Reagan Rattles the West

...European interests are no longer identical with those of the United States," he said, "and the East-West dialogue within Europe is beginning to assume a pattern distinctive from that between the superpowers...

...Many in his regular audience must therefore have been surprised to hear Cooke wind up one of his recent reports by observing implacably, "The United States has no declared foreign policy that either friends or enemies can believe in...

...Even before the arms-for-lran fiasco, Soviet Party chief Mikhail S. Gorbachev had launched an intensive campaign to improve the USSR's international image and expand the Kremlin's influence...

...During the subsequent Carter Administration, the Europeans complained that they were getting mixed signals from Washington about detente and the Cold War...

...In a letter to London's new quality newspaper, the Independent, William Wallace, deputy director of The Royal Institute of International Affairs, put the issue more bluntly...

...Indeed, if the Kremlin has not already embarked on a reassessment of its America policy, almost surely it will do so once the dust in Washington settles...

...This is not the first time Europeans have been exasperated by American leadership of the West...

...Some years ago, former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt publicly voiced frustration at the need for the West to suspend its foreign policy formulations every four years when the United States goes into its quadriennial pre-Presidential election frenzy...

...The United States—in its preoccupations, in its beliefs, in its perception of itself—is not the nation we thought we knew...

...Earlier this year Sir Oliver Wright, a former British ambassador in Washington and as pro-American a figure as can be found in Europe, clearly indicated his faith was faltering when he insisted in a speech to the European-Atlantic Group in London, "The Americans must demonstrate that they have the superpower relationship under control...

...A total U.S...

...And the next President, whether Democratic or Republican, is unlikely to have the political clout to overcome conservative opposition and pick up where Reagan left off...

...Europeans, in short, are casting questioning glances across the Atlantic and wondering whether the time has come to step more firmly out of the shadow of the American big brother...

...It is an assessment, however, that has come to be shared by many in Europe who would prefer to think otherwise...

...French Premier Jacques Chirac's recent call for an exclusively Western European charter of security principles has aroused much interest from people who, a short time ago, would have shunned it as a dangerous suggestion that could encourage the United States to re-examine its role as big spender in nato...

...Now intricate analyses of how every American Presidency after Eisenhower's has been broken in one way or another are being somberly digested...

...But that episode, the Iran-contra fiasco and the subsequent agonized introspection in Washington are having the same effect...

...aid, are distant memories...

...Yet President Reagan, humbled by recent developments, cannot negotiate any kind of radical deal with the Soviets— as only a short while ago he seemed prepared and able to do...

...It is pointed out with growing frequency too, that since the reign of Charles de Gaulle, France has managed to implement a foreign policy which has often been at odds with American wishes and has not suffered noticeably as a consequence...

...Cooke fell in love with the United States a long time ago...

...Though the White House hastily backtracked, there lingers a dread in Western European defense ministries that some irreverent, determined budget slasher will turn up in Washington one day soon, take another look at the savings potential of what Reagan almost agreed to in Iceland, and ask, "Well, why the hell not...

...The Russians will, of course, seek to claim whatever prizes become available in Europe and elsewhere should the U. S., as is widely forecast, again be smitten by foreign policy paralysis...

...Referring to a phenomenon bound to attract a good deal of attention in the future, Wallace noted that Western Europe is moving "very gradually into a wanner relationship" with the Communist countries of Eastern Europe...

...The days of the late 1940s and early 1950s, when millions in Europe would Norman Gelb writes regularly for The New Leader on British affairs...

...the engines that drive it are new and surprising and very, very strange...

...Disarmament negotiations between Moscow and Washington would then take on entirely different dimensions...

...That comment was a quick reaction to the initial disclosures of the National Security Council's role in establishing an Iran-contra link...

...The results of the British elections next year may have a crucial bearing on where Moscow goes from here...

...At the moment, it does not appear that the British Labor Party will emerge victorious...

...Only the conviction that the Reagan Administration lacks the astuteness a true Machiavellian imagination requires has persuaded Europeans that when the President almost sacrificed Western Europe's defenses at Reykjavik, he was not engaging in a deliberate, devious ploy to frighten America's allies into finally doing more to secure their own defenses...

...Though many were cynical about Ronald Reagan's qualities as a statesman, the President's skills as a political leader on his home ground were widely respected and had something of a calming effect on strains within the Atlantic Alliance...

...Thus whatever glee Soviet commentators may derive from America's current humiliation, and whatever goodies the Russians may gather in, the Kremlin has to regret that the condition of its rival superpower precludes breaking the disarmament negotiations stalemate in the foreseeable future...

...The London Guardian, prior to the headlines made by the adventures of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver L. North, explained: It is "not just that Europe no longer understands what makes America tick, but that many of the Americans closest to the old European values have ceased to understand as well...

...For good or ill, it has become much more a foreign land...

...As the London Financial Times observed, "Washington's partners can no longer have the same confidence as they had before in allowing the United States to be the sole spokesman of the West in a number of key areas...

...Long before they learned of Reagan's problems with aides, Europeans marveled at how, despite his limited gasp of the facts of international politics, the President retained the trust of the American people...

...withdrawal from Europe would be the logical next step, and American military leadership of the West would have passed into history...

...Nevertheless, policy planners in Moscow are faced with a problem...

...American nuclear weapons would have to be removed from Britain, probably producing a domino effect in the rest of nato that would destroy the alliance...

...At home, though, they can't proceed with plans to divert funds from a huge military budget to help vitalize the ponderous Soviet civilian economy until some sort of fundamental disarmament agreement is concluded with the United States...

...That dark and highly doubtful scenario aside, American leadership of a united alliance will remain under pressure from an increasingly baffled and assertive Western Europe...

...have gone hungry and their economies would have been paralyzed if not for injections of U.S...

...After the Reykjavik summit, it was realized with a shudder that, albeit for a mercifully brief moment, he had contemplated eliminating the nuclear defenses balancing the Soviet Union's preponderant conventional military capabilities in Europe...

...But it could win, and in that case Labor Leader Neil Kinnock says he intends to implement the party's nonnuclear defense policy...

...During the Watergate episode, Western policymaking with regard to the Soviet Union was paralyzed for an unnervingly extended period...

...The Soviet Union, while still seen as posing a long-term threat to Western Europe's security, is not considered a wolf at the door...

...STRAINS IN THE ALLIANCE Reagan Rattles the West BY NORMAN GELB London Listeners here to Letter from America have grown used to the almost sentimental tone of Alistair Cooke's radio reports to his native land from his adopted country across the Atlantic...

...But the most recent White House shenanigans have introduced a new dimension to the way Europeans look at the problems they face in following the leader...

...Ever increasing consideration is being given to long-simmering suggestions that Europe begin taking a greater share of Western leadership, perhaps through mechanisms of the European Community or the European caucus in nato...

...Over the many years his weekly Letter has gone out on the airwaves from the BBC's central London Broadcasting House, he has managed to cover every American mishap, embarrassment or gaucherie with a veneer of affectionate folksiness that makes everything not only charmingly understandable but, where necessary, forgivable...

...He spoke of those countries as" former Soviet satellites," a premature description at best, although it is true that cultural, diplomatic and commercial traffic between Western European countries and Hungary and East Germany in particular has become much heavier of late...

...Making friends and influencing people abroad is fine...