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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JULY 9, 1982
PAGE 7
so soon after the stirring and reassuring message he delivered to the
German people from the Bundestag in early June. "It is only too sad," said
the Chancellor, •that credibility and confidence as a �hole can be endan
gered over this little issue."
It must be stressed again, however, that this widening dispute, coming on
the heels of other trans-Atlantic trade squabbles, most notably Washing
ton's "anti-dumping" decision over European steel imports, is no small
matter (not a •1ittle issue" as the Chancellor says diplomat1eally).
Another NEW YORK TIMES article, on June 28, analyzed its importance in this
manner:
The damage done to allied relations••• appears to •••enter the area
where the reputations of European leaders are dama�ed, new eval
uations are made and policies possibly changed. In short, as
seen by Europeans wishing the Administration well, the pipeline
decision•••appears self-defeating. After six months in which the
United States had some success in convincing its allies it was
dealing more circumspectly with basic issues of security, arms
control and East-West confrontation, it has tried to block or
slow a project that no European believes can be sidetracked.
"There's something wrong here,• a member of a European government
said at a European-American seminar on security issues in Bonn
over the weekend••• "the strangest thing is how the Americans
don
I
t see they
1
11 lose twice:
On the most crasslevei, they
won't stop the pipeline, and they look very incompetent in sacri
ficing the capital they built up recently.•
The same TIMES dispatch revealed how the pipelin& decision spills over into
security issues of the NATO Alliance. It will now be harder to deal with
the growing mood, especially among the young, of anti-Americanism and neu
tralism. The decision, continued this report
r
•••undercut[ West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's] basic line
in trying to deal with currents of neutralism iR his country.
Objectively, it will be harder for Mr. Schmidt to convince many
West Germans that the United States will protect their interests
at the talks on reducing intermediate-range nuclear missiles in
Geneva.
The Administration's action tends to break down the de-demoniza
tion process of the Reagan Administation that was under way in
West Germany. With the momentum stopped, any West German gov
ernment will find it more problematical to sell a compromise
worked out by the United States in Geneva that will result in the
deployment of new missiles here at the end of 1983.
In summary, a definite breach of trans-Atlantic relations has developed,
not the least because of the gas equipment embargo, but because the sanc
tions demlnd coincides with other purely economic tensions over steel and
interest rates, all of which together translate into strained political
relations. Little reported is a similar impact the embargo has placed upon
a joint Japanese-Soviet petroleum project off the coast of Sakhalin Island.
Tokyo is protesting loudly, too.