BREZHNEV PROPOSES "CODE OF CONDUCT" FOR BIG POWER BEHAVIOR IN THE THIRD WORLD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85-00024R000300390021-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 18, 2007
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: May 11, 1981
• Content Type: REPORT

R UTING AND RECORD SHEET _ C/1R~
SUBJECT: (Optional)
C/AG
Brezhnev d .C/PROD
Proposes "Code of Conduct" For Big Power Behavior In The Third Worl
FROM:
EXTENSION
NO.
C/ADMST
203 Eli
D FBIS DDS$T
Room 1013 Key Bldg.
DATE __A
EXEC. RST
12 May 1981
TO: (Officer designation, room number, and
DATE
building)
OFFICER'S
COMMENTS (Number each comment to show from whom
RECEIVED FORWARDED
INITIALS
-
to whom. Draw a line across column after each comment.)
DCI
Room 7E12 Has. -
Mr. Casey:.
2.. ,
The attached analysis of a
Soviet propaganda initiative was
3.
selected for your background
reading. We believe the proposal
enunciated by Brezhnev is signifi-
4
cant. The item is essentially
the same as the lead article in
our current issue of "Trends in
-
"
Communist
Media.
5.
6.
D/FBIS
7:
8.
9.
10.
? 1).
12.
13.
14.
15.
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SUBJECT: (Optional)
Brezhnev Proposes "Code of Conduct" For Big Power Behavior In The Third World
FRO
EXTENSION
NO. S
J
D FBIS DDS$T
DATE
S
Room 1013 Key Bldg.
12 May 1981
TO: (Officer designation, room number, and
building)
DATE
OFFICER'S
COMMENTS (Number each comment to show from whom
RECEIVED
FORWARDED
INITIALS
to whom. Draw a line across column after each comment.)
DDCI
Room 7E12 Hqs.
Admiral Inman, USN::
2.
The? attached analysis of a
Soviet propaganda initiative was
3
selected for your background
'
reading. We believe the proposal
enunciated by Brezhnev is signifi-
4
cant. ." The item is essentially
the same as the lead article in
our current issue of "Trends in
"
s
Communist Media.
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12.
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WING AND RECORD SHEET
SUBJECT: (Optional)
Brezhnev Proposes "Code of Conduct" For Big Power Behavior in The Third World
EXTENSION NO.
FROM:
D/FBIS/DDS
Room 1013 Key Bldg.
TO: (officer designation, room number, and DATE
building) k-.
DDS$T _
Room 6E45 H4s.
12 May 1981
-STAT
STAT
OFFICER'S COMMENTS (Number each comment to show from whom
INITIALS to whom. Draw a line across column after each comment.)
Les,.
Attached is a copy of an
analytical item that I have sent
to the DCI and DDCI for background
reading. the-article,. which
appears essentially in the same
form in the, Trends, discusses a
significant... ovetet `propaganda
initiative.'
STAT
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11 MWPZ981
BREZHNEV PROPOSES "CODE OF CONDUCT"
FOR BIG POWER BEHAVIOR IN THE THIRD WORLD
President Brezhnev has responded to Reagan Adminis-
tration censure of Soviet international behavior by
proposing a "code of conduct" to govern actions by
both big powers in the Third World. Brezhnev used
the occasion of a 27 April Kremlin dinner for
visiting Libyan leader al-Qadhdhafi to float the
proposal, which departs from Moscow's prior public
position that formal guidelines for big power
behavior in the Third World were unnecessary.
Brezhnev's proposal has all the earmarks of a
major Soviet propaganda initiative.
The proposal for a big power "code of conduct" appears to have a
dual purpose. On the one hand, extensive Soviet media publicity
for Brezhnev's remarks suggests that his proposal is intended as a
propaganda ploy to blunt U.S. criticism of Soviet behavior and
place Washington on the defensive. A specific goal may be to
influence the North-South summit meeting scheduled to be held in
Mexico. City in October. At the-same-time, Moscow may hope to use
the code-of-conduct proposal as the opening position in eventual
bilateral discussions with the Reagan Administration.
Brezhnev's initiative appears to reflect the views of Soviet
foreign policy specialists who have maintained that unregulated
U.S.-Soviet competition in the Third World has adversely affected
bilateral relations. A few days before Brezhnev's speech, an
influential Soviet journalist with close ties to the leadership
publicly suggested that "something like rules" might have to be
worked out in order to ease current tensions.
THE CODE OF CONDUCT Brezhnev's proposed "code of conduct" would
apply, he said, to the USSR, the United
States, and other permanent members of the UN Security Council. It
consists of five principles, some incorporating standard Soviet
phraseology in interstate treaties and others drawing on standard
themes in Soviet commentary on the Third World. The objective,
according to Brezhnev, would be to apply generally accepted interna-
tional norms to "the young states of Africa, Asia, and Latin America"
through agreement on "roughly" the following:
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11 MAY 1981
+ Noninterference in the domestic affairs of the Third World
countries and renunciation of "spheres of interests."
4- Respect for the territorial integrity of countries and
inviolability of their borders and renunciation of support for
"separatist movements."
4- Recognition of the right of the Third World countries to enjoy
"equal participation in international life" and to develop rela-
tions with any other country.
-F Recognition of each nation's sovereignty over its natural
resources and equality in international economic relations and
support for Third World efforts to eliminate colonialism, racism,
and apartheid.
+ Respect for nonalignment and renunciation of attempts to create
"military-political blocs" in the Third World.
MEDIA PUBLICITY Soviet mass media are treating Brezhnev's speech
as a major statement on U.S.-Soviet relations.
Commentaries on the speech in the party daily PRAVDA and the govern-
ment paper IZVESTIYA have held up the code-of-conduct proposal as
testimony to Moscow's support for Third World aspirations, while
accusing Washington of aggressive intentions in such regions as
Central America, the Persian Gulf, and southern Africa. Soviet radio
broadcasts to the Third World have replayed these commentaries.
THE. PRIOR SOVIET POSITION, Moscow until now has consistently dis-
missed the idea, raised increasingly
in the West since the mid-1970's, that peaceful coexistence between
East and West requires agreed "rules of the game" in the Third World
as well. Soviet officials, when they have addressed the issue at
all in recent years, have argued that existing international and
bilateral agreements are sufficient for regulating superpower behavior.
As recently as 22 April, Brezhnev's Politburo colleague Konstantin
Chernenko declared in the annual Lenin Day address that the Soviet
Union rejects "'a code of behavior that would throw mankind back into
a long-past age" of Western dominance of the Third World.
Addressing the notion of linkage on 28 March in a Moscow TV interna-
tional affairs program, Central Committee International Information
Department head Leonid Zamyatin labeled demands for rules of behavior
"arrogant." The USSR, Zamyatin said, has no obligation to "prove
that it can behave in a manner acceptable from the U.S. viewpoint."
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11 81
SOVIET PROPONENTS Brezhnev's decision to break with the traditional
OF A NEW APPROACH line may.have been influenced by some Soviet
foreign policy commentators who have publicly
expressed concern over the negative effects of unregulated Soviet-
American competition in the Third World. Such concern has been conveyed
by midlevel officials like USA and Canada Institute Director
Georgiy Arbatov. IZVESTIYA political observer Aleksandr Bovin has
been the most outspoken on the subject. In remarks made in Japan and
published in the Tokyo daily MAINICHI SHIMBUN on 22 April, just a few
days before Brezhnev's speech, Bovin stated that Moscow and Washington
"may have to work out something like rules", for competition in the
Third World and "devise means of promoting the easing of tension
between them." Bovin has a history of publicly espousing positions
that have diverged from the prevailing line in Soviet mass media
propaganda but have presaged shifts in official Soviet policy.
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