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ATA SERVICE STATION IN BUCHAREST,
a telephone company route man cranks up the starter on his Romanian-made
jeep-like vehicle. To the left is a " Dacia," a French Renault automobile made under license in Romania.
quality app les and tomatoes. But
you' ll never sce them in the food
stores of Bucharest. They are all
packed for ex port , leav ing only
bruised fruit behind.
The same with meat. Inside a
Bucharest store, we noticed about
two dozen va rieties of unappealing,
extremely fatty sausage, but no red
meat. That's for export only. Al–
though Romanian fi shermen ca tch
40 varieties of Black Sea fish, most
of the output neve r stays home.
Canned goods included fruits
from Communist China. These had
to be purchased to balance the
China account. (Meanwhile, hun–
dreds of tons of Romanian peaches
a re sold elsewhere.) Locally pro–
duced canned items had quite a few
Jabels slapped on crookcdly, sorne
even upside down. Wincs looked to
be of a utilitarian nature. Thc best
sLUff is aga in sold abroad.
The current five-year plan doesn't
hold out any more promising pros–
pccts for the man on the street ei–
ther. Little wonder one Romanian
businessman remarked (privately, of
course): "We're all geuing a little
tired of continuous ly bcing told to
work for th e next gene ra tion."
"Sonnenfeldt Doctrine"
For the past few months, however.
Romanía's leaders - and those in
The
PLAIN TRUTH
June
1976
Yugos lav ia as well - have been
much more concerned abou t
this
ge neration. And uppermost in their
co ncerns are hints of wha t they con–
sider
10
be a significan! policy rever–
sal by Washington toward the whole
of Eastern Europe.
Their fears surround the revela–
tion of a secret briefing held in Lon–
don in December for American
ambassadors by a top state depart–
ment official, Helmut Sonnenfeldt.
M
r.
Sonnenfeldt said that the
Uni ted States should encou rage an
"organi c" relationship between Rus–
sia and th e East Europea ns.
The clear implication was that
closer tics between Moscow and her
client sta tes would prevent any fu–
ture uprisings in the bloc, which
could produce such constcrnation
and irrational behavior in Moscow
that
a
major East-West blowup
leading to World War
111
cou ld oc–
cur.
His choice of the word "organic"
was an unfortunate one , So n–
nenfeldt has since admitted. He
mcant to say, he said, somcthing
likc a "more tolerant," "more com–
plicated" rcla tionship tha t would
a llow thc Eastern Europeans more
latitude for their national aspira–
tions .
evcnheless. the very idea that
the United States seems to be goi ng
way beyond the "spirit of Helsinki"
in recognizing the Soviet Union's
"natu ral role" in Eastern Eu rope
has ange red the two most indepen–
dently mindcd East Eu ropean
states, Yugoslavia and Romanía.
The Communist Party newspaper
Borba
of Yugoslavia hinted strongly
on April 14 that relations with the
United States could be endangered
if Washington did not respect Bel–
grade's "independent and nona–
lign ed policy."
The Romanian Communist Pa rty
newspaper
Scinteia
addcd the same
day:
" lt
can be assessed that the
Sonnenfeldt Doctrine, by its whole
essence. is a doctrine of denyi ng th e
peoples' right to independence. free
development. a doctrine of domina–
tion and oppression .. . a doctrine of
dividing the world into zones of in–
fluence among th e big powers."
l f the "Sonnenfeldt Doctrine" in–
deed represents new U.S. policy
toward Ea tern Europc. it is cer–
tainly not based upon . trength. but
upon acquiescence lo the Soviet
Union. Wa shington, which now
seems to fi nd the cases of Yugo–
slavia and Romania "uncom fort–
able" in tls biggcr détentc dealings
with the Soviets. wiU only do itself
harm in the long run if it turns its
back on thcsc two peoples.
(To be continued)
15