Soviet View of Geneva Talks

With a few days left until the beginning of Soviet-American talks in Geneva, many people wonder if the U.S. Administration has decided what line it will pursue in dealing with the points on the agenda agreed between the Soviet Union and the United States.

In what way does Washington see the prospects for Soviet-American relations in the future? I have learned from an article in the Los Angeles Times, published late in November, that Secretary of State George P. Shultz is quite pessimistic about the chances for the United States and the U.S.S.R. to revive detente. Shultz believes that Soviet-American relations are likely to be permeated with a “spirit of rivalry.”

To put it differently, so far there have been no indications that Washington is about to turn from the policy of confrontation to cooperation and attempts to find mutually acceptable ways toward security for both sides.

From the Soviet point of view, the agenda of the Geneva talks incorporates the entire range of issues pertaining to nuclear and space-based weapons. The solution of these problems is undoubtedly the most crucial and urgent task that has to be coped with by modern politics.

Far from trying to belittle the difficulty of these problems, the Soviet Union has agreed to start the new talks with the firm intention of diminishing the danger of a nuclear war. Regarding this as the most important and immediate goal, the Soviet leadership is at the same time fully determined to seek to drastically improve the relations with the United States and the international situation as a whole and promote detente in all of its military, political and economic aspects.

“Detente,” Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko said last November, “is a normality, while confrontation is a dangerous abnormality . . .” The 1970s proved that fruitful cooperation between states with differing social systems is not only possible but also quite indispensable and beneficial to all nations. And this is the way Moscow wants international relations to develop. These are the criteria of the Soviet attitude to the Geneva negotiations. Hence the U.S.S.R.’s clear-cut positions manifested in a series of concrete proposals and practical actions.

I would like to believe that common sense will finally triumph to get the world back to normality, i.e., detente.

VITALI KORTUNOV

Moscow, U.S.S.R. This letter from a political correspondent of the Novosti Press Agency was forwarded to The Times by information officer of the Soviet embassy in Washington.