For the Communist leaders of Eastern Europe, the conciliatory Ostpolitik of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt is laden with peril as well as promise. Brandt's offer of closer ties promises to bring Eastern European nations considerable economic benefits. But conciliation withBonn has already robbed the Communist regimes of the propaganda argument among their own people: that only Communism and Soviet power offer protectionfrom "revenge-seeking" West Germans. Relaxation of East-West tensions might also expose Eastern Europeans to Western influences that could make them far more dissatisfied with their own rigid social and political...
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