Word: haig
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When Secretary of State Alexander Haig and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko last met, recalls one senior American official, "There was no name calling, and not a lot of rhetoric." But that was in September, and there was also no crackdown in Poland. Since then, U.S.-Soviet tensions have escalated into sanctions. Nonetheless, to the relief of European allies and the discontent of many American conservatives, Haig and Gromyko will meet again this week, in Geneva. "It's going to be a pretty frosty atmosphere," says a Haig assistant. Even so, notes William Hyland, once a policy aide...
...decision to go ahead with the long-scheduled talk, at a time when President Reagan has characterized the situation in Poland as "deteriorating," has highlighted sharply contradictory views about what U.S. foreign policy should be. The White House position, as propounded by Haig, is that "in time of crisis, communication between governments is more, rather than less important." But critics are arguing that the Administration does not grasp the need to back up denunciations of Soviet pressure on Poland with clear, telling actions. In this view, the very decision to talk gives the Soviets a propaganda coup. Concedes one State...
Indeed, the Soviets are eager to have the meeting demonstrate that the crisis over Poland has passed. In a conciliatory speech, Premier Nikolai Tikhonov said last week, "The Soviet Union is not seeking confrontation. We are doing everything we can to direct the course of events into constructive dialogue." Haig, mindful of appearing soft on the issue of Polish repression, de-emphasized the talks by saying he would attend only one day of meetings, not the planned two. He also told aides that he would deflect questions of a summit meeting soon between Reagan and Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev...
...concept of linkage, the idea that all the major problems in Soviet-American relations are connected. Intolerable Soviet behavior in one area, by this reckoning, must affect U.S. cooperation elsewhere. The Reagan Administration adopted this policy a year ago, but seemed to be edging away from it. Haig now plans to bring up items like the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and warn that the course of events in Poland will affect START negotiations. Said a State Department spokesman: "The Secretary has emphasized that the continuing repression of the Polish people, in which Soviet responsibility is clear, obviously constitutes a major...
...Haig decided to go ahead with the meeting in part because the NATO allies favor a steady East-West dialogue. Western Europe in particular sees the encounter as helpful to the Geneva-based U.S.-Soviet talks on limiting medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe. U.S. participation in those talks on Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) has been the allies' quid pro quo for allowing the installation of new U.S. missiles in Europe...