Behind the Headlines International Maneuverings Set Stage for Nixon-brezhnev Summit Talks

President Nixon has indicated that the second Soviet-American summit conference beginning here June 18 will be more important than the first 13 months ago. This does not necessarily mean signed agreements will be forthcoming during Soviet Communist Party Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev’s eight-day visit. Rather, appraisals will be taken and understandings reached that will determine the courses that the superpowers will follow in the indeterminate future.

It is in this context that the Middle East–from the Suez and the Jordan to the Persian Gulf–will enter, informed sources here believe. Both strategic influence and the steady flow of oil at reasonable rates to their current markets are involved.

The Arab-Israeli dispute is, of course, a prime factor in the superpowers’ calculations, but it is hardly likely any “dramatic change,” as one top American participant in the areas’ affairs has put it, will emerge on that. At their last meeting, there were indications that Nixon and Brezhnev agreed to avoid military confrontation over the dispute. An angered President Sadat thereupon threw the Soviet forces out of Egypt.

Given the present circumstances of “the year of Europe” as Nixon and Dr. Henry Kissinger have emphasized, and the Kremlin’s yearnings for a European security conference to formalize Soviet territorial gains, it is most unlikely that the superpowers thus burdened will alter their positions regarding the Arab-Israeli problems.

ARABS SEEK TO INFLUENCE SUMMIT

More probable is a public position of continued adherence to the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 plus some urgings by the USSR to Egypt to go along to some extent on the U.S. view that an interim agreement to reopen the Suez is good for Cairo (as well as for Moscow); and the U.S. telling Israel that it should be more explicit on its boundary ideas for the Sinai which will help Egypt move towards talking (and help the U.S. with Cairo). But essentially, the U.S. will stick to its position that the parties themselves must negotiate their peace and the Soviet Union will hold to the view that the great powers must impose a settlement.

Great pains have been taken by Arab strategists to influence the summit. The Security Council’s “review” by UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim demanded by Egypt is openly regarded by the State Department as specifically arranged for that purpose. The propaganda action by the Organization for African Unity against Israel is a part of the pattern. The burst of the “oil crisis” that caused Sen. Charles Percy (R.III.) to wonder the other day in the Senate why it had not been foreseen before now, is taken by some to be also a part of Arab strategic planning.

It is hard to avoid a conclusion that it was the summit that prompted Sen. J.William Fulbright (D.Ark.) to time his two-day “educational” hearings in order to impress the superpower leaders with his theories on how to handle the oil situation and the Arab-Israeli dispute. It is more precisely in the realm of oil that the Brezhnev-Nixon talks incur the possibility of dangerous divergence and not along the Suez or the Jordan but to the south–in the Persian Gulf and the reaches from Somalia to Pakistan.

ARMS ISSUE LOOMS LARGE

Assistant Secretary of State Joseph J.Sisco emphasized yesterday to the House subcommittee on the Near East that the U.S. programs to sell arms to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have been public since 1971. He exclaimed to a rather startled press that he had reported them in detail to the Congress last Aug. in an open hearing but “not one line” appeared in the press. “This is no knee-jerk action” over the oil situation, he stressed.

But spectators wondered why it came out again so strongly only three weeks or so before the summit. Was it in the U.S. tactical interest to proclaim that the Nixon Administration favors detente but the Soviet Union is not to interfere with the Persian Gulf’s oil flow and the governments there that control most of it?

Sisco’s presentation left no doubt of U.S. concern about Soviet power being built in the Persian Gulf. He pointed out on a map how Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and North Yemen face Soviet supported radical regimes in South Yemen, Aden and Iraq and also the positions in this respect of Somalia and Syria in the north.

His rationale on the Persian Gulf situation drew the observation from Rep. Lester Wolff (D.NY) that the Soviet-American “detente is really a surface detente.” Sisco replied that the detente is moving in “concrete agreements” and “hopefully” will continue but “this is not to say… that this inhibits the Soviets from improving their position in these areas.”

Sisco carefully skirted the question of support to the Saudi Arabian and Iranian governments in the event their existence were threatened, but noted that the State Department in a letter 10 days ago to Fulbright said the U.S. has “no plans to use force” in this situation. However, Sisco repeatedly gave assurances of continuing U.S. aid for Israel, including the principle of power balance.

CONGRESSIONAL LEVER ON SOVIET EMIGRATION

With regard to the Soviet emigration issue, observers are not at all certain what Brezhnev may declare during his eight American days. “We have no idea” and “it’s wide open” typify responses of informed sources. In the House and Senate the lines formed in mid-winter hold firmly against U.S. governmental trade benefits to the Soviet Union before it loosens its emigration restrictions.

No defections have been announced among the 77 Senators and 280 Representatives backing the Jackson-Mills-Vanik legislation. With Congress powerfully asserting its powers in a manner not visible only a few months ago, Nixon is seen as having a strong Congressional lever to persuade Brezhnev that it is in Soviet interests to comply more fully with the Declaration of Human Rights.

Dr. Ludwig Hahn, 65, former gestapo chief in Warsaw, was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment by a Hamburg court for complicity in the mass murder of Jews and Poles in Warsaw’s infamous Paviak jail between 1941-1943. Hahn, known as the “Hangman of Warsaw,” will not have to serve his sentence because of poor health, the judge ruled.