Correspondents' Correspendence Helsinki One Year Later

...In the year since the accord was signed by 35 countries in Helsinki, it has been employed repeatedly to defend or attack policies of the participating governments...

...In East Germany, Party Secretary Erich Honecker pointed out during an interview that his country imports more American, French and West German films than it exports to those countries...

...At the same time, attacks on Western radio broadcasts to the USSR and the Eastern European countries were stepped up...

...But the disputes over Helsinki should be attributed to differences in interpretation, rather than a lack of meaning...

...The new Polish Constitution similarly contains a clause that "consolidates" Warsaw's "friendship" with the Soviet Union...

...Indeed, at the moment it is the best tool available to advance this difficult process, even if far from the most effective means of guaranteeing its completion...

...Eastern commentators accused Secretary of State Henry Kissinger of meddling in another country's domestic affairs when he recently attacked the Italian Communist party, but his statements, misplaced though they may have been, are hardly as coercive as Moscow's "fraternal assistance...

...and a Czechoslovak legal expert recently called for a new system of "Socialist international law" based on the protection of Socialism??in other words, on the Brezhnev policy...

...All the signatories pledged support for the entire Final Act, of course, but it soon became evident that the Warsaw Pact countries would have problems with the third section...

...The agreement was divided into four parts, or "baskets.' The most important feature for the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries is the "Declaration of Principles" in Basket I, recognizing Europe's existing borders and the rights of national sovereignty...

...The Communist media began a defensive campaign using the nonintervention clause of the accord...

...Meanwhile, Western leaders announced they would judge the Communists' commitment to coexistence by how they implemented the provisions of Basket III...

...This maxim has long applied in international politics, and the scripture known as the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe has proved no exception...

...No doubt it will be repeated when the participating states meet in Belgrade next year to review the progress made since the Final Act was signed...

...The East German-Soviet friendship treaty signed last October obligated both parties to "protect and defend the historic achievements of Socialism," a phrase showing that the Brezhnev Doctrine??the official justification for the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968??had become the foundation of GDR-USSR relations as well...

...The NATO and neutral countries emphasize the controversial Basket III, providing for the freer flow of people and information between East and West that the West feels is necessary for a real and lasting detente...

...Last January Tass reported that three non-Communist Western newspapers were already on sale in the Soviet Union and 18 others would be added in the course of the year...

...The Warsaw Pact nations are open to information of real cultural value, it was argued, but they would not allow any state to interpret the results of the Helsinki Conference, in Izvestia's words, as "the freedom to propagate the poison of hostility, misinformation and slander around the world...

...Yet despite its unquestionable inadequacies, the agreement represents a step forward in the free world's effort to improve the lives of all Europeans...

...It is tempting to say these incidents prove the Helsinki accord was a failure, and this opinion has already been voiced quite strenuously in the West...

...Though quick to criticize what they see as Western interference in the internal affairs of other countries, the Warsaw Pact states apparently do not feel bound by the same rule...

...The West should remain resolute in its determination to use it.??Tom Heneghan...

...Dissidents began mentioning it, and minority groups argued the "freer movement" clause gave them the right to emigrate to the West...

...When both the NATO and Warsaw Pact countries accuse each other of violating the agreements in Portugal, the document seems to have no significance whatsoever...

...What the Soviet news agency neglected to note is that only 40 copies per day of Le Monde, the best-selling Western daily in the Communist countries, are available to the public...

...This, he went on, demonstrates that information moves more freely on the Eastern than on the Western side of the Berlin wall...

...Evidence was also marshaled to prove the Communist governments were complying with the troublesome section...