The super-Powers edge into ’83

Press, 31 December 1982, Page 10

The super-Powers edge into ’83

NZPA-Reuter London Watched by anxious allies, the super-Powers are edging cautiously into 1983, alert for nuances that could herald a new start after three years of high tension. On both sides, senior officials are wary in assessing the prospects. But there are signs that both recognise the coming year may offer unusual opportunities for East-West dialogue. The Soviet leader, Yuri Andropov, less than two months in office, has started to focus on arms control issues that are certain to dominate the international agenda in the next 12

months. For President Ronald Reagan, 1983 will be the last full year in which he can operate without the political restraints imposed every four years by a Presidential election campaign. Since the death of President Leonid Brezhnev in November, both Washington and Moscow have indicated interest in a better relationship. But each has held back from taking the initiative. While the West’s appraisal of Mr Andropov remains guarded, there are widespread hopes in Europe that the change of leadership in Moscow will lead gradually

to a shift in tactics. Some diplomats suggest that the prospects may be heightened because the Kremlin chief is settling in at the mid-term point of Mr Reagan’s presidency, a time, they think that could be ripe also for adjustments in United States foreign policy. . Already, the West German, Chancellor Dr Helmut Kohl, has proposed a United States Soviet summit meeting. Mr Reagan failed to meet Mr Brezhnev despite mild expressions of interest in a meeting on both sides. All previous Presidents since World War H had at least one meeting with the

Soviet leader or Prime Minister of the time. United States-Soviet relations slumped badly in 1979, after several years of EastWest detente, when President Jimmy Carter failed to gain Congressional support for his arms treaty with Moscow and N.A.T.O. announced plans to base new United States missiles in Europe. The strains worsened as Soviet troops entered Afghanistan in December 1979, and reached a chilling low when Mr Reagan became President in 1981, pledged to a policy of antiCommunism.

Mr Reagan accused the Soviet Union of pressing aggressive goals around the world and launching a big arms build-up. In response, he ordered a sharp rise in United States defence spending. Fears that the Soviet Union might invade Poland and the imposition of martial law in Warsaw in December 1981 brought relations between the two blocs almost to a standstill. At the height of his antiSoviet rhetoric, Mr Reagan argued that Communism was in deep decline, headed for the “ash-heap of history,”

and that Moscow’s leaders were cheats and liars. Although he bowed to European pressure by opening arms negotiations there was growing talk in Moscow in the last months under Mr Brezhnev that the Kremlin had virtually given up on doing business with the Reagan Administration. But even before Mr Andropov took over, Mr Reagan had begun to slacken off in the stridency of his attacks on Communism. When Mr Brezhnev died, he went to the Soviet Embassy in Washington to sign a book of condolences.