EUROPE AND AMERICA: THE POLITICS OF RESENTMENT (CONT'D).

EUROPE; UNITED States

This article focuses on the political conflicts between U.S. and Europe. The quarrel between began at the turn of 1981-82 when martial law was imposed on Poland, and it was barely contained by the end of the year. Whereas the Europeans denounced the Polish putsch rhetorically, they continued to extend large-scale credits to the U.S.S.R. for the construction of the gas duct. The United States, however, portrayed the coup as further proof of the need to inflict economic sanctions on the Soviet Union. These conflicts escalated misunderstandings between Europe and the United States to a high point of resentment, recrimination and retaliation just after the Versailles Summit of the industrialized nations in June. It took the rest of the year—and the appointment of a new U.S. Secretary of State—before the discord was at least muted, if not resolved.