The Soviet Union (USSR) is a different place from what it was two years ago. The essential nature of these differences is, however, not obvious and the picture remains mixed. Recent developments involving political prisoners, freedom to travel and emigrate, broadcast jamming, and Czechoslovak relations seem to indicate that the Soviet society is at a turning point. It will be apparent whether Soviet society will turn in a positive direction only when predictions become reality, when promises become performance, when gestures become practices, when episodes become patterns, and when isolated steps become a long march. In the view of the United States, implementation is the key element in the entire process. New proposals can be an incentive to implementation; they must not be a substitute for it. In that spirit, the United States and 16 other Western countries have, during the past two weeks, introduced 16 proposals covering the entire human dimension of the Helsinki Final Act. They are focused a single objective: implementation. (BZ)