Europe's New Anti-Americanism

...In Paris and Brussels, placards carried in demonstrations have pinpointed America as the enemy...

...strategy is designed to deter Moscow from miscalculating the American resolve to fully defend the West...

...only 18 per cent said they did not...

...of the British Social Democratic-Liberal Party alliance than with international developments...

...Still, the unilateralist movement is not simply a fringe eruption that is likely soon to burn itself out...

...SIMPLISTIC YET COMPLEX Europe's New Anti-Americanism BY NORMAN GELB CASPAR WEINBERGER London During a recent visit to Europe, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger casually suggested that massive antinuclear demonstrations in London, Bonn, Paris, Brussels and other European cities were not really a matter of great concern...

...Concern is being regularly expressed, too, about the attitudes and behavior of the new Administration in Washington...

...It would be a mistake, however, to view these developments as proof of a massive European desire to disengage from the alliance with the United States...

...Fully reported here, it arouses much bewilderment and not a little disdain...

...Though Communists are active in unilateralist ranks, the USSR long ago lost its attractions for most European Leftists...

...Nor are they willing to take account of the statistics showing that Soviet offensive conventional forces in Eastern Europe far outweigh those of allies in Western Europe and constitute a threat the West is at present unprepared to meet...

...Even in conservative circles, where the identity with American interests is substantial, there are outcroppings of uneasiness...

...to that free-world outpost, which American leaders have repeatedly promised to defend against Soviet aggression...

...In a succession of local elections where Labor candidates (irrelevantly) have emphasized their unilateralist sympathies, Labor has suffered defeat after defeat, including places that have long been Leftist strongholds...

...On questions of foreign policy, though, the Germans were more cautious...

...It is a growing, vigorous, well-orchestrated campaign with forceful, articulate leaders...

...True, this has more to do with the emergence Norman Gelb, who regularly reports on British affairs forthese pages, is currently writing a book about England...

...It also embraces-in addition to the many who have joined because it is fashionable in their circles to do so-a lot of youngsters who simply dislike the confrontation world they have always lived in and rarely ask questions about alternatives...

...Only 30 per cent backed unqualified support for U.S...

...Although the peace demonstrators insist they want nuclear disarmament from the Soviet Union as well, their main emphasis is on the removal of nuclear weapons from Western Europe, and those are primarily American...

...If the Americans are felt to beaggressively irresponsible within the alliance," Worsthorne asked, "how much more so might they become from outside...

...Having complained bitterly that Jimmy Carter provided so little leadership for the Western world, many Europeans are now engaged in an orgy of anxiety about Reagan trying to force American leadership down reluctant European throats...

...Instead, they answer by charging that America intends to fight the next war on European soil to avoid destruction at home...

...A columnist in the London Times wrote bafflingly at the time of Anwar Sadat's assassination in Cairo that "the phenomenon of anti-Americanism may not be a protest against American power, wealth or policies so much as stubborn resistance to the American way of appearing to take over all other nationalities, cultures, races and creeds, and especially their leaders...

...Carrington maintained that peace in Europe depended on, among other things, a continued strong Western European alliance with the United States...

...Indeed, there is often an element of religious fervor to their postures and presentations...

...And more, that they require an equally complex response...

...Tony Benn, titular leader of the Left wing of the British Labor Party, regularly stresses that Britons must prevent the basing of American weapons on British soil...

...In fact, the "better-red-than-dead" argument is being put forward again with the same naivete and relentlessness that marked its use over 20 years ago, when "Ami Go Home" also was a catch phrase in much of Western Europe...

...Within 24 hours, he changed his mind and conceded they deserved serious consideration...

...Leaders of several nato countries have wisely begun to realize that the unilateralists cannot safely be ignored any longer, and some have started opening a public dialogue with them...

...They refuse to deal with the view that, quite the contrary, U.S...

...Of those questioned, 56 per cent said they liked Americans...

...It could be transformed into an influential force by some unpredictable, frightening turn in international relations...

...Things have reached a stage??as Weinberger should have recognized immediately from the tough press grillings he was subjected to in Europe-where those who do not subscribe to unilateral Western disarmament have to defend themselves strenuously against charges of being nuclear warmongers...

...West Berlin unilateralists held a violent demonstration against the visit of Secretary of State Alexander M.Haig Jr...

...and its policies...

...London Sunday Telegraph associate editor, Peregrine Worsthorne has warned that should Europe surrender to the unilateral disarmers and become neutral, the United States, "a very serious superpower," might feel obliged to exert the same kind of tough international pressure as the Soviet Union to secure its strategic interests in this part of the world...

...His reappraisal resulted from the belated recognition by American officials that the "Peace Movement" is very effectively organized and is rapidly gaining a popular image of being on the side of the angels, fighting the wicked forces of darkness...

...Even in West Germany, scene of the largest, most violent unilateralist demonstrations and the clearest expressions of anti-Americanism, a public opinion poll conducted by the respected Aliens-bach Institute indicated there has been no significant drop-off in the popularity of Americans...

...And like the feelings aroused then, antinuclear sentiment today is heavily tinged with anti-Americanism...

...Unseemly foreign policy infighting within the Administration doesn't help...

...British Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington spoke directly lo the disarmers, for example, when in a recent Churchill Memorial Lecture he said that unilateral disarmament "would remove i he Soviet incentive to negotiate seriously about multilateral arms control...

...In pamphlets, on television and at rallies unilateralist spokesmen not only steer clear of such specifics but don the maritle of righteousness, identifying themselves as the advocates of peace and declaring that their opponents are villainously or foolishly determined to destroy the universe...

...Among its adherents are tens of thousands of people who firmly believe strategic arguments are beside the point, since in their view humanity is galloping toward a nuclear holocaust...

...The London Guardian worries that President Reagan "sometimes seems to inhabit a different planet...

...Such sentiments indicate that strategic considerations, economic strains and populist movements have made the relationship between America and Lu-ropc increasingly complex...

...Questioned about their blithe contention that unilateral disarmament in the West would be followed by voluntary nuclear disarmament in the East, the movement's participants prefer not to dwell on this critical issue...

...The majority of the demonstrators have little sympathy for the Soviet Union...

...policy, while 56 percent wanted each issue to be examined and judged separately...

...But it is not only the anti-nuclear campaigners who have of late been voicing suspicions about the U.S...

...Yet it shows the inability of the disarmers to penetrate the community as deeply as they had hoped...

...Even more indicative of public moods is the failure of the British Labor Party, led by arch-unilateralist Michael Foot, to make any headway with British voters, despite the catastrophic failures of Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's economic policies...

...A recent public opinion poll in Britain indicated only 33 percent favored unilateral disarmament, while 57 percent opposed it...