Meaningful functions.

Meaningful Functions

FOR DECADES, the Soviet Union has packed its staff at the United Nations with far more employees than could possible serve any meaningful, UN-related function. Meaningful functions, after all, are not exactly in rich supply at the United Nations. At last count, the USSR employed 275 of its own people as diplomats and support personnel at the UN, while the United Nationals itself employed another six hundred (count 'em: six hundred!) Soviet citizens in various capacities.

The prospect of nearly nine hundred Kremlin-approved and certified toilers for peace and world unity is enough to bring tears to anyone's eyes, ours included. The Reagan Administration was also touched by the spectacle, so much so that it has ordered the Soviet mission to cut its staff to 170 within two years. The FBI is convinced that Moscow has indeed found a meaningful function for its minions in New York City, and that that meaningful function is espionage. Moreover, the FBI has concluded that the sheer size of the Soviet mission in New York City makes it impossible for federal agents to monitor and maintain reasonable control over the activities of so many potential Soviet agents. Only a reduction in the size of the Soviet staff will enable the bureau to do its job.

The Kremlin has protested that the Administration's decision to force a reduction is illegal and may reverse the warning trend in U.S.-Soviet relations created by last year's Summit meeting.

The Soviet diplomats and KGB agents who work at the UN may be employed on extraterritorial ground, but they live, play, and spy on U.S. territory, so it is perfectly legal for the United States to control their actions or expel them altogether. As for the post-Summit warming trend, if this new mini-detente is to mean anything at all, it had better be founded on strict principles of reciprocity and fairness in bilateral relations. The large Soviet staff in New York City violates these principles massively. Allowing the Soviets to get away with virtually anything in the name of detente was what gave detente a bad name the last time around.

If the forced reductions of the Soviet staff lead to the cancellation of Gorbachev's promised visit to the United States this year, well, let him visit Magnitogorsk. Basic principles of international relations must apply.