Do-Nothing Detente

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

In the 3 1/2 months since George Bush's Inauguration, the world has been waiting to discover what attitude the new U.S. Administration would adopt toward the extraordinary events in the Soviet Union. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze have continued their odysseys through world capitals, proclaiming the promise of perestroika and the end of ideological conflict. All the while, the White House has turned away questions -- whether from allies, Soviets or the American press -- with the explanation that a sweeping policy review was under way.

Now, with Washington and its NATO partners openly quarreling about whether to negotiate with the Soviets on reductions in short-range nuclear weapons in Europe, the U.S. policy review is almost completed, and Secretary of State James Baker is due to drop the first authoritative hints on a two-day visit to Moscow this week. Shevardnadze was set to receive him eagerly on Wednesday and to usher Baker into a private room with Gorbachev on Thursday.

What Baker has to say, however, is likely to displease severely not only Moscow but also some U.S. allies, and an influential segment of American and European public opinion. The Secretary will propose a date, probably in June, for resuming the START negotiations on reducing strategic nuclear weapons. But otherwise Baker has no major U.S. initiatives to announce and no plans to match, let alone top, Gorbachev's innumerable catchy detente proposals.

This diplomatic vacuum is quite deliberate. Many aspects of American policy are still under debate; for example, Washington has not yet decided what changes, if any, to make in the framework for a start treaty that was all but agreed to by Gorbachev's and Ronald Reagan's negotiators. But the Administration's central theme is reasonably clear. In essence, George Bush proposes to stand pat and wait for Gorbachev to make the next move -- and probably the one after that and the one after that -- toward reducing tensions. As one senior American official puts it, the idea is to "let Gorbachev keep coming to us, making concessions, playing to our agenda."

And if the Soviet leader won't play? Then, in the view of many critics in the U.S. and abroad, Washington will have missed a historic opportunity to end the cold war and begin moving the relations between the nuclear superpowers from competition to cooperation. And, some of the staunchest U.S. allies add, George Bush will have abdicated the leadership role the world has a right to expect from the President of the U.S.

Bush is "firm in his belief that a new President shouldn't go off half- cocked," says a senior White House aide. "He has repeatedly said, 'I'm not going to make one of those big early-term mistakes like the Bay of Pigs.' " Yet faced with a political upheaval in the Soviet Union and its spillover in Europe, Bush seems almost recklessly timid, unwilling to respond with the imagination and articulation that the situation requires. "He is supposed to lead, but he is not even really trying yet," complains a British diplomat.

The Administration is convinced that Gorbachev has not yet gone far enough in toning down the Soviet Union's aggressive international behavior to make bold American initiatives worthwhile. In a speech last week Baker praised the Soviets for such moves as pulling their army out of Afghanistan and beginning unilateral cuts in European tank and troop strength. But he also complained that in other ways, Soviet actions do not match Gorbachev's pledges of "new thinking." For example, he chastised Moscow for stepping up aid to Nicaragua and continuing to produce five times as many tanks as the U.S. Though Baker specifically denied any U.S. intention to "sit tight and await Soviet concessions," he went on to outline an approach that sounded exactly like that: "Our policy must be . . . to test the application of Soviet 'new thinking' again and again" with a view to determining "whether the new thinking is real once we probe behind the slogans."

To the extent that U.S. policy is changing, Bush is subtly but surely shifting to a harder line than the Reagan Administration followed. Not with any great consistency, however; in the absence of a clear lead from the President, various officials have been filling the air with words and actions that send out clashing signals as to just how tough the Administration means to be. Some examples:

-- The President last week overrode a National Security Council recommendation, and his own general opposition to farm-trade supports, to approve a federally subsidized sale of $250 million worth of American wheat to the Soviet Union. But according to farm-state Congressmen, he made the $12 million subsidy available on only half the wheat the Soviets wanted to buy. The White House denies that, but such a move would be a typical Bush half-a- loaf compromise between the views of the Agriculture Department, which wants to assist U.S. farmers in competing against European export subsidies, and the NSC, which contends that the U.S. should not help Gorbachev solve his economic problems lest he be spared the choice between guns and butter.

-- Almost simultaneously, say some Congressmen and agribusiness executives, the Administration quietly shelved a Soviet request to buy U.S. soybean oil for the first time. The Soviets offered to purchase 200,000 tons, worth $120 million, using subsidies extended to other buyers of U.S. surplus soybean oil. Says one agribusiness executive: "What Gorbachev wants to do is fill up his stores and put something on the shelves fast. A housewife who can't find cooking oil is in a hell of a fix." This expert insists that the White House has nixed the sale, and adds, "Gorbachev is going to view it as a hostile act."

-- Two senior Administration officials inferentially warned against rushing into agreements predicated on the idea that Gorbachev will succeed in reforming Soviet society. Robert Gates, No. 2 at the National Security Council, asserted in a speech and article in the Washington Post that "our view of the Soviet Union cannot be based on the personalities of its leaders but on the nature of the Soviet system itself. We face a deeply entrenched philosophy and system of government that has depended on repression at home and promoted aggression beyond its borders. Gorbachev is challenging some aspects of this system, but even he acknowledges he has not yet significantly changed it."

Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney went further, asserting in a TV interview that "if I had to guess today, I would guess that ((Gorbachev)) would ultimately fail . . . to reform the Soviet economy" and "when that happens, he's likely to be replaced by somebody who will be far more hostile . . . toward the West." In an interview with TIME, an irritated Shevardnadze responded by calling Cheney's statement "incompetent." Bush and Baker promptly disassociated themselves from Cheney's remarks; both stressed that the U.S. wants to see perestroika succeed. In fact, the Gates-Cheney skepticism about Gorbachev's prospects have more support in the White House than either the President or the Secretary of State can let on publicly. And according to Western intelligence, Gorbachev's security detail has been beefed up recently, possibly out of a growing concern for his safety.

-- Baker agreed with an NSC recommendation that in Moscow he should reject any Soviet pleas to promote a compromise settlement between the Soviet-backed Afghan government and the U.S.-backed rebels. Washington insists on continuing to supply arms to the rebel mujahedin, even though the U.S. has achieved its goal of getting the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Moscow denounces the U.S. policy as a violation of the Geneva accords under which the Kremlin pulled out its troops.

Most important, the Administration clung stubbornly to its refusal to begin negotiations with the Soviets on reducing short-range nuclear weapons in Europe. West Germany, where most of the 88 U.S. Lance missile launchers are situated -- and where many of the missiles would explode in wartime -- has virtually demanded that the U.S. begin "early" negotiations. The Germans have enough support to force a serious split within NATO if the U.S. continues to say no. Britain, the Netherlands and Turkey support the U.S., while Bonn has the backing of Italy, Greece and most of the other continental European countries; others, including Norway and Canada, are trying to broker a compromise. But Bush is unmoved. He reaffirmed his position in talks with Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland last week, and again last Friday in a telephone conversation with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

The U.S., said the President, fears that in any negotiations it would come under irresistible pressure to agree to a total ban on nuclear weapons in Europe. NATO forces would then have no way to beat back a possible invasion by the Warsaw Pact nations, given the Pact's superiority in conventional forces. While that advantage is impressive in numerical terms, many experts in the U.S. and Western Europe argue that both in morale and materiel, Warsaw Pact troops are highly overrated. Nevertheless, the Administration is intent upon upgrading U.S. defenses in Europe by replacing the 75-mile-range Lance with new missiles that could be fired almost four times as far, an idea the Kohl government strenuously opposes.

This stand last week cost Bush the support of one of the nation's most respected arms experts. Paul Nitze, a Reagan special adviser on arms control who had just retired from the Government, told the New York Times that the U.S. demand for modernization of Lance missiles, together with the refusal to negotiate on short-range weapons, was "politically impossible for much of Europe." He added, "I cannot think of a German who would agree to that. Many of the allies think it is a crazy proposition." Nitze pointed out that NATO could benefit from successful talks because the Soviets have 1,600 short-range missile warheads in Europe to 600 for the U.S.

In Congress too influential voices are calling for negotiations. Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sam Nunn last week proposed a U.S. commitment to negotiate in return for three conditions: the West Germans would agree not to reduce all the way to zero; no actual reductions would be made until the outcome of talks on conventional arms becomes clear; and Bonn would accept modernization of whatever Lance force remains.

The President and his advisers say they are annoyed because only a month earlier, Kohl won a grudging U.S. agreement to put off a decision on Lance modernization until after the West German elections in 1990. But the Chancellor's popularity at home has sagged recently, and his center-right coalition is threatened by discontent over widely criticized tax and health reforms. In an almost desperate attempt to regain ground, he has adopted the negotiate-now attitude of the Social Democratic opposition and of his coalition partner, Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher. When Kohl sent two ministers to Washington to explain his reversal, they were met icily, even though Kohl has long been the West German politician closest to Washington.

The bad feeling is mutual; many West Germans suspect that any war would wreak nuclear devastation on West German territory if the U.S. fired the short-range missiles, rather than risking Soviet retaliation against American cities by launching long-range nukes against targets inside the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, there is a growing belief that some kind of compromise will be found in time to permit a show of unity at a NATO summit meeting in Brussels May 29-30. The "early" negotiations the West Germans want could be put off until next year or even later; Bonn might also agree to some of Nunn's conditions, notably that any reductions negotiated would not take effect until separate talks under way in Vienna yield an agreement eliminating or at least lessening the Warsaw Pact's superior numbers in conventional troops and weapons. The West Germans have begun talking of the hoariest of all dodges: appoint a NATO committee to study what line to take toward short-range missile negotiations.

Even if the specific controversy is swept under the rug for a while, a deeper problem will remain. Political expediency is only one reason for the West German pressure for negotiations. Another is the deep conviction of many West Germans, including Foreign Minister Genscher, that Gorbachev's efforts to democratize Soviet society and reach an accommodation with the West have drastically lessened the likelihood of Soviet attack. With that fear largely gone, Genscher believes, the U.S. and its allies have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring down the barriers that have divided Europe since 1945; the Western nations must seize that opportunity by putting forward initiatives of their own and engaging the Soviets in negotiations whenever possible. Moscow scored further public relations points last week when its Hungarian allies conspicuously started dismantling the barbed wire along the border with Austria. Only a week earlier, the Soviets had unilaterally -- and very overtly -- withdrawn 31 heavy tanks from Hungary. Though Genscher's stand on the Lance missiles is bitterly opposed by some allies, especially Britain, he speaks in the broader context for a constituency that reaches far beyond the Bonn government, and for that matter beyond Germany and even Europe.

Bush's advisers have a different view. They point to recent Soviet sales of bombers to Libya as a sign of a continued Kremlin penchant for mischief- making. Gates, in particular, suspects that Gorbachev, like Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev before him, is cozying up to the West to get technical aid that would help him stave off economic collapse. If that can be accomplished, Gates fears, Gorbachev will return to a menacing approach.

Other advisers argue that Gorbachev is under heavy pressure to make more and more concessions, almost regardless of what the U.S. does. In this view, the Soviet leader has no overarching long-range scheme but is making up policy day to day. "In many cases, Gorbachev does not really know what he plans to do," says an intelligence official. "He is stirring the stew, creating opportunities for new solutions, without what we would really like to know as a long-range plan." Consequently, these advisers think, the Soviet leader is putting pressure on himself to go ever farther; every time he makes a concession without noticeably reducing tension with the West, he feels it necessary to top himself with another move that might have more impact.

The conclusion of one policymaker: "That ad hoc approach gives us lots of opportunities if we play our cards right" -- which essentially means waiting Gorbachev out. He adds that if the U.S. were to make a dramatic proposal now, say on disarmament, the Soviet leader could easily trump it: "Because of the massive imbalance, particularly in conventional forces, he can always top us."

There are other less intellectual reasons for the wait-and-see policy. Like any Republican President, Bush must keep his right wing placated. Some critics also think that, in Nitze's words, Bush is determined to demonstrate that his Administration "is not really a follow on to the Reagan Administration." One senior official indicates these critics might have a point: "Reagan's willingness at Reykjavik to eliminate all nuclear weapons scared the hell out of Bush and was a big influence on him." Bush, this source asserts, "became determined that if he was President, he would restore tough-mindedness and perspective" to U.S.-Soviet relations.

In its baldest form, a U.S. policy to take advantage of Soviet weakness, even at the risk of Gorbachev's failure and replacement by a more hostile successor, might have a self-fulfilling aspect -- just as Brezhnev's more $ aggressive adventurism helped destroy detente a decade ago. The U.S. would be foolish to dismantle its defenses on the basis of Soviet promises yet to be borne out, but no one is asking a superpower with a military budget of nearly $300 billion to do that.

The real danger is that the U.S., in taking a purely reactive attitude, will undermine its own interests by continuing to leave all the initiatives to Gorbachev. He has abundantly proved himself a virtuoso in wooing public opinion in Western Europe -- and for that matter, in the U.S. Without a goal, Washington could lurch erratically from facile toughness to accommodation as the President makes ad hoc compromises. Worst of all, the U.S. really might miss a historic opportunity to lessen the danger of nuclear war that has dominated the second half of the 20th century. In some ways, a smiling Soviet leader who speaks of peace and fellowship poses a greater challenge to U.S. leadership than a rocket-rattling blusterer. George Bush has not yet figured that out, nor come close to providing the leadership required to keep the Western alliance truly strong.

With reporting by Dan Goodgame and Christopher Ogden/Washington and James O. Jackson/Bonn