AMERICAN NOTES: A Few Unsweet Remarks

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An extraordinary figure rose to his feet last week in Washington to discuss Soviet-American affairs from his unique perspective. Alexander Solzhenitsyn was making his first major public address since his exile from the Soviet Union 17 months ago. The occasion was a banquet given in his honor by the AFL-CIO.

Speaking in Russian while a translator simultaneously rendered his remarks into English, Solzhenitsyn projected the same sense of intense moral fervor that has made him one of the world's major authors. Understandably, he bitterly attacked Communism as an enemy of the human spirit. But Solzhenitsyn went on to criticize American foreign policy toward the Soviet Union. The U.S., he said, should never have cooperated with the Russians in any way, not even in forming the alliance against Hitler during World War II, and he implied that the U.S. should still be fighting Communism in Indochina.

"I am not going to talk to you with sweet words," he said. "The situation in the world is not just dangerous. It is not just threatening. It is catastrophic!" He noted that Nikita Khrushchev used to tell the U.S., "We will bury you." Today, said Solzhenitsyn, the Soviets are too clever to say that. "Now all the Soviets say is 'détente.' "

Solzhenitsyn speaks with the voice of an Old Testament prophet. While the prophets were often correct (sometimes because they helped make their prophecies come true), Solzhenitsyn's apocalyptic vision cannot be a guide to practical policy. Both the U.S. and the Soviet Union have good reason to pursue détente: the hope of reducing, if only a little and very gradually, the danger of a war that could end civilization. True, détente is risky. But the U.S. is not so weak that it need be afraid of dealing with a powerful and wily adversary.