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THE STRUGGLE FOR
THE
"SOULOF EUROPE"
by
Gene H. Hogberg
Events are now unfolding that will radically alter the political map of
this divided conti nent- perhaps before t he decade is over.
F
ROM ALL
indicat ions,
1983 may well prove to
be t he most decis ive
yea r for Europe since World
Wa r 11.
T he East-West stalemate that
has kept t he Continent d i–
vided- but in a state of "armed
peace"- for nearly four decades
is on t he verge of becoming
" unstuck."
At t he cen ter of the crisis is the
Soviet Union's growing fear over
its ability to maintai n a firm grip
over events in Eastern Europe.
T he nations of Poland, East Ger–
many, Czechoslovakia, H ungary,
Romanía and Bulgaria together
represent the Soviet Union's "secu–
r ity zone" against any future mili–
tary t h reat from elsewhere in
Europe.
And from where they sit, thc top
leaders in the Kreml in do not like
what they see.
K r emlln Peace Offens ive
On the political and military fronts,
Moscow has embarked on a full–
scale peace offensive. T he objec–
tive: to forestall the announced aim
of the NATO all iance to deploy
572 new in termediate-rangc ballis–
t ic and land-based cruise missiles
before year's end .
The NATO plan, if implemented,
would make possible, for the very
first time, a nuclear counterattack
upon the Soviet heartland from
bases
in Western Europe.
The new
Pershing
JI
missiles could reach
Soviet targets in only 8 minutes.
2
SOVIET Foreign Minister Gromyko cau·
tioned West Germans of consequences
of deploying intermediste-rsnge nuclear
missiles.
New Soviet Communist Party
leader Yuri Andropov has made a
series of proposals to reduce the
East-West nuclear arsenals in
Europe. T his culminated in his
cal l, on January 5, for a nonaggres–
sion pact between NATO and its
Moscow-led Warsaw Pact counter–
part.
A communique at the end of a
two-day Warsaw Pact summit in
Prague, Czechoslovakia, described
the proposal as a "new grand peace
proposal," adding that it would be
ci rculated to all 35 nations partici–
pating in the European Security
Conference at Madrid, Spain.
Western diplomats quickly re–
marked that the Soviet offer was
"nothing new." A similar Warsaw
Pact offer failed to win NATO
acceptance in 1958 .
Nevertheless, they were hesitant
to reject thc offer outright, since it
was well received by the rapidly
growing and politically influential
peace movements in Western
Europe and the United States- the
principal target audience of the
Soviet move.
U.S. President Ronald Reagan
has been put on the defensive by
th is string of Soviet proposals. As a
result, he felt obliged to dispatch
Vice Prcsident George Bush to sev–
eral Western European capitals to
shore up a visibly crumbling
NATO common front.
Mr. Reagan is widely perceived
in peace movement circles as being
largely responsible for fueling the
nuclear arms race. (Those in the
movement dismissed the Presi–
dent's zero option offer of last
year- no new missi les for the
removal of Soviet missiles targeted
on Western Europe- as being
insincere.)
Vati can Challenge
T he Soviet leadership also per–
ceives a powerful threat to its status
quo in Eastern Europe coming
from another di rection- the Yati–
can.
Moscow has been deeply con–
cerned ever since the Archbishop
of Krakow, Poland, Cardinal Karol
Wojtyla, was surprisingly elected
to the highest office in the Catholic
Church in the fall of
1978.
Pope John Paul II has had a gal–
vanizing effect not only upon his
native Poland but upon Roman
The
PLAIN TRUTH