Whaling Dispute Sours U.S.-Iceland Relations, Erodes Support for NATO Base

Icelanders intend to show their traditional quiet hospitality to President Reagan when he arrives tonight for the superpower summit, but to do so they will have to stifle their festering anger at the United States.

Their anger, stemming mostly from a feeling that the U.S. government is bullying them about whale killing, is so intense that polls show a serious erosion of Icelandic support for the American-run North Atlantic Treaty Organization base at Keflavik on the western tip of the island.

Despite this, Icelandic officials insist that they will not raise the issue or any other bilateral problem when they meet with President Reagan on Friday, a day before the start of his conference here with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. And no one expects the normally reserved population of Reykjavik to cause trouble for their government by venting their anger in any kind of demonstration.

‘Bad Feelings’

“There is no way around it,” said Helgi Agustsson, who was called back from his post as deputy ambassador in Washington to serve as spokesman for the Icelandic government during the conference. “There are bad feelings now about relations with the United States. But we are not going to raise such issues at all when we meet President Reagan.”

The government insists that it would be foolish and undiplomatic to raise these matters with Reagan when he is coming here to meet Gorbachev and discuss issues that are more vital to the rest of the world than Icelandic whaling.

However, the bad feelings persist, and many Icelanders bring the matter up with visiting American journalists.

U.S. Called ‘Rude’

“The United States has been terribly rude,” said Agnes Bragadottir, a political reporter for Morgunbladid, the largest newspaper in Iceland. “They have acted as if they owned us.”

The trouble arose from Iceland’s killing of 120 whales this year despite its agreement to abide by a moratorium on whaling by the International Whaling Commission. Iceland said it had killed the whales for scientific research--an acceptable reason under the commission’s rules.

Subterfuge Charged

The research was denounced as a subterfuge by the Greenpeace environmental organization. While the U.S. government did not dispute the validity of the research, it balked instead at the Icelandic government’s intention to sell 95% of the whale meat from the experiments to Japan as food.

The U.S. Department of Commerce said such sales would violate international whaling regulations. Under American law, the department warned, the United States could be forced to impose sanctions and limit fish imports from any country that violates the international regulations. Since the United States is Iceland’s main customer for fish, the threat struck Icelanders as fearful and imperious.

‘Intolerable Interference’

Prime Minister Steingrimur Hermannsson described the threat as an “intolerable interference in Iceland’s internal affairs.” The angry minister of fisheries, Halldor Asgrimsson, said, “We don’t go around threatening the U.S.A. for the way they shore up dictatorships and implement capital punishment.”

A compromise was worked out, with Iceland agreeing to sell only 49% of the whale meat to Japan and the Department of Commerce withdrawing its threat. But Icelanders are furious about the compromise, which they accepted under what they regard as unfair pressure.

Moreover, although some Icelanders are eating a good deal of whale meat out of patriotism, they are not traditional whale eaters and now have a huge stock--51% of the whale meat from the experiments--to consume.

Too Much Whale Meat

“Whale consumption has gone up ten times,” Agustsson said, “but we cannot consume all this whale meat.”

Icelanders and Americans agree that the issue is more emotional than economic: Even before the ban, when Icelanders killed 400 to 500 whales a year, the export of whale meat accounted for no more than 1% of the total value of Icelandic exports of sea products. But American pressure on a fishery issue offends the sensibilities of Icelanders, for they are fiercely proud of their political independence and deeply aware of their economic dependence on the sea.

In August, when feelings seemed to be at their height, newspaper polls showed that the whaling issue was weakening support for the Keflavik base. One poll reported that more than 60% of those polled felt that the Icelandic defense agreement should be reviewed in light of the American position on whaling.

Under a treaty with Iceland, the U.S. government stations 3,000 American military personnel--known as the Iceland Defense Force--at Keflavik. They operate several communications stations in Iceland and fly 18 F-15 fighter planes, nine Orion submarine-spotter planes, two airborne warning and control system (AWACS) radar planes and several other aircraft from the base. The base’s main mission is to monitor air and submarine operations in the North Atlantic.

Troubled by Foreigners

Icelanders have long been troubled by so many foreigners in their midst, even though most Americans stay close to the base. Dependents swell the American military community to 5,000 in a land of only 240,000 people.

“We have fought for our independence for centuries,” Agustsson said. “There has always been a reluctance to have a foreign base on Icelandic soil. Think of the problem in the United States of having 5 million Icelanders in a base near Washington.” The proportion would be the same.

Despite this reluctance, Iceland, out of a commitment to its role as a democratic North Atlantic country, has allowed the base and gradually learned over the years to accept it as a necessary part of Icelandic life.