DIPLOMACY: Parleys About Peace and Power

Oil for India, but no withdrawal from Afghanistan

While Soviet divisions massed along Poland's borders, President Leonid Brezhnev coolly flew off to New Delhi last week to justify an earlier intervention by Moscow's forces. Addressing the Indian Parliament during a four-day state visit, Brezhnev scoffed at the notion that the invasion of Afghanistan a year ago might constitute a menacing precedent for Poland or any other country. "Opponents of detente," he charged, "are making a noise for all the world to hear about a 'Soviet threat' either to Pakistan or to the countries of the Persian Gulf, or God knows to whomever else. They know very well that there is no trace of such a threat."

Brezhnev's audience did not seem convinced. The Indian legislators sat in silence as the Soviet leader warmed to his subject, accusing the U.S. of "continuing to send armed gangs into Afghanistan," which thereby made it impossible for the Soviets to stop giving the Afghans "military assistance." This was disappointing news for Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who has been critical of the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, though she has maintained a consistently friendly attitude toward Moscow.

According to Brezhnev's principal spokesman on the trip, Leonid Zamyatin, the Soviet President had explicitly told Gandhi that Moscow's troops would remain in Afghanistan "until the end." In a statement written for TIME (Dec. 8), Zamyatin argued that the Soviet army had been dispatched to Afghanistan solely to rescue the country from "interference" by the U.S. and its allies.

Such explanations carried little weight in New Delhi; the Indians share the prevailing world view that the invasion was a blatant act of Soviet aggression. Still, Brezhnev did manage to find a formula that sounded promising to his listeners. He won a brief burst of applause when he proposed to turn the Indian Ocean into a "zone of peace," though he did not explain how this might be accomplished. Nonetheless, the concept was welcome to India, which has been worried by the increased movement of U.S. vessels in the ocean and the rapid buildup of an American military and naval base on the British-owned island of Diego Garcia.