WASHINGTON: THE DIPLOMATIC REPORTS FROM MOSCOW

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP69B00369R000200290026-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 7, 2001
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: July 6, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

M.Lt) Cficf& - i fh
O Approved ?o ` 4fe-Ase 2001/11/01 : CIA-RDP69BOO369ROO0200290026-5
Washington: The Diplomatic Reports From Moscow
.By JAMES RESTON
WASHINGTON, July 6-In
his fgreign policy review in
Chicago this week Secretary of
Mate Rusk_ said President John-
as "deeply intent on try-
dig.' to improve our relations
h the Soviet Union," but the
plomatic reports out of Mos-
cow and elsewhere are extreme-
i1 discouraging on this ques-
on.
One reliable report, for ex-
I'temple, insists that the Moscow
~vs
Government has already com-
mitted itself to replace half the
Craft and a quarter of the
armor lost by the Arab states
In the Israeli war, and that al-
ready over 100 Soviet planes
have been delivered to the
United Arab Republic alone.
The Moscow Split
Another indicates that Presi-
dent Podgorny of the U.S.S.R.,
during his trips io Cairo and
Damascus, argued that closer
military liaison with the Soviet
Union was essential to make
effective use of the new Soviet
equipment. A third says Soviet
military missions have already
arrived in Syria and Egypt and
that negotiations for Soviet
military bases at Alexandria
and elsewhere in the Arab
world are now taking place.
All this apparently was de-
cided upon in Moscow even be-
fore Premier Aleksei Kosygin
got back to Moscow with his
personal report on the conver-
sations with President Johnson.
Thus the Glassboro talks be..
tween the two leaders may
have raised hopes here of better
relations between the two
countries and -boosted Mr. John.-
son's standing in the popularity
polls in this -country, but there
Is no evidence of a detente on
the other side.
There have been quite a few
reports since the start of the
Middle East crisis of division:,
within the Soviet Council of
Ministers on Soviet Middle East
policy. On the question of
avoiding the risk of a direct
confrontation with the United
States in the war there, and
on. the question of agreeing to
talks between Mr. Kosygin and
Mr. Johnson, the "moderates"
apparently prevailed.
But there is a great differ.
ence between avoiding a big
war and - reaching a detente.
Even the so-called "moderates"
in the Soviet Council of Min-
isters seem to favor one more
expensive round of the Middle
Eastern arms race.
The hope in the Johnson Ad-
ministration vas quite differ-
ent. Officials here, looking at
the Soviet reverses in Cuba.
the Congo, Indonesia, Greece
and the Middle East over the
past five years, had begun to
wonder whether this expensive
process of competitive influ-
ence-peddling could not be
reduced or eliminated and re-
placed by parallel if not coop-
erative policies of economic aid
in these contested areas.
Expensive Expansion
Indonesia alone cost the So-
viet Government over $1 billion
and ended in a ghastly massacre
of the Communists and their
supporters. In the Middle East,
the Soviet Union encouraged
if it did not direct the Arab
encirclement of Israel and sup-
plied between $3 billion and $4
billion of arms to carry it out.
The Johnson Administration
never believed that Moscow
would leave the balance . of
power in Israel's favor after the
war, but it did hope for coop-
eration in getting at the causes
of war in the Middle East and
helping in the settlement of
boundaries and refugees.
This is the kind of detente
Secretary Rusk and President
Johnson were hoping for, but
the trend of events is not going
that way. Leonid Brezhnev, the
General Secretary of the Soviet
Communist party, while arguing
that the "moderates" were right
in limiting the Middle `Eastern
war, added this week that "the
arrogance and perfidy df 1M.
reaction necessitate an
even greater concern" for the
strengthening of the Soviet
armed forces. And, if anything,
the attacks on U.S. Vietnamese
and Middle Eastern policy are
becoming more vicious, while
the Johnson-Kosygin talks are-`
virtually ignored in the Soviet
press.
The Priorities
Thus the battle over priorities
in Moscow remains about the
same. The officials at the- two-
extremes-those who wanted to
take greater risks of war and
those who wanted to give first
priority to the internal devet
opment and modernization of
the Soviet state-have lost, and
the cold war continues on all
fronts.
In fact, Moscow seems to be -
regarding the weakness of the
Arab states as an opportunity
to wipe out all Western influ-
ence from that part Of the
world and establish itself as
the dominant force over the oil
and communications lines of
the area. This would not be'.
detente but defeat for the West,
which may be what Moscow
had in mind all along.
Approved For Release 2001/11/01 : CIA-RDP69BOO369ROO0200290026-5