Soft Words Fit the Moment, but a Struggle Lies Ahead

Ronald Reagan is confounding his left-wing critics and infuriating his allies on the right. Unless something now goes terribly awry, he will soon conclude his first arms-control treaty with the Soviet Union.

Mikhail S. Gorbachev, leader of the “evil empire,” will appear in Washington for a summit and signing ceremony that will trigger the first-ever agreed destruction of a whole class of nuclear weapons--the so-called Euromissiles. Yet unless Reagan is both prudent and wise, he will score a triumph at home but Gorbachev will emerge as the net winner abroad.

This week, U.S.-Soviet negotiations on intermediate-range nuclear forces in Europe have gone from expectations to end game. Concessions by Washingtonand Bonn, the latter clearly at U.S. behest, have removed the last two apparent obstacles to agreement. Before the ink is dry and the seals are affixed, it is risky to say that all is over and done with. But if the Soviets raise new objections they will tarnish their newly burnished peacemaker image in Western Europe.

Under White House pressure to conclude an agreement, the Pentagon was forced finally to admit something that the arms-control community has argued for years--that the United States already has a considerable capacity to verify Soviet compliance with agreements. Faced with Gorbachev’s willingness to accept intrusive on-site inspection in both countries, it was U.S. intelligence agencies and not the KGB that balked. It became apparent that the Soviets have more to learn from inspecting U.S. military installations and high-tech factories than we do from inspecting theirs.

Meanwhile, the government of West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl decided that it could not afford to stand between the United States and an arms agreement. Late in the game the Soviets had raised a new and obscure issue: West Germany’s ownership of 72 aging Pershing 1-A ballistic missiles, topped with U.S. nuclear warheads. “These must go,” the Soviets demanded. They sought to cause mischief between a U.S. government anxious for agreement and a West German government still reeling from a year of East-West diplomacy in which the terms and degree of the U.S. commitment to European security have been cast in doubt.

From Kohl’s perspective, the destruction of both long- and shorter-range INF missiles would leave only short-range battlefield weapons. These, in a phrase that has telling political effect in the Federal Republic, would “kill only Germans”--in either East or West. Keeping the Pershing 1-A’s would provide some ballistic-missile reach beyond East Germany’s eastern border. They would also stand as a mute plea to Washington to give pledges of its steadfastness. Now, on the destruction of U.S. and Soviet weapons, the German missiles will go, too.

The Soviets have always understood that the object of the Euromissile negotiations has been to affect Western European opinion and to determine relative U.S. and Soviet influence there. With the signing of a Euromissile treaty, Gorbachev will gain the lion’s share of credit on the Continent. In terms of promoting European security, the Soviet Union is seen as the prodigal son while the Americans are the children who remained loyal--and who resent the affection lavished on the prodigal.

Public euphoria over the fact of any U.S.-Soviet arms-control agreement--the details hardly matter--will not last long, however. Then the United States must prove its mettle in outmaneuvering the Soviets. Even though many U.S. nuclear weapons will remain on the Continent, Moscow will press its line that the Euromissile agreement means the progressive denuclearization of Western Europe and the weakening of U.S. security guarantees.

In his speech on Wednesday, Reagan blended a tone of cordiality toward the Soviet Union with proposals on human freedoms that would in essence require a dismantling of the Soviet system and the trammeling of its power. With the prospect of a Gorbachev visit, uttering a soft word was the neighborly thing to do. Expressing hope on strategic issues was also part of selling a treaty to a Senate in which the President can count more on his political enemies than on his allies.

Paradoxically, to offset Gorbachev’s gains in Western Europe, Reagan must be more active, tougher in deed even while he is conciliatory in word. In the face of West German misgivings, he must elevate the importance of the U.S.-European relationship from the nadir that it has reached in this Administration. He must dust off and reaffirm U.S. commitments to European security. He must put Gorbachev on the defensive by pressing for reductions in the Soviets’ most fearsome advantage in Europe--their conventional military power. Reagan must become more fertile than Gorbachev in making attractive and realistic proposals to reduce tensions further.

The change in atmosphere that attends agreement between great nations can lead to a new era in relations. Strangely, that can happen now only if Ronald Reagan, a mellowed cold warrior, proves tough and wily enough to cope with his young Soviet counterpart.