countries in criticizing the Chinese position. Just today there is a meeting in Moscow of the European Communist Parties and Mongolia. We don't know what will come out of this. It probably has something to do with the Chinese problem.

It is the first time that the Soviets have been able to get all these people together in Moscow. I think they may feel that their own position is somewhat stronger and that they are more flexible and able to deal on a better basis with the West.

Mr. MONAGAN. I just made a list of items here that came to my mind. Of course, it is not only the expansion of the trade list that is involved, but we are talking about consulates, we are talking about air service, the FIAT plant comes in there, and then, of course, the most-favorednation legislation. Now as soon as this statement is made by the President, then Brezhnev comes out and says he is laboring under a delusion. Do you say that such a statement is for general consumption in the Communist world and China? Do you have reason to believe that isn't the case as far as the basic feelings of the Russians are concerned?

Mr. STOESSEL. I think his statement was probably what might have been expected. He did say in that same statement that in principle they also favored mutually beneficial relations with the United States, but Vietnam still stood in the way.

I think under the circumstances this is what you could have expected him to say. In fact, they are proceeding in certain areas, as we know. They are going to sign the air agreement with us. It looks promising, I think, on the outer space treaty. There are a number of concrete actions which I think they are prepared to take, although they have to take this sort of general propaganda line in their speeches.

Mr. MONAGAN. Would you say that the air service, as one example, is more favorable to them than it is to us?

Mr. STOESSEL. No; I wouldn't. We think it is in our interest to do it. They must see some advantage obviously in doing it.

Mr. MONAGAN. Their advantage is obvious to me: I would say that the tourism and the hard currency coming in would be a great advantage to them and I don't see any real advantage to us in having a Russian airline coming into New York.

Mr. STOESSEL. We look at it, I think, more in the general sense, in keeping with this whole policy of bridge building, and trying to open up Soviet society a little more. This is another window. We would like to see tourism increased. We would like to see more Americans going there. We would like to see more Soviets coming here. Because we feel the more Soviets that see our country the better.

Mr. MONAGAN. I would agree with the latter particularly.

Mr. STOESSEL. They have always said that foreign exchange was a bar to this. Now with their own airplanes coming, they should be able to send more tourists here.

Mr. MONAGAN. This change of attitude doesn't constitute any basic change on the part of the Soviets in their policy toward us, does it? Mr. STOESSEL. It is not a basic change, no.

Mr. MONAGAN. We have had trouble with the cultural exchange program recently. They wouldn't let "Hello, Dolly" come in. In the middle of this situation we have had the Czechs trying to bug George Ball's office down in the State Department. We had the Mott case

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which was a terribly tragic thing, and one that apparently they could have controlled much better than they did.

Those are the apparent inconsistencies that concern us. We wonder what is the consideration in view of this continuing hard line that leads us to take the steps that we are apparently going to take.

This will be important, I might say, not only now but next year. and when we are asked to consider legislation.

Mr. STOESSEL. These things are obviously very complicated. There are various strands in all of these situations. Certainly we don't fee! there has been any fundamental change in the Soviet Union, its hostile attitude or its police state system.

On the other hand, we see forces in the Soviet Union which are anxious to change this. There are evolutionary processes going on which we would like to encourage. At the same time that we are doing this, you are going to get things on the other side, as you have mentioned, which reflect the more disagreeable aspects. We think it is to our interest and in general to the interest of world stability and peace to encourage these good trends in the Soviet Union and in the East European countries. That is what we are trying to do.

Mr. MONAGAN. I know that you speak with great authority and that you are one of our outstanding diplomats, that you have had extensive experience in the Soviet Union, so that I would give a great deal of weight to what you say.

You did make one statement that did seem to me to be inconsistent. and perhaps you can point out to me where I am wrong. You said that the strengthening of NATO was a consideration which led to taking these steps. It would seem to me that the contrary would be true; that is, the basis for NATO was resistance to Communist aggres sion in Europe.

It seems to me this is the contrary, that we are encouraging develop ments almost the way De Gaulle has done with the Soviet Union, which I don't mean to indicate is an unworthy objective, but it does seem to me to be inconsistent with the other objectives of strengthening NATO and might lead other allies to feel that we had changed our minds about the need for NATO and were having second thoughts about its purpose.

Certainly one of the prime objectives of the U.S.S.R. is to weaken NATO. You see the difficulty that I have had?

Mr. STOESSEL. Certainly I do. I appreciate it. I would say that while NATO fundamentally, of course, was established to defend against Communist aggression, it always had the idea of making pos sible at some future date a settlement of the outstanding differences with the Communist world. This was always implicit in NATO.

Secondly, I would say that we feel that the best way to accomplish the changes we would like to see in the Soviet Union and Eastern Eurone is to make sure that we are strong ourselves in the West, and that the nations stand together and take a common stand on these things, that if we are fragmented, if we go off in different directions, this could encourage just those elements in the Soviet Union which we don't want to encourage, and that the progress which we have made, and we feel there has been progress in encouraging these evolu

tionary developments, has come about just because NATO has been strong. There has been in the past, and we hope in the future, a unity in the West.

I think there is the difference between our attitude and De Gaulle. I think De Gaulle feels there is no longer a need for unity

Mr. MONAGAN. I was going to ask that question next.

Mr. STOESSEL. He would fragment the whole thing. We think this is the wrong way to proceed.

Mr. MONAGAN. Does this weaken the determination of our partners in NATO other than De Gaulle? We are going to have some real problems in the immediate future in the transfer of the NATO infrastructure and headquarters; but by agreement, and in theory at least, there is a certain percentage of contribution that is to be made by each of the NATO countries. We haven't always in the past required that sharing.

I just wonder if something like this would make them less determined to put up their proportionate share of these capital expenses. Mr. STOESSEL. I think there is good agreement in NATO on this policy and the consultations we have had with them have been very satisfactory. This, I think, came out at the Brussels meeting that I

referred to earlier.

There is agreement that NATO should be kept strong and at the same time that more emphasis should be given to this other aspect of trying to make a settlement of these outstanding differences between the East and West, and that this too was a reasonable and justifiable aim of NATO. I think they are together on that.

Mrs. KELLY. Could I inject a question at this point?

We have trouble in NATO, and it is pretty deep at the moment. Mr. Monagan asked if these recent actions of our Government will strengthen or weaken our position in that Organization.

Now the President's speech, as I read it, referred several times to the policy of consultation within NATO. Yet our recent actions seem to be based on our unilateral decisions. Aren't we jumping ahead of NATO by making these overtures to the East in the field of credits and trade?

Mr. STOESSEL. Madam Chairman, I would think it is not really so, that most of the other countries of NATO are really ahead of us in this field.

Mrs. KELLY. Is something happening within NATO to cause us to make this substantial shift in our policy at this time? Do we feel that 7 we have been left behind-and that unless we take some significant actions, the Organization is going to fall apart? Certainly our Government's recent actions do not strike me as a continuation of our past policy. In my view, they represent a change.

As far as the administration is concerned, there is something that has caused these actions to be taken at this time. I am trying to find out what it is. There must be a good reason for the timing of the President's announcements-but we seem unable to find out from you gentlemen what it is.

Mr. MONAGAN. You are saying what I was saying when you were

away.

Mr. STOESSEL. I think there is a feeling throughout the NATO coun tries that exclusive emphasis on the military aspect of NATOMrs. KELLY. By us?

Mr. STOESSEL. By anybody, by NATO as an organization.

Mrs. KELLY. There is some other reason why we have done this.

Mr. MONAGAN. I think Mr. Stoessel related it also to the Russian preoccupation with China and events in southeast Asia, probably while you were away from the room.

Mrs. KELLY. I would find it hard to believe it.

Mr. STOESSEL. I think we feel, our allies feel that things are moving in Eastern Europe. They are moving in the Soviet Union. They have been for a number of years. That it would be an incorrect policy, it would not be in our interest to continue to emphasize only the military aspects of NATO, that now is the time to take advantage of some of these other things that are developing in Eastern Europe. All of the countries feel that way.

Mr. MONAGAN. What is there that leads you to that conclusion? That is what we are trying to find out.

Mrs. KELLY. If you want to say to us at this point that there are things going on, that there is something going on there that you can't talk about this morning, I will accept your statement. But I want you to level with me.

If there is nothing going on, then I can't see what you are doing it for at this time. I can't see why we should be taking these initiatives right at this time.

Mr. STOESSEL. I hate to keep reiterating this, but I think this is not a basic change in our policy. This East-West trade legislation was under consideration in the executive branch last year, was sent up to the Congress in the spring of this year

Mrs. KELLY. You are talking about reciprocal trade—————

Mr. STOESSEL. The most-favored-nation treatment.

Mrs. KELLY. The President doesn't need that for what you are doing right now. He doesn't need the action of the Congress for what you have done with our export control lists, with Export-Import Bank policy, and so on.

Mr. STOESSEL. I was just trying to point out the things that the President has listed here, most of them are not new in their essence or concept. They have been things that we have been working on for some time.

There is, I think, a feeling shared by most observers that there is a certain ferment, there are things moving in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union.

Their trade is going up. There is more interest in a consumeroriented economy. We feel, our allies feel, that it is time to take advantage of this.

Mrs. KELLY. By this action are you proposing to do anything with the Trading With the Enemy Act?

Mr. GREENWALD. It doesn't affect the Trading With the Enemy Act, or trading with Communist China.

Mrs. KELLY. I have one further question to ask of you: Why weren't the Soviets invited to submit a proposal for an examination of moon

particles when we obtain them? We have offered this to other countries. Why did we ask 50 other countries to submit proposals on how they would analyze these particles and what they would do with their findings? Why wasn't the Soviet Union invited to participate in that program if we are trying to "build bridges" to the East?

Mr. STOESSEL. I am afraid I can't answer that, Madam Chairman. I am not familiar

Mrs. KELLY. Is anyone here familiar with that subject?

Mr. GREENWALD. I don't think so.

Mr. STOESSEL. We have shared a great deal of information about our explorations of the moon.

Mrs. KELLY. Are you aware of the fact that we have offered other nations this moon dust-and that Russia was left out?

Mr. STOESSEL. I am not aware of that.

Mr. MCNEILL. Could it be, Madam Chairman, that the Soviets have their own moon dust?

Mrs. KELLY. I don't know.

Mr. MCNEILL. If they have their own

Mrs. KELLY. Nobody has it yet, I believe.

Mr. STOESSEL. We have exchanged with the Soviets the pictures on the moon, the pictures our satellites have made, and theirs. We have made a number of offers of space cooperation.

Mr. MCNEILL. Can I come back to the essential question you have been asking? As I understand your questioning, it implies that the East-West trade portions of this speech are a derivative from the first portion of the speech, and the two are interrelated. I think what you are saying is, do you understand the President's speech to say in very substantial part that in order to strengthen NATO, that is the first part of the speech, you must have improved East-West trade relations? Is that essentially the question in your mind? I think the Presidential speech was in three parts. The total speech is directed at Europe, which geographically covers both East and West. The President segmented the speech into three parts. He said we need a strong and viable NATO both for security reasons, and further that we should attempt to use NATO for exchanges of views on a variety of matters, including East-West trade.

He went on to talk about the need for strengthening the European economic communities, and then addressed himself to the division of Europe and said, in this respect, that it would be helpful if we had better relations between the East and the West.

In reading the President's speech myself I do not see a causal relationship between the third and first part, which I think is the question you are asking.

Mr. MONAGAN. Mr. Stoessel is the one who said that. That is why I was asking the question. He related it to NATO. It wasn't the President's speech that was in my mind

Mr. MCNEILL. I think the President is saying there are three basic European problems.

Mrs. KELLY. He stressed in two or more places that NATO was the place for working out common policy.