Maneuverings over Missiles

Show business time for the Soviets, decision time for NATO

One banner cheered THANK YOU, SOVIET SOLDIERS. Another frostily declared FROM THE NATO STATES WE DEMAND NEGOTIATIONS INSTEAD OF ROCKETS. As bands played at the railroad station in the garrison town of Wittenberg, 1,000 local citizens, plus Western newsmen bused in for the occasion, gathered to witness the latest episode in the propaganda blitz that Moscow is waging against the Western nations' plan to strengthen their nuclear forces in Europe. With fanfare, the Soviets began carrying out an unexpected pledge made by Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev in October to withdraw some forces from East Germany.

For all the hoopla, however, newsmen saw only about 30 tanks and 150 troops aboard the "train of hope and good will" at Wittenberg. Though the Soviets have promised to withdraw 1,000 tanks and "up to" 20,000 soldiers over the next year, that action will not significantly reduce their East German force, which includes 6,700 tanks and 365,000 troops. Moreover, the outfit involved in last week's withdrawal, the Sixth Guards Tank Division, is rated by the Pentagon as the least capable of all the Soviet units in the Warsaw Pact countries. Essentially, say U.S. analysts, the much ballyhooed pullout is "strictly show business."

The show was carefully timed. This week the foreign and defense ministers of the 15 NATO countries are due to gather in Brussels to adopt formally a U.S. proposal to begin deploying 572 new intermediate-range nuclear weapons, including Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles, in Western Europe by 1983. These missiles, unlike those now in the NATO inventory, can hit targets within the U.S.S.R.; they are intended to counterbalance the SS-20 missiles and Backfire bombers the Soviets have positioned against NATO in the past two years.

The Soviet campaign against the nuclear-force improvement got a lift last week. The Dutch parliament adopted a motion forbidding Premier Andries van Agt's government to approve the NATO plan. Joined by top officials from Norway and Denmark, which also have misgivings, Van Agt flew to Washington. He sought a delay in the NATO decision and a U.S. commitment to negotiate with the Warsaw Pact countries on reduction of nuclear arms in Europe. American officials gave assurances that the U.S. wanted to discuss a cutback of nuclear missiles with the Soviets, but insisted that the NATO partners should approve the missile-modernization plan on schedule.

Moscow's anti-missile drive has gone nowhere in West Germany. In West Berlin last week at the convention of his Social Democratic Party, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt said that the Soviet troop withdrawal was "welcome" but firmly reiterated his support of the NATO plan. At week's end the Soviets warned that mere approval of the missile modernization by NATO would kill any chance of talks on trimming nuclear forces in Europe. But the Warsaw Pact foreign ministers wound up a meeting in East Berlin on a more conciliatory, and realistic, note: their communique suggested that such talks might proceed no matter what was decided in Brussels.

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