowed to pass through it, it takes you another twelve minutes until you come to the first Soviet tank division. And it takes you another three minutes until you come to the first Soviet military airbase. The fighter bombers there would need only three minutes to get from their airbase to Hamburg. The fact that we are meeting here just 40 miles from the nearest Soviet military installation will make you understand that the Germans will never be in the forefront of cold warriors. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.