An Oversupply of Voices

Reagan struggles to make the allies speak as one on Poland

"The political gap between Western Europe and the U.S. over the Polish crisis exists, all right. But now it is measured in yards rather than miles." So said one French diplomat last week, and, indeed, the distance between Washington and its NATO allies on a joint response to the crackdown in Poland had seemingly narrowed. Meeting in Brussels, the foreign ministers of the ten-member European Community issued a statement promising that the group would avoid actions that might undercut the sanctions imposed by Washington against Moscow two weeks ago. Then, at a summit meeting with President Reagan that had promised to be a frosty confrontation, West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt for the first time publicly fingered the Soviets for enforcing the repression in Poland.

Schmidt's statement was significant because West Germany has lagged behind other allies in criticizing Moscow, and has been most vocal in its refusal to impose sanctions against the Soviet Union. U.S. officials hoped that the Chancellor's toughened stance will pay off this week at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers. The ministers prepared a joint declaration, scheduled to be issued Monday, that unequivocally blamed the Soviets for the Polish crackdown. But the allies were not expected to join the U.S. in levying sanctions.

Neither side had expected the Reagan-Schmidt meeting to be especially warm. From the time martial law was declared in Poland last December, Schmidt's criticism of the crackdown has been notably mild. The Administration, meanwhile, made little secret of its annoyance with the Chancellor's cautious attitude. One seasoned European observer predicted before the summit: "Reagan is going to give Schmidt one helluva rap on the knuckles."

The rap never came. In his 2½-hr. meeting with Reagan, Schmidt blunted the sharply critical approach that the President had planned with some disarming observations. He admitted that his first reaction to the Polish crisis was soft, but said he had not been fully briefed. Then, veering off the subject, he apologized for a West German vote on a United Nations resolution in December attacking U.S. policy in El Salvador. Most important, Schmidt readily agreed to endorse a formal joint statement that stressed his support for the American position on Poland.

The session was not without tensions. Chain-smoking throughout the meeting, Schmidt appeared on the defensive. He claimed that the American press had misrepresented the West German view of the Soviet role in the Polish crackdown, and noted that a letter he had sent to Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev last month was proof that Bonn believed in Moscow's involvement. "If one read only American newspapers," he told Reagan, "you would think the U.S.-German alliance was dead." But Schmidt also made clear that he did not think the sanctions against Moscow would work, and thus he did not plan to adopt them himself.