European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 6, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes sunday april 6. 19-s-6 columns George will life in the soviet Union lacks sparkle sensuality to watch dusk descend on Moscow is to watch a City vanish. It is As though it sinks into the Sandy soil that limits High Rise construction in this horizontal capital. To see Moscow at night is to be struck by what you do not see and to Long for Neon the electronic exuberance that is free Dom s signature in the form of capitalism s crackling Energy. A wit. Seeing times Square for the first time said it must be Beautiful if you can t read. That is somewhat True of Moscow bedecked with red banners pro claiming slogans that Are punctuated by the obligatory exclamation Mark. It is a City where mass appetites Are not expressed and satisfied in the populist democracy of the marketplace. An american in Moscow can suffer an ailment diagnosable As pad Pointer Sisters deprivation. The absence of popular expression of the sensual Side of life is a telling facet of the soviet sys tem. In the West the social atmosphere May be overdosed with aphrodisiacs. However a sojourn in an anti sensual St society such As this underscores a theme of Orwell s "1984" eroticism is feared by a regime that feels threatened by any realm of privacy or Flicker of spontaneity the sensory deprivation Here is highlighted by exceptions to it such As a performance of the Bolshoi Ballet in the ornate theater which like almost All things pleasing to the Eye was built be fore 1917. A sumptuous performance of sleeping Beauty is attended by 2,500 of be tout Moscow and a few visitors. The performance seems All the More ethereal and Remote because it is such a stylized tantalizing glimpse of life lived beyond the Gray Walls of ideological categories. Sleeping Beauty an Echo of an earlier age was performed the evening of the Day the communist party Congress echoed with Gorbachev s thoughts on matters cultural. He denounced literature Art and scholarship in which under the Guise of nation Al originality attempts Are made to depict in idyllic tones reactionary nationalist and religious survivals contrary to our ideology the socialist Way of life and our scientific world  he said the people need Only a Litera Ture that is ideologically motivated and not showy verbosity on paper Petty dirty Linen washing time serving and utilitarian we  this is Gorbachev voice of the bold new generation expressing stalinist values with Khrushchev an crudity. The soviet Union is a third world country with first class missiles at the disposal of a regime with a mind that never even rises to the second rate. The morning of the Day Gorbachev spent de claiming about the glittering High tech future of the qualitatively new soviet experience a visitor sought breakfast in a lobby refreshment area in a hotel so grand by soviet standards that Only a few privileged soviet citizens Are Al Lowed in. Visitor i d like some buttered Toast. Waiter there is no Toast today. Visitor what do you have waiter cheese or Ham sandwiches. Visitor i la take a cheese Sandwich. Waiter the cheese is not fresh. Vladimir Bukovsky the exiled dissident says that soviet Public health problems High infant mortality Low birthrates below replacement rates among some nationalities including russian increasing birth defects indicate that the soviet crisis has gone beyond Mere disillusionment and apathy to biological exhaustion a fatigue of human  certainly the sul Lenness and rudeness that westerners living Here find so Wear ing reflects the grinding Down experience of going around with an empty bag jostling with others in the search for the necessities of life potatoes Here perhaps some meat Over there. And the inessential there Are hundreds of people out Side a store because it has received a shipment of wallpaper and who know when there will be More. The communist aristocracy is of course exempt from these Rigours. That aristocracy is another tradition. The vigor of a society can in the Short run be stimulated by revolutionary ardor or wartime discipline. But Over the Long haul social vigor is a function of fun in this sense people will be More energetic creative productive fecund when they Are enjoying themselves. A capacity for enjoyment is grounded in self esteem. That is difficult to develop in a society in which the individual is considered a Mere manifestation of this or that collective category worker peasant Vanguard. Individual at tributes and achievements Are made to seem trivial in comparison with ideological goals such As new soviet Man by which the collectivist society is lashed into discipline. The soviet regime too lacks self esteem. It aches for respect from the world. But it sends five Kab agents to confiscate the books of an 85-year-old woman. Perhaps three agents could have done the Job but the regime is proud of running a full employment society. C Washington Post Flora Lewis moratorium in t enough nut ear fest ban needed the prospects for a soviet american Summit this year have ebbed away largely because of Mikhail Gorba Chev s Over ambitious attempt to set conditions. The arms control negotiations in Geneva Aren t moving. And now the soviets Are preparing to resume nuclear tests because the United states rejects a moratorium. All this is a regression from the very modest Hopes inspired by the Geneva Summit last november. There is still no alternative to living on the same Earth with the soviet Union and no sign of anything being achieved to make that safer. The old reflex that has made nuclear weapons multiply like rabbits is still in command. More Effort is needed to turn the situation around. The Best Chance at this stage is to resume negotiations for a comprehensive test ban. Gorbachev has said that Moscow is ready to go much further than before to make sure aban can be verified. But we Don t really know what that Means because the United states makes no Effort to probe. The administration wants to conduct tests it does t want to risk facing a soviet offer that might be too Good to reject. The moratorium approach makes it easier to resist pressures that would limit the endless infernal generation of new nuclear arms. It is important to make a distinction Between the meaning of a test ban and a Mere declaration of willingness to suspend nuclear testing which does nothing to break the Cycle of weapons planning and development. The idea that a moratorium is a first step Forward is an illusion. It is unilateral nonbinding with no verification. Rather than increasing Confidence it increases suspicion on each Side that the other is getting ready for a Surprise breakout and therefore encourages preparations to Startup testing again quickly if necessary. There was a tacit though not formally agreed moratorium from 1958 to 1961. That was useful because most tests in those Days were conducted in the Atmo sphere causing dangerous radioactive pollution. But it ended with a bang when the russians announced they would test again on aug. 30, 1961, and proceeded to launch a series of blasts starting sept. 1. Controversy exists on who should be blamed for the breakdown but the facts Are simple. On dec. 31, 1959, president Eisenhower said that because the russians had continued some tests after talks on a ban had started the United states was relieved of the obligation to extend the moratorium. Nonetheless the United states did not resume tests until after Russia had suddenly launched its intensive series in 1961. Given this record plus the fact that All testing now is done underground another moratorium in t Likely to affect the Basic impulse driving the arms race but Only to complicate it. A formally negotiated and ratified prohibition in All tests would have a quite different effect. It would have to include serious verification measures that leave no doubt about cheating. Some scientists suggest this might not be possible to the Point of absolute certainty in the Case of very Small muffled explosions. But with a ceiling of 3 to 5 Kilotons compared with the present ceiling of 150 Kilotons there would be full Assurance that any secret test could be detected. That would be a major change. At that Low level components of existing weapons might be tested to Check that they were still functioning. But new weapons designs could not be proved thus removing the incentive for endless refurbishing of arsenals. The real Point of a comprehensive test ban is precisely that to Stop infinite new development of weapons that must never be used. This would be Progress affecting the whole spiral of weapons planning and it would strengthen the restraints on proliferation of nuclear armed states. There is Strong support in Congress for taking up test ban negotiations again very Little for a moratorium an rightly so. If the administration still won t renew the talks to find out whether the russians now accept satisfactory controls Congress should withhold Money for further tests until it does. That Way lies a Chance to Stop the nuclear arms race. Talk about ending the nuclear menace Only veils its continued momentum. Cd new York times