[From the Chicago Tribune, Apr. 5, 1975

FORGIVE THEM THEIR HELPLESSNESS

Thirty-five years ago the independence of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia was crushed under the wheels of advancing Soviet tanks. What causes had these little countries given the Soviet giant to ravage them? Only these: They were tiny, they were there, they were coveted by Stalin.

But the independence which was crushed never quite died. It lived on-in fact, flourished in the memories and dreams of hundreds of thousands of people inside and outside those torn lands. And it lived in the fact that the United States never recognized the Soviet seizure.

Our government had almost forgotten this until someone rediscovered the situation and decided it would be a lovely déntente "gift" to Moscow to recognize its claims that these freedom-loving lands had become Soviet "republics."

Our columnist Bill Anderson recently disclosed that this wretched proposal was being made to President Ford, and Washington has not been the same since. From a rolling avalanche of outraged telephone calls, telegrams, and letters, the State Department learned a lesson it perhaps had forgotten or had never known: A nation's independence does not die under the wheels of tanks. It lives so long as freedom remains a burning hope in the hearts of its people.

The Baltic people in the United States cling tightly to that hope.

So, Rep. Edward J. Derwinski of Illinois, a long time friend of oppressed peoples, has called for an inquiry into the proposed sellout and has been joined by 50 colleagues in a resolution to make it the sense of Congress that we continue to recognize these tiny countries' claim to be free.

We hope Mr. Derwinski's efforts succeed. Even in this toughened age of power politics, little countries should be forgiven the "sin" of helplessness.

[From the Chicago Tribune, Mar. 18, 1975]

NEW STRESS OVER THE BALTIC LANDS
(By Bill Anderson)

WASHINGTON-Americans from the Baltic states have found a true, warmblooded friend in President Ford, but only ice water in the case of Henry Kissinger, secretary of state.

As a result of Kissinger's cold-hearted approach and Ford's compassion, several behind-the-scenes maneuvers have been stirring official Washington. At times this situation has pitted the Ford staff against the Kissinger loyalists.

In the days of President Nixon, the Kissinger staff won more often than it lost. Now the President's long-time interest in the plight of Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia has brought at least one dramatic change.

This switch came in the case of Simas Kudirka, the Lithuanian sailor who was beaten and dragged from a United States Coast Guard cutter by Russians in 1970. Kudirka had fled from a Soviet trawler to seek asylum in the United States.

But after being grabbed out of American hands off the New England coast, the 44-year-old sailor was consigned to 10 years in a Siberian concentration camp. State Department protests in the wake of the incident fell on deaf Soviet ears.

President Nixon also failed, in Moscow visits, in efforts to help Kudirka even tho he was armed with petitions bearing the protests of thousands of Americans, most of them from the Midwest. Congressional interest prodded bureaucrats into finding a birth certificate showing that Kudirka's mother was born in Brooklyn. Still, the Russians kept Kudirka in the concentration camp, even tho he could claim U.S. citizenship by choice.

When Ford became President, we have learned, Kudirka's case was immediately brought to the attention of Soviet Communist Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev. The essence of their conversation was this:

Ford-Your good faith in our future talks could be demonstrated with the return to the United States of Kudirka.

Brezhnev-O.K., we'll give him back, but we don't want a lot of boasting and publicity that we have caved in.

Ford privately demonstrated his own good faith by squashing an attempt of Sen. Jacob Javits [R., N.Y.] to use Kudirka as a favorable election tool last year. Javits wanted to claim credit for the release to help his sagging re-election bid,

but other Republicans helped Ford take the sailor out of the New York publicity limelight.

Kudirka is now blending into the American landscape, but the Baltic question reemerged Feb. 27 when Ford saw nine freedom proponents at the White House. We outlined some of the opposition to the visit by the National Security Council, chaired by Kissinger, in a column last Saturday.

Newer developments are that in addition to muzzling the Voice of America from reporting on the visit, the NSC staff even went so far as to try and censor pictures. Photos of a smiling Ford with the Baltic proponents were marked"Not to be used in publications."

The council also tried to have Rep. Edward J. Derwinski (R., Ill.) reprimanded by the White House Congressional Liaison Office for inviting the ethnic group in to see the President.

The NSC charged Derwinski with "meddling" in foreign affairs, even tho he is the second ranking House Republican in that area and far more experienced than most White House bureaucrats. Like Ford, he has been a leader in the Baltic cause for years.

One State Department source observed that any hope of Russia giving up the Baltic states is about as realistic as "the South rising again." Tho this is a practical assessment, Americans of Baltic ancestry nevertheless don't want the United States to change its policy of "nonrecognition" of the Russian takeover.

We discovered that so much emphasis has been placed on "détente" with Russia that an expert in the diplomatic service had to go to dusty books to confirm that the United States still recognizes Baltic "delegations" here. If Kissinger has his way even this dim candle will be snuffed out by the year's end.

MIDDLE VILLAGE, N. Y., April 27, 1975.

THE EUROPEAN SECURITY CONFERENCE-FATAL TO THE BALTIC STATES

(Editorial Commentary)

The recent official reaffirmation of U.S. support for the self-determination of the Baltic States on the surface would appear to be all well and good. In our opinion, however, if the U.S. signs the declaration of "frontier inviolability" at the European Security Conference, this affirmation of non-recognition of the forcible annexation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, is not worth the paper it is written on. Stipulations from the Western delegations of "peaceful border changes", "self-determination" and respect for "human rights" are nothing but a play with words geared to pacify those who may object to this Yalta-type sell-out. In reality they will be signing away human rights and national aspirations-in short, washing their hands of the whole matter of Soviet occupied territories.

In practice the principle of "frontier inviolability" will be solely interpreted by the Soviet Union, publicizing final victory over its fruits of aggression. Western interpretation will be virtually non-existent. Of what value are such moralistic clauses as "self-determination" and "human rights", when they are beyond enforcement. Let us have no illusions that these principles will receive serious consideration from those who are violating them on a daily basis. The Baltic States self-determined their fate 57 years ago. Are they being allowed to pursue it? Definitely not. The people in the Baltic area have been quite vociferous about violations of human rights. Is anything being done to alleviate their plight? Certainly not. As for the clause referring to "peaceful border changes"—who gave the West the right to set a statute of limitations on self-determination and in this case applying to territories forcibly annexed.

No one expects the Western Allies to begin a war of liberation of Soviet occupied territories. That is beyond the realm of reality. There is, however, no need to put a stamp of approval on Soviet imperialism and declare them the victors of World War II. "Lithuanian World Review Radio" agrees with recent opinion expressed in "The New York Times", the "Daily News" and other newspapers across the country, that under these circumstances the United States should not participate in the Conference on European Security and Cooperation. In our opinion this Conference does not serve the interests of the United States nor the Western World.

LITHUANIAN WORLD REVIEW RADIO, N.Y.,
English Language Portion.

ARTICLE FROM THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR ENTITLED "YEARS OF WORK INVOLVED IN TRYING TO STABILIZE DÉTENTE IN EUROPE: DECISION POINT NEAR ON 35-NATION SUMMIT TALK" DATED APRIL 30, 1975

(By Eric Bourne, Special correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor, Vienna) A few more weeks should show whether or not there is to be an all-European summit meeting together with the United States and Canada in Helsinki by the end of July.

The Finns need a month to make the necessary arrangements for a 35-nation conference which will attract not only heads of state, but also a thousand diplomats and officials and probably several hundred journalists.

Just a few weeks remain, therefore, to finish work on a document on European security and cooperation which the leaders will debate and endorse. Work on the document has been going on in Geneva for 21⁄2 years.

Both Western and East-bloc diplomats are cautiously forecasting that the remaining snags some military, others related to East-West exchanges-will be overcome in time.

The agenda's three main areas of discussion--called “baskets”—are in varying stages of completion.

The first, on security itself, has been boiled down to 10 principles of more or less general acceptance, subject to a few final word changes.

Basket one was the Soviet Unions cbvious concern, because it will in effect give formal international sanction to Europe's frontiers as drawn by the wartime Western-Soviet alliance at Yalta and Potsdam.

Here, the Soviets have secured essentially what they set out to get. The final argument now is over so-called “confidence-building" provisions in the military field. On these, the Soviets have made one concession, accepting-after long deadlock-the West's proposal for mutual advance notice of troop movements and exercises.

They stipulate, however, that this advance notice should be voluntary and not obligatory. Debate continues over precisely what "voluntarism" means. But both sides say an agreed formula will be found. The Soviets, meanwhile, surprised everyone by coming up with an unprecedented notification of some pending military exercise in Eastern Europe.

The second basket concerns economic and related forms of international cooperation, which, in the period and mood of détente, presented few substantial difficulties.

The third basket has been easily the most strongly disputed section of the draft document. The hope in the West is that it will outline some relaxation of barriers to contact and exchange between peoples. The West proposed this as a primary condition for a European conference.

The acceptance of the U.S.S.R.'s stand on the territorial status quo in Europe seems assured. It remains to be seen just how much, nonetheless, the West will receive in return in the way of freer movement of peoples and ideas between the communist and Western worlds.

It clearly will not be much immediately. But, "some small points"-say Western diplomats have been gained, though they are but quasi-commitments to no more than normal humanitarian considerations. They cover such things as reuniting divided families (including property rights), family visits (concerning mostly the two Germanys) and East-West marriages.

Modest as these "gains" are, however, they have some significance. It is the first time the East bloc has been willing even to discuss such ordinary human affairs at this negotiation level and, moreover, to agree to put something in writing. Some relaxation also is possible regarding circulation of non-communist Western newspapers and periodicals in the communist countries. In the later stages of negotiation there was a noticeable abatement of the frenzied East-bloc propaganda about "subversion" by newspapers and other carriers of ideas.

But it will be a long time yet before newsstands in Moscow or on Prague's Wenceslas Square exhibit Western media for sale the way Pravda and other communist periodicals are available daily in Western European capitals.

A Western diplomat associated with the negotiations from the start says: "It is much less than we hoped for. But it is something, and small beginnings have a chance of becoming meaningful. As with other East-West negotiations now in process, It is largely a question of confidence."

That is a widely held Western view. In the East, there seems little concernexcept among the dogmatists-that East-West romances or letting a few ordinary East Europeans and Soviets read Western newspapers are going to undermine the status quo.

LETTER FROM HEINO EDERMA, PRESIDENT, THE BALTIMORE ESTONIAN SOCIETY, INC., TO HON. DANTE B. FASCELL, DATED MAY 6, 1975

Re Subcommittee hearing, 10 a.m., May 6, 1975, on status of Baltic States at CSCE.

Hon. DANTE FASCELL,

Chairman, Subcommittee on International Political and Military Affairs, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

The Baltimore Estonian Society, Inc. submits the following:

Article 3 of the Atlantic Charter, now an integral part of the UN Charter, declares that no territorial changes should occur that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the people concerned.

The Baltic people have never agreed to the illegal annexation of their countries by the Soviet Union, as clearly stated in the latest memorandum, sent by two underground organizations from Tallinn, Estonia, on December 23, 1974, to the UNO.

It is our understanding, that at the European Security Conference, the United States has tentatively agreed to the principle of the inviolability of borders. Does this apply to the expanded Soviet borders which incorporate the Baltic States into the Soviet Union?

If this is the case, it would be interpreted as granting the Soviet Union title to these territories and, thereby, to the fruits of their aggression. Since the United States has never recognized the illegal annexation of the Baltic States by the Soviet Union, it is important that a stipulation be added to the text of the agreement which states that the Baltic States are not considered to be a part of the Soviet Union.

We, therefore, request that this committee pass the Baltic Resolution before it, with a favorable recommendation, to the floor of the House for a vote, so that it can become the sense of Congress that the United States delegation to the European Security Conference not agree to recognize the Soviet annexation of the Baltic States, in any way, no matter how ambiguous the wording.

We would also like to point out that nine of the ten principles, tentatively agreed upon by the participants of the European Security Conference, have already been violated by the Soviet Union, in the case of the Baltic States.

HEINO EDERMA, President.