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Reagan took pains to cool his rhetoric toward the U.S.S.R., despite continuing provocation from Moscow. Soviet President Konstantin Chernenko stepped up the war of words with the U.S., telling young Soviet servicemen at a Kremlin ceremony that they had to be prepared to deal with "political forces that are deaf to good will and the arguments of reason." The Kremlin even launched a campaign to discredit the Normandy invasion, outrageously contending that it had been botched, while the war was actually won on the Eastern front. Pravda accused Reagan personally of going to the anniversary ceremonies "to exploit the glory of the dead."
Reagan nonetheless voiced only gentle criticism of the Soviets last week. In a talk to U.S. Olympic athletes in Colorado, he derided the "political machinations of . . . countries that are less than free," but did not specifically mention the Soviet pullout from the Games. In the major speech of his European tour, which he was to deliver before the Irish parliament in Dublin on Monday, Reagan planned to stress a "two-track" approach to Moscow: military strength combined with willingness to resume negotiations on arms control and other issues whenever the U.S.S.R. is ready for serious discussions.
Foreign ministers of the 16 NATO countries, meeting last week in Washington and at Wye Plantation, an 18th century mansion on Maryland's Eastern Shore, heartily endorsed this approach. Some of the ministers who had recently visited Moscow ventured several explanations for Soviet surliness. They theorized that the U.S.S.R. is on the defensive because of such incidents as the shooting down of the Korean airliner last summer and the failure of the European peace movement to stop the deployment of U.S. missiles in Europe. The ministers speculated that the Kremlin is deliberately fanning anxiety in the hope of causing splits in NATO and that it is trying to influence the U.S. presidential election. There was little indication that the ministers blamed Washington for the icy state of superpower relations.
Indeed, if any nation came under pressure at the NATO meeting, it was The Netherlands. The Dutch government, skittish about public opinion, has waffled on accepting 48 U.S. cruise missiles as part of NATO's five-country deployment. Dutch officials last week sounded out their alliance partners about scaling back the missile quota. The response: sympathy, but no deal. At week's end the Dutch announced a decision that pleased neither the U.S. nor the peace movement: if the Soviets add even a single SS-20 missile to their present arsenal, The Netherlands will accept the full complement of cruises, but in 1986 and 1987, a year and a half behind schedule. The Dutch reserved the right to deploy fewer if there is some sort of superpower arms-control agreement before then, none if the Soviet missile force is reduced. NATO's retiring secretary-general Joseph Luns insisted that the Dutch disagreement would not affect the missile deployments elsewhere.