The Press TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1969. East-West Talks?

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32166, 9 December 1969, Page 16

The Press TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1969. East-West Talks?

Talks between members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the Warsaw Pact are being sought by Warsaw Pact countries, but N.A.T.O. members have been less than enthusiastic about the idea. N.A.T.O.’s Foreign Ministers, ending their two-day meeting in Brussels, said they want a more positive agenda than that suggested in Prague, and have asked for the renunciation of the use of force and wider economic and technological co-operation. They want an assurance that progress could be made towards peaceful co-existence through negotiation in good faith; and they have insisted that, although apparently excluded by the terms of the Prague offer, Canada and the United States must be invited to the talks

Recent moves, both in Canada and in the United States, for some withdrawal from Europe no doubt influenced the Prague decision to exclude these countries from their invitation. Moscow in particular may have thought the time opportune not only to secure some political and perhaps military advantage in Europe, but also to encourage such American sentiment as already exists against further military involvement in Europe. There was a warning note about the American mood in statements made to the N.A.T.O. Assembly in October, by Senator Kennedy and others, that the United States was tired of propping up Europe’s defence when the European member States were not willing to undertake a fairer sharing of responsibility. Even now it is widely recognised that, militarily, N.A.T.O. would be incapable of resisting a full-scale Eastern European attack except by the use of American nuclear weapons. It has been suggested that N.A.T.O. would be strengthened by a pooling of British and French deterrents; but there is no evidence that the French Government —even without General de Gaulle—would

agree to such a course. France, on the contrary, has opted out of its military obligations under the alliance; and other Governments have publicly contemplated doing the same on grounds of cost In these circumstances the N.A.T.O. Ministers must at least look realistically at the offer of all-inclusive talks while recognising, as the Brussels declaration does, that the agenda would have to be prepared with care, on broader lines than those vaguely sketched in Prague. However, the Brussels affirmation that the alliance is ready for East-West talks “ on matters of substance ” puts the ball back in Moscow’s court, where Warsaw Pact policy is shaped.