Amerikai Magyar Értesítő, 1982 (18. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1982-02-01 / 2. szám
10 A. M. E. 1982. február Army already occupied most of the liberated territory in Eastern Europe, and the Western powers priority enemies, Nazi Germany and imperial Japan, were not yet vanquished. The suspicion of dirty dealing at Yalta is reinforced by the goings-on at a prior meeting of Churchill and Stalin in Moscow. The two leaders scribbled down on a piece of paper who would get what —90 per cent Western influence in Greece, 90 per cent Soviet in Romania, 50-50 in Hungary and Yugoslavia, 75-25 for Stalin in Bulgaria. The myth of Yalta as the pillar of European stability also grew after the fact. In the early years after World War II, most European countries felt insecure enough about the Soviet Union to unite in a defense alliance against it—the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. U.S. policy, far from accepting a “your-half, our- half” compromise, dedicated itself to “rolling back,” and when this proved impossible, to “containing” communism in Europe. Containment has worked pretty well. Since NATO was founded, not an inch of European territory has fallen under Soviet sway, and not even a minor military skirmish has marred Europe’s generation of peace. That has been good enough for the Western allies. When possible opportunities to roll back communism have presented themselves—the periodic turbulence in Soviet satellite countries—the West 'always does nothing, or nearly nothing. The present allied squabbling about sanctions against Poland or the Soviet Union is a confession of powerlessnes. Nothing short of war will change the fact that Moscow calls the shots in its sphere of influence—and war is out of the question. How you feel about this hard truth determines whether you are an anti- Yalta person, bitter about it, or a pro- Yalta person, making the best of it. Two efforts to make the best of it were the Helsinki Conference and the “Sonnenfeldt doctrine.” Both sold out Eastern Europe all over again, in the sense that they recognized the bald reality that the Soviet Union is a superpower engaged in a bitter, long-term conflict with the capitalist world, and it therefore has a natural interest—not necessarily a right, but at least a natural interest—in protecting its flank with a cushion of non-threatening regimes. So, at Helsinki, the West recognized the map of Europe. It promised not to try to shift the borders or to interfere with the internal workings of the Soviet-bloc regimes. It accepted them. But as at Yalta, the West tried to get a better deal for the East European people. As the trade-off for acceptance, it insisted that the Soviet-bloc regimes sign a paper undertaking to respect fundamental human rights. Helmut Sonnenfeldt, a State Department adviser in the Nixon-Ford administrations, took the stability argument a step further. The gravest threat to peace in Europe, he said, was the failure of the Soviet Union and its satellites to get along with each other on any basis other than domination by Moscow. This failure, he argued, kept the smaller Eastern European countries in a state of chronic frustration. When frustration boiled over into a challenge to Soviet power, he said, it was a blow to Western security, too. Thus, he concluded, the West shares with Moscow an interest in the stability of the Soviet sphere of influence. Its policy should be to encourage the development of “organic relationships” between the Soviet Union and its satellites. The “Sonnenfeldt doctrine” caused a nine-day uproar in 1976. To those who believe that the West’s political duty is to witness for freedom and democratic institutions, the idea of helping Moscow foster “organic relationships” with its satellites was outrageous cynicism over the fate of 100 million Europeans. v In fact, however, Mr. Sonnenfeldt was saying no more than Mr. Schmidt and other pro-Yalta people are saying today when they counsel a cautious response to the Polish military takeover. Poland has demonstrated the truth of his major premise, that instability in the Soviet sphere created problems for the West as well. “Yalta”—in the meaning of the division of Europe into spheres of interest— may not be something that can be maintained by policy, however, any more than it was set up by conscious policies adopted at Yalta. The dissolution of Yalta may already have begun. Poland is the obvious current symptom of the weakness of the Soviet bloc. In the end the communist regime had no ariswer to the Polish workers—except guns. The Soviet system is too rigid or too insecure to accomodate to change. It can only reinforce its rigidity, which is what Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski has done. If the pressure builds enough, however, rigidity will turn out to be exactly the wrong strategy: The typhoon uproots the mighty oak, but spares the bending willow. Willows are not immune to termites, however, and neither is the Western alliance. The Yalta era is ending here, too, partly because the Soviet Union no longer looks to Western Europe like a likely invader, partly because the Western European countries, having regained their strength and self-confidence from the ravages of World War II, are less content to follow American leadership. The European peace movement is only one symptom. Others are the growing pressures for trade barriers and the general sense on both sides of the Atlantic that Europe and America no longer understand each other very well, and no longer agree on what to do about the world. In its own quiet way, what is happening in West Germany, which is experiencing a rebirth of nationalism— not the aggressive nationalism of Adolf Hitler, but a renewed belief in the ability of Germans to find their own way in the world—may be as important as the events in Poland. Neither superpower is any longer in full control of events within its own sphere of influence. And that makes spheres of influence—the idea encapsulated in the word “Yalta”—meaningless. Both Yalta myths have served us well for many years. Agreement on spheres of influence has kept the peace, but the nagging accusation of sell-out has been a constant reminder of the price of peace. The danger to the West in continuing to honor the myth of Yalta stability, however, is the same as the danger to the East. Change is coming, in East and West. If it is accomodated, change may come gently and be guided. If it is resisted, in the name of preserving 37 years of reasonably acceptable status quo, the coining change could be as violent and unpredictable as it is inevitable that one day the European Yalta structure will come tumbling down. THE SUN, Sunday, January 24,1982 Dr. Steven Kopits “The Best of Baltimore’s Best” is being cited for his pioneer work with the “little people”—those afflicted by 33 known dwarfing conditions—at the Hopkins and at Children’s Hospital. Born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1936, Dr. Kopits is the son and grandson of orthopedic surgeons. 9 The family escaped the Nazis and • made its way to Argentina where Steven went to medical school. He arrived in the United States with a surgical internship at Union Memorial Hospital in 1964 and an orthopedic residency at the Hopkins from 1965 to 1968”.
