The World: Harriman: A Veteran’s View

For more than three decades, Veteran Negotiator W. Averell Harriman, 82, has helped shape U.S. foreign policy. Among his varied duties, the roving diplomat has served as administrator of the Marshall Plan in Paris, chief negotiator of the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty and Ambassador to Moscow. Always a blunt and clear-eyed evaluator of Soviet intentions, Harriman recently returned to Moscow for a three-hour private discussion with Leonid Brezhnev in the Kremlin. In an interview last week with TIME Correspondent Strobe Talbott, he discussed the state of U.S.-Soviet relations:

ON DÉTENTE. I’m a strong believer in détente and certainly believe Nixon should go ahead with his visit to Moscow. We should support the President in his arms-control negotiations. Most Americans, I think, are ready to back him on that issue.

ON BREZHNEV’S MOOD TOWARD DÉTENTE. I was most impressed when Brezhnev told me, “The steps we take now must be irreversible.” He thinks he and Nixon must deal with arms control directly; it shouldn’t be left to technical experts. The time has come for tough trading at the highest level.

ON WATERGATE AND THE SUMMIT.

Watergate is not really understood in Western Europe, let alone in Russia. As far as Brezhnev is concerned, Nixon is President and therefore someone to be dealt with respectfully and seriously.

One Soviet official told me, “Well, Watergate just proves that it’s impossible for a government to operate with a free press.” I am not afraid of sellouts or giveaways.

ON NIXON’S CONTRIBUTION TO DÉTENTE. Frankly, it bores me very much to hear Nixon say he ended the era of confrontation and started an era of détente. That’s an insult to Eisenhower, who deserves much of the credit for the Austrian State Treaty of 1955, and to Kennedy, who brought about the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963. Besides, Nixon didn’t even begin the present round of détente; Willy Brandt did with his Ostpolitik in 1969.

ON JEWISH EMIGRATION. I think the Jackson amendment, as a threat in the offing, has done a great deal of good in increasing the flow of Jews. But if it should become law, it would be counterproductive. The Soviets would pull in their belt [and do without Western technology and capital] before they’d let us tamper with their system.

ON SOVIET-AMERICAN TRADE. It’s terribly important that the Russians be self-sufficient in food. We’ve got an enormous interest in seeing that they not compete with developing nations for grain. It’s in our interests to provide our machinery so that they can take advantage of their natural gas and hydroelectric power. In exchange for energy, we can get aluminum.