Three-Front Diplomacy

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An American offer, a Russian riposte and an election-year ticket to Peking

It began as one of those rare weeks when the Reagan Administration not only had pulled its often disjointed foreign policy act together but was scoring practical successes as well. A U.S.-assisted truce took effect among Lebanon's warring factions. President Reagan, in prime oratorical form, unveiled his new arms control initiatives in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly. The performance earned praise from U.S. allies in Western Europe and put pressure on the Soviet Union to show similar flexibility. On a five-day visit to China, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger revealed that relations between Washington and Peking had unexpectedly improved to the point where summit meetings between Reagan and Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang will be exchanged next year. To top everything off, Reagan persuaded Congress to pass a war-powers resolution ratifying the continued deployment of U.S. Marines in Lebanon for 18 more months (see WORLD).

The President's U.N. speech left the next move to Moscow. The U.S.S.R.'s reaction was thoroughly chilling. Some top Administration foreign policy officials had been hoping that Soviet leaders would duly note that Reagan had not sought harsh retaliatory penalties against the U.S.S.R. because of the shooting down of a South Korean airliner by a Soviet Su-15 interceptor, despite all the condemnatory rhetoric out of Washington. And Soviet President Yuri Andropov had remained publicly silent about the air atrocity, leading some in the Administration to wonder whether he might wish to pick up Reagan's cue and offer some fresh arms control proposals of his own. But when Andropov finally did issue a statement last week (he has not appeared in public for more than a month), he used the most caustic language hurled at the U.S. by any Soviet leader since the waning cold war days of the 1960s. Andropov in effect not only said nyet to any imminent breakthrough in the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) talks in Europe but raised questions about future negotiations with Reagan on almost any subject.

Andropov's blast certainly killed any remaining slim chance that the NATO-backed deployment of U.S. Pershing II and cruise missiles in Europe will not begin, as scheduled, in December. Once that happens, the Administration's entire arms control philosophy will face an acid test. Either the new U.S. missile presence will pressure the Soviets to bargain more seriously in Geneva, as the Administration has long predicted they would, or the U.S.S.R. will carry out its threats to employ "countermeasures"—and the superpower arms race will be off and running anew.