From Russia, with love, a nuclear offer

Press, 12 October 1982, Page 16

From Russia, with love, a nuclear offer

From “The Economist,” London

The choicest bloom in the bouquet of goodies which President Brezhnev pressed on his palace-guest in the Kremlin on September 21-22, was a 1000 megawatt nuclear power station. This is double the size of India's troubled Tarapur plant near Bombay. Mr Brezhnev’s guest, the Indian Prime Minister, Mrs Gandhi, is unlikely to accept the kind offer, put forward for the second time, because of Russia’s insistence on safeguards. India has an allergy to international interference in its nuclear goings on; talks with the French about supplies of enriched uranium for Tarapur broke down last month over Frehch insistence on the London club rules for inspection of nuclear facilities. Mr Brezhnev’s other offers included a clutch of steel plants, which together would add 5 million tonnes to India's steel-making capacity, and a 600,000-tonne alumina plant. There was also a go-ahead from the top for a long-term textile agreement, long in the works, which, will double India's textile exports to the Soviet Union without requiring it to buy Soviet machinery.

The Indians believe that the Russians are trying to foist second-rate equipment on them

— and on credit terms less generous than • India can get from the West. Although Russia is now India's largest trading partner, it may cede this position to the United States. The talks in the Kremlin almost certainly touched on military hardware as well. India is interested in Russia’s T 72 tanks and its MiG 27 aircraft which, together with the MiG 23s India already has, will make a match for the Fl6s Pakistan is acquiring from the United States. Mr Brezhnev does not like India’s recent tendency to shop for its military equipment in the West; he has sent several top-brass delegations to Delhi in the past year to get India's custom back.

Nevertheless, while Mrs Gandhi was in Moscow, Britain’s Defence Minister, Mr John Nott, was doing some hard selling in Delhi. The main subjects of his sales pitch were Harrier vertical take-off jets and Sea King helicopters.

Twice during her Russian

tour Mrs Gandhi came out with criticism of India's own communist parties. Russia's support for her local communists, who were once valued allies but turned against her a few years ago, is a great source of bitterness to India's Prime Minister. She raised the matter in Russia to indicate that she wants Mr Brezhnev to use his influence to swing India’s communists back behind her Congress party, but there was no sign that the Russians wish to oblige. Indians like to put it about that Mrs Gandhi takes a stern line with the Russians over Afghanistan; it took 36 hours for officials to draft a communique that ended up omitting any reference to the war or the Soviet occupation. Her public remarks on returning home from her Russian trip accepted the standard Russian arguments: (a) that Soviet troops are in Afghanistan at the request of the Afghans and (b) that the Afghan troubles were caused by intervention from outside.

Mrs Gandhi said much the same in public during her successful visit to the United States in the summer, but she is reported to have taken a

different tack in private with President Reagan. The visit to Moscow was

intended to reassure the Russians that she had resisted American seduction. Which.

given the value of the souvenirs she brought home, has to be true.