Soviet Leadership Limbo

The competition between the Soviet Union and the United States will be decided in Europe. That’s the dictum making the rounds of the international community in the nation’s capital. Japan may be becoming megapowerful economically, the rest of Asia may be becoming more productive and competitive, but the future of the world will not be decided on the Pacific Rim—or in Africa, the Middle East, or Latin America—but in Europe. “Compared to Europe, all the rest are side-shows,” observed a seasoned Washington diplomat. “Keep your eye on center stage.”

The diplomat is referring to the current extreme disarray of the Soviet Union’s leadership, and how the Eastern Europeans are attempting to take advantage of it. Take, for example, East Germany—traditionally Moscow’s closest ally—which has been conducting a heady round of Westpolitik with the other half of that divided country. Specific acts of détente between the Germanys include two major West German hard-currency loans (totaling more than $700 million) and the East German issuance of more than thirty thousand exit permits to citizens yearning to emigrate—a number exceeding all previous records in the 23 years since the Berlin Wall was erected. To cap off this summer of détente, Erich Honecker, the East German leader, had actually been planning to visit West Germany in late September; he would have been the first East German leader ever to have done so. Sources here say that Honecker got clearance for the visit in June from Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko on the occasion of the Eastern bloc economic summit in Moscow. However, when Chernenko took sick, hard-line Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko was able to spike the visit.

JM

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John McLaughlin

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The competition between the Soviet Union and the United States will be decided in Europe. That’s the dictum making the rounds of the international community in the nation’s capital. Japan may be becoming megapowerful economically, the rest of Asia may be becoming more productive and competitive, but the future of the world will not be decided on the Pacific Rim—or in Africa, the Middle East, or Latin America—but in Europe. “Compared to Europe, all the rest are side-shows,” observed a seasoned Washington diplomat. “Keep your eye on center stage.”

The diplomat is referring to the current extreme disarray of the Soviet Union’s leadership, and how the Eastern Europeans are attempting to take advantage of it. Take, for example, East Germany—traditionally Moscow’s closest ally—which has been conducting a heady round of Westpolitik with the other half of that divided country. Specific acts of détente between the Germanys include two major West German hard-currency loans (totaling more than $700 million) and the East German issuance of more than thirty thousand exit permits to citizens yearning to emigrate—a number exceeding all previous records in the 23 years since the Berlin Wall was erected. To cap off this summer of détente, Erich Honecker, the East German leader, had actually been planning to visit West Germany in late September; he would have been the first East German leader ever to have done so. Sources here say that Honecker got clearance for the visit in June from Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko on the occasion of the Eastern bloc economic summit in Moscow. However, when Chernenko took sick, hard-line Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko was able to spike the visit.