Disarming Threat to Stability

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Soviet diplomat in Copenhagen was expelled by the Danish government after reportedly being caught passing money to peace organizations. But there is no concrete evidence that Moscow has been funding pacifist groups on a large scale, although the Soviets have been engaged in covert activity for so long that they rarely leave traces. Western Europe's well-organized Communists, however, have given organizational and financial support to pacifists. In France and Italy, the main organizations are virtual subsidiaries of powerful Communist parties. In West Germany, the extraordinary discipline of the Oct. 10 protest in Bonn was in good measure due to the work of the parade's marshals, many of whom were members of the country's tiny Communist Party.

The Dutch Inter-Church Peace Council's early advocacy of unilateral disarmament made it a tempting target for the Dutch Communist Party, which tried covertly to infiltrate local chapters. But in 1978, after delegates from Moscow were dispatched to lead a youth march in Amsterdam against the neutron bomb, the Council rebelled. Since then, the church-sponsored group has deliberately held itself aloof from the Communists, although some cooperation does still exist on the local level. This year the Dutch intelligence agency declared the Council to be free of Communist penetration, and Interior Minister Ed van Thijn told the Dutch parliament that there was "not even a scrap of evidence" for allegations that the council was taking money from the KGB, the Soviet intelligence agency.

Without spending a ruble, the Soviets, who have been slow to react in the past to propaganda opportunities, have swiftly and adroitly exploited the European antimissile movement. Seizing upon a series of unfortunate slips of the tongue on the part of the President and other top U.S. Administration officials, Soviet President Brezhnev has, in speeches, interviews and conversations with visiting statesmen, portrayed President Reagan as a warmonger intent on destabilizing the global military balance by trying to achieve nuclear superiority. After a visit to the Kremlin, Michael Foot, leader of Britain's Labor Party, which favors unilateral nuclear disarmament, reported that "the Soviet Union is sincere in wanting peace and meaningful arms negotiations." Willy Brandt, the former Chancellor of West Germany, declared after meeting with Brezhnev that the Soviet leader "trembled for world peace."

Small wonder, then, that so many young people of Europe are beguiled by Soviet soft-sell and turned off by the militant talk of the U.S. An official at the Dutch Foreign Ministry, referring to what he calls the "successor generation," notes that its members "did not experience war in any form. They take peace as the natural order of things. They resent any sacrifice to maintain peace. They are ignorant of the situation in Communist countries. They don't go there and they don't want to know. They believe that all superpowers are alike." Says Felipe Gonzalez, the leader of Spain's Socialists: "The youth of Europe did not live through the experience of having the U.S. as a liberator. They are in a debate that began with the Viet Nam War. I think that the U.S. is not sensitive to this change of opinion, one which forgets the role of liberator, the Marshall Plan and so forth."