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Among those who signed the letter are Chairman of the Soviet Womens Committee Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR Valentina Nikolaeva-Tereshkova, ballerina Galina Ulanova and poetess Bela Akhmadulina.

A group of prominent Soviet scientists sent a letter to U.S. President Nixon urging him to intervene in behalf of Angela Davis to safeguard her life and give her an opportunity to go on with her scientific activities.

The Soviet Womens Committee, the Soviet Youth Organisations Committee, the Students Council of the USSR, the Soviet Peace Committee, the Journalists Union and other public organisations issued statements in defence of Angela Davis.

## New Travesty of Justice

Moscow TASS International Service in English 1305 GMT 5 Jan 71 L

[Text] Moscow January 5 TASS--The Soviet press continues publishing materials protesting against the prepared trial of Angela Davis in San Rafael (California).

"Angela Davis, this name stands today for a militant slogan of U.S. civil rights workers", SOVETSKAYA ROSSIA writes. "Angela Davis, this is a model of courage and staunchness which inspires millions of patriots in America for struggle against racialism, social injustice and the dirty war in Vietnam". And although Angela Davis is to go on trial in San Rafael today "in the eyes of all honest people in the world it will be a trial of a disgraceful system which generates political assassinations, the baiting and persecution of the finest sons and daughters of present-day America".

"What is the charge against this American patriot?" Replying to this question the newspaper "SELSKAYA ZHIZN" writes: "Her convictions, her struggle for equal rights for all citizens of America whatever their colour, nationality or creed". As the newspaper says, American racialists cannot forgive Angela Davis her statements in defence of social justice and against the shameful war in Vietnam. "In their eyes Angela has committed a triple crime: she is a Negro, an intellectual and a communist".

It is quite clear, KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA writes, that the trial in San Rafael will be a new travesty of justice, "American obscurantists are going today to try Angela Davis who has devoted all her life to the struggle against racialism and exploitation".

## U.S. FOREIGN POLICY IN INTERNATIONAL CRISES STUDIED

Moscow USA: ECONOMICS, POLITICS, AND IDEOLOGY No 12, Signed to Press 9 Dec 70 pp 14-26 L

[V.V. Zhurkin article: "The United States and International Political Crises"]

[Text] The world suffered two major international crises in 1970: one was caused by the U.S.-Saigon forces' invasion of Cambodia, and the other was created by the imperialist forces' gamble over Jordan. The United States played an extremely active role in both crises. The first of them arose as a direct result of Washington's aggressive actions against an independent state.

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The second evolved from events of a local nature as a result of the actions of the United States and its ally---Israel. Since every international crisis reflects in concentrated form the characteristic features of the foreign policy course pursued by the state involved in it, these two crises provide grounds for some general conclusions about the nature of U.S. policy in international crisis situations in the early seventies.

The U.S. leading circles attached extremely great significance throughout the last decade to the formulation of the fundamentals of such "crisis diplomacy." "Conduct" during international crises and the "control of crises" perhaps constitute one of the most favored themes of foreign policy declarations by U.S. presidents and foreign policy apparatus leaders.

When he was a senator, J. Kennedy, with his characteristic brilliance and wit, called the U.S. foreign policy machine a "fire brigade" regularizing international crises in U.S. interests (footnote: J. Kennedy, "The Strategy of Peace," New York, 1960, 63 ff). When he became President, he frequently returned to this theme, insistently appealing for the formulation and implementation of a "crisis response" strategy.

More than 10 years have passed, and President R. Nixon's fundamental report on international questions "United States Foreign Policy for the 1970's" again abounds with statements like the following: "We do not wish to exhaust ourselves controlling crises"; "We must be prepared if a crisis starts"; and so on and so forth (footnote: "United States Foreign Policy for the 1970's, a New Strategy for Peace." A report by President R. Nixon to the Congress. London, 1970, pp 11, 12, 13). The development of new forms of policy for international crisis situations and long-term planning in this sphere have been formulated by R. Nixon as one of the fundamental tasks of the U.S. foreign policy and war departments for the seventies. This is conditioned by a number of factors.

First, the scale, acuteness, and complexity of the problems facing any state's foreign policy as a result of the international crises which periodically shake the entire system of international relations have increased in the modern world, which is divided into two opposing socioeconomic systems. The change of role of such crises in modern international life has been conditioned primarily by the fact that enormous stockpiles of mass-destruction weapons have been accumulated in the world as a result of the arms race, which was begun and is regularly given impetus by the United States and the other imperialist powers. As a result, the threat posed by international crises to every state affected by them, and particularly to their initiators, has increased immeasurably in comparison with all previous eras. The process of realizing that in our time any major international crisis can under certain conditions get out of control and evolve into a conflict in which the very existence of the United States would be called into question has been making headway for a long time among many representatives of the U.S. ruling circles.

The consistent sequence of international crises, each of which have been extremely dangerous in themselves, has also revealed another extremely disturbing tendency. For 10-15 years every new crisis in the world's main 'hot spots' has been more acute than the one before, has posed an even greater danger of a universal conflict, and has been settled with more difficulty.

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Suffice it to mention how much more dangerous and painful in nature and consequences was the 1967 Middle East crisis in comparison with the 1956 crisis, both of which were caused by basically the same factors--aggression by Israel with the assistance or direct participation of its imperialist patrons. The same applies to the series of international crises caused by the U.S. intervention in Indochina if these are compared with the crisis situations in Indochina in the late forties and early fifties.

Second--and this, of course, is the main reason for the U.S. leaders' monotonous appeals to modernize "crisis policy"-- the United States and its allies have been the initiators of the overwhelming majority of major international crises to have flared on our planet since World War II. The fact that the majority of these crises in the past 10-15 years have developed territorially in Asia, Africa, or Latin America has been exploited by some U.S. theorists to create the concept of the "unstable" and "unsteady" zone of the "third world" as the source of present international crises.

However, in fact it has been precisely the United States or its allies which have either created crisis situations by their direct actions (as was the case in the Congo events in the early sixties, the Dominican events in 1965, the 1967 Middle East crisis, and the whole series of crises caused in the second half of the sixties by the U.S. aggression in Indochina) or, by intervening in conflicts which have flared in the "third world," have elevated these conflicts to the "status" of international crisis situations. As a rule, various territorial, ethnic, and other conflicts--of which there are in fact few in the developing countries--remain events of local significance if the imperialist powers refrain from interfering in them. Individual exceptions--like the 1965 Pakistan-India conflict, which could have become extremely dangerous of its own accord--only prove this general rule.

It is characteristic that the above-mentioned tendency toward an exacerbation of alternating crisis situations in the world's hot spots, a tendency which was manifested throughout the sixties, was conditioned primarily by the active involvement in these situations of the United States, which created international crises sometimes by its own direct actions (Indochina) and sometimes through its allies (the Middle East) (Footnote: Primakov's article in No 9 of our journal for 1970 describes U.S. aims in the Middle East in greater detail).

Third, it is precisely in the process of acute international crises that the U.S. ruling circles have tangibly sensed how greatly the possibilities of an aggressive policy in the modern world have been reduced as a result of the new deployment of forces in the international arena. The size of the "cost"--military, economic, political, and other--of inciting international crises and conflicts is increasing constantly, a fact of which Washington has become clearly convinced in the course of the intervention in Indochina. This in turn has engendered the aspiration to formulate new forms for the more "economical" implementation of its course in crisis situations which would reduce the harm and costs incurred on the one hand, and has compelled Washington to adjust to reality, to maneuver in the course of the development of international crises and, in a number of cases, to compromise on the other.

The U.S. type of "crisis policy" which has emerged under the influence of these factors has evolved considerably in the 2.5 postwar decades.

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The kernel of this policy--reliance on the use of force (and primarily military force) as the main means for achieving U.S. foreign policy aims in international crisis situations--was formed during the period of the doctrines of "containment," "liberation," and "massive retaliation" (in the second half of the forties and the fifties).

Washington's switch to the "flexible response" doctrine (in 1961) was not reflected in "crisis policy" immediately but only after the 1962 Caribbean crisis, which graphically showed the U.S. military-political strategists the new deployment of forces in the world. After the Caribbean crisis, the United States began to avoid confrontation with the Soviet Union and to act more cautiously. New elements of "crisis policy" were occasionally combined in quaint combinations with this policy's fundamental principle--the use of force. Occasionally these elements have dissolved in this fundamental principle, and the world has again witnessed reapses into the traditional policy of cynical aggression, as has been the case in the course of the U.S. intervention in Vietnam.

The failures in Vietnam caused a sharp discussion in the United States about the future foreign policy paths of this, the largest imperialist power. Some researchers even began to speak about a "post-Vietnam noninterference syndrome," predicting that the United States would henceforth display greater restraint in new international crises and conflicts.

The "Nixon doctrine" proclaimed by the U.S. Republican administration, a doctrine formulated in its fullest form as a global concept in the President's 18 February 1970 message "United States Foreign Policy for the 1970's" left this question open. The new doctrine's three fundamental principles--"partnership," "strength," and "readiness for negotiation"--can be embodied in the most diverse foreign policy courses when applied to one or other specific international crisis situation. In fact a combination of the principles of "partnership" and "strength" can mean both a U.S. aspiration to avoid direct involvement in them with the establishment of the greatest possible number of allied forces. The principle of "readiness for negotiation" in U.S. foreign policy practice can turn into both a readiness for some agreements and elementary propaganda demology. In other words, President R. Nixon's political declarations as yet provide no grounds for definite conclusions about the look of his "crisis policy."

However, this policy should be judged not by declarations but primarily by the
Washington administration's practical actions.

The Nixon administration's main efforts were initially aimed at improving the mechanism for leading the U.S. foreign policy and military machine in international crisis situations and also at determining means for implementing Washington's line in such situations. In this sense the measures implemented by the Nixon administration have been the logical continuation of the modernization which was in progress virtually uninterrupted throughout the last decade on the basis of the active utilization of the achievements of the scientific and technical revolution.

The scientific and technical revolution has led primarily to radical changes in the sphere of material means for implementing U.S. policy in international crises. This revolution's direct influence has been manifested in the development of new highly mobile means for transporting U.S. Armed Forces to international crisis zones--new types of warships, transport ships, aircraft, and so forth. Continuing the course set by its predecessors, the Nixon administration had adopted an intensive program in this sphere.

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This is evidenced by, among other things, the new 10-year program for the reconstruc-
tion of naval transportation for 1971-1980 and also the introduction of the new C-5A
giant military transport aircraft (Footnote: "A Statement of Secretary of Defense
M. Laird Before the House Subcommittee on Department of Defense Appropriations,
25 February 1970", Washington, 1970, pp 63-65, 153-157).

Another important direction of the utilization of the achievements of the scientific
and technical revolution was the creation during the sixties of an extremely refined
system of information processing and analysis and administration centers equipped
with the most modern means of communication and other technical innovations. At the
summit of this pyramid of operational control centers is the White House "Situation
Room" created back in April 1961 after the unsuccessful anti-Cuban adventure in the
Bay of Pigs. It was precisely from the "Situations Room" that direct leadership
was exercised over the dangerous actions by the United States (and Israel too) in the
most recent major Middle East crisis which developed around Jordan in September 1970.

Directly linked with the White House operational center and to a considerable extent a continuation of it are the similar centers of the three main departments--the State Department operational center, the Defense Department national military command center (the "war room"), and the CIA operations center--which formulate and implement the U.S. foreign policy course. These centers are backed up by the operational centers of such departments as the USIA, the arms of the Armed Forces (in particular, the ground forces operational center created during President Nixon's term of office), and so forth.

A high degree of interconnection and coordination has been achieved between the four main operational centers--those of the White House, the State Department, the Defense Department, and the CIA. In particular since 1964 the operational centers of the State and Defense Departments have had a system of exchanging comparatively high-ranking representatives who perform reciprocal 24-hour tours of duty and insure close cooperation during the international crises caused by the actions of the United States and its allies in Indochina and the Middle East and by the U.S. intelligence actions near the borders of the DPRK (the "Pueblo" during Johnson's presidency, the EC-121 aircraft shot down in April 1969 under Nixon, and so forth) (Footnote: "Department of State News letter" No 110, June 1970 pp 8-9). The Nixon administration has made no major changes to this system (excluding constant technical improvement), proceeding from the conviction that the radical reforms conducted in this sphere under J. Kennedy will completely satisfy Washington's requirements during international crises in the early seventies too.

The scientific and technical revolution's influence on U.S. policy in international
crisis situations has also proved extremely radical in the "spiritual" sphere.
Throughout the last decade vigorous attempts were made to apply such scientific methods
as the systems approach, decision-making theory, game theory, modeling (primarily in
the form of experimental simulated political-military exercises), and various
statistical methods of analysis (content analysis, communications analysis, and factor
analysis) to the analysis of international crises and the formulation of more effective
forms for implementing the U.S. foreign policy course in these situations.

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More than 10 university centers, half a dozen scientific research corporations and institutes created by the U.S. war department (like the Rand Corporation or the Institute for Defense Analysis), the scientific research subdivisions of a number of major companies in the military business, and also approximately 10 private firms operating exclusively in the sphere of analysis--a total of more than 30 large and small research centers conducting work in the sphere of the political and military analysis of international crisis situations--were enlisted to conduct research in the United States in the sphere of new methods for analyzing international crisis situations. Fundamental control over this work is traditionally exercised by the U.S. war department, which subsidizes this work through such organs as the long-term research administration [upravleniye perspektivnykh issledovaniy]--the (ARPA) (which acts as the main contractor in such cases), the departments of the arms of the armed forces, and so forth.

Research in the sphere of analyzing directly international crisis situations has been conducted in two fundamental directions in the United States. Originally the main efforts of the researchers were devoted to attempts to utilize mathematical game theory for such analysis, particularly persistent efforts were made in this sphere by a group of political-military theorists christened the "academic strategists" in scientific circles (H. Kahn, T. Schelling, A. Wohlstetter, and others). They utilized their individual theoretical games models (T. Schelling's contribution to this sphere is particularly great) to justify an aggressive militarist policy, creating in their models, in the words of well-known U.S. researcher K. Boulding, "a Hobbesian universe dreamed up by the game theorists" (Footnote: K. Boulding, "Conflict and Defense, A General Theory," New York, 1963, in which crises and conflicts are resolved solely through universal war.

The "academic strategists," who embody science's ties with U.S. foreign and military policy, are opposed by a group of scientists who regard theoretical games models as a means for seeking new methods for settling international conflicts and crises and relaxing international tension (A. Rapoport, K. Boulding, and others, all of whom are active opponents of the U.S. aggression in Vietnam). However, the leading role in the attempts to apply game theory to international relations has been played by the "academic strategists" supported by the state apparatus and primarily the U.S. war department.

Incidentally, the attempts to attach an applied nature to research in the sphere of applying games theory to the analysis of international crisis and conflict situations has encountered serious methodological difficulties. At the present level of the development of mathematics it has as yet not been possible to achieve substantial successes in formulating precisely the sections of theory which could be applied to such analysis.

As a result of certain discontent with respect to games theory, which has been abandoned by H. Kahn, A. Wohlstetter, and others, has arisen in recent years in the U.S. research centers where international crises are analyzed. As has been written by one of the most active proponents of games theory, M. Kaplan (who once called this theory "our best available tool for analyzing problems of strategy" (Footnote: M. Kaplan, "System and Process in International Politics," New York, 1957, p 206); "This theory is now inapplicable or almost inapplicable to international political problems" (Footnote: M. Kaplan, "New Approaches to International Relations," The yearbook of World Affairs, 1968, Vol 22, p 26.)

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True, the opinion exists that many U.S. researchers like M. Kanlan have swung from one extreme to the other. From pinning excessive hopes on game theory in their attempts to apply it to the most complex international situations, primarily crises, they have virtually switched to refuting it completely. At the same time, such sections of this theory as the theory of multi-step and differential games are developing comparatively rapidly at this time. All this provides certain grounds for believing that the actual applied utilization of game theory to analyze international crisis situations (a limited utilization, although it is as yet difficult to say where these limits lie) might become possible with time.

The attempts to apply the same theory to investigate crises have created soil for the development of a new analytical method which is now applied relatively extensively in the United States--crisis simulation, one of the forms for modelling the decision-making process in the states involved in the crisis, the interaction of these states, and the development of the crisis itself. The foundation for such developments was laid back in the mid-fifties by Rand Corporation scientists (Goldhammer, Speyer, and others). In the United States there are now dozens of methodologies for such simulations, three of which are the most widely known:

**PME--political military exercise--** (recently this simulation methodology has been called Polex--political exercise--by its creators), which was created by a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) scientists under the leadership of Prof L. Bloomfield on the basis of using certain ideas formulated by the Rand Corporation. This is a purely "political game" in the course of which the participants--experts on the policy of various countries of the world--reproduce decision-actions of these countries in hypothetical international crises (Footnote: L. Bloomfield, C. Gearin, J. Foster, "Anticipating Conflict-Control Policies, The 'Conex' Games as a Planning Tool," Cambridge, 1970). Computers are virtually not utilized in the process of such games. Bloomfield's simulations have been utilized by the State Department and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Such a methodology is utilized in a somewhat modified form by the U.S. war department.

**INS--inter-nation simulation--** a methodology developed by a group of scientists at the South West University (Chicago) [as published] under the leadership of Prof H. Guetzkow (Footnote: H. Guetzkow, C. Cherryholmes, "Inter-nation Simulation Kit, Instructor's Manual," Chicago, 1966). This is a typical example of the "man-machine" simulation in the course of which the decisions of a group of experts are applied in accordance with definite rules and are implemented with the aid of a system of previously formulated criteria in which many qualitative phenomena of international relations are quantitatively evaluated. Computers are utilized in the process of such evaluation. It should be noted that, despite the attempts made to utilize the INS methodology in the State Department, an applied utilization has not been found for it, although it is widely used in the training process in many U.S. universities.

**TEMPER--technological, economic, military, political evaluation routine--** this methodology, which was developed by a group of scientists under the leadership of C. Abt at the Raytheon Corporations's scientific research section on the instructions of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff joint war games administration and which is now being perfected by the firm of Abt associates formed by the methodology's creators, is a model of purely cybernetic simulation (Footnote: C. Abt and M. Gorden, "Report on Project TEMPER" in "Theory and Research on the Causes of War," edited by D. Pruitt and R. Snyder, Englewood Cliffs, 1969). Man's involvement in it amounts merely to the selection of input data.

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All the operations on this input data on hypothetical international crises are
performed by a computer in accordance with a program fed into it. The TEMPER
methodology is utilized by the U.S. war department, although its creators admit
that there is still a long way to go before it can actually be applied to the analysis
of real international crises (Footnote: Ibid, p 248). Other simulated models also
exist, but the above-mentioned three are among the most widely known.

One must not overrate the influence exerted by new, and particularly simulated methods of analysis on U.S. policy in international crisis situations, particularly on the process of decision-making. However, the general "climate" created by the development of such methods is undoubtedly making a definite impression on this process.

It is not by chance that since 1961 the Rand-MIT methodology has been applied in
somewhat modified form to the analysis of crisis situations by the U.S. Joint Chiefs
of Staff joint war games administration formed in the same year. During the
administration's existence it has conducted several dozen games to comprehensively
formulated scenarios which have analyzed and formulated various alternatives for the
implementation of the U.S. foreign policy course in crisis situations in Southeast
Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and other regions of the world.

The President's special assistants for national security affairs, deputy and assistant state secretaries, Joint Chiefs of Staff members, and important figures in the CIA and other departments have participated in the games. The results of the games were reported to the President, the secretary of state, and the defense secretary (Footnote; Information exists on past Presidents J. Kennedy and L. Johnson personally conducted games with their advisers). As some participants in such games noted in their conversations with the author of this article, these games, without exerting a direct influence on the decision-making process, promote the formulation of new, unconventional, and untraditional alternatives, make it possible to make a more profound analysis of the available information, and create new conditions for "collating" existing concepts, plans, and methods with reality, although this reality is reflected in a simplified form in the course of the games.

During R. Nixon's presidency, the activity of the department now renamed the depart-
ment of strategic analysis and games, has been modified and extended. It must be
stressed that there have been recruited into the office of the President's assistant
for national security affairs, H. Kissinger, who has himself always shown considerable
interest in new methods of analyzing international situations, such of their active
supporters as Princeton University coworker C. Hermann, who made a notable contribu-
tion to elaborating a system of methods for the imitation of the "INS" (Footnote: C.
Hermann, "Crisis in Foreign Policy, A Simulation Analysis," Indianapolis-New York
1969) (later Hermann left Kissinger's office).

Although the influence of new scientific methods, which have been developing rapidly
during the scientific and technical revolution, also affected the process of forming
the foreign policy course both during Kennedy's presidency and--it is true, to a
lesser extent--during Johnson's presidency, for the duration of the sixties U.S.
ruling circles did not manage to create an efficiently functioning system for working
out decisions in the process of international crises and for implementing these
decisions at the highest level. Now, at the beginning of the seventies a serious
attempt in this field has been undertaken by the Nixon administration.

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It can be shown, paradoxically, that it has been done precisely under Nixon, a figure of conservative persuasion from whom it would seem that one could not expect special interest in scientific "innovation" in the sphere of administration, analysis and so forth. However, it cannot be denied that the leaders of the present administration are obviously inclined not only to continue the introduction of new methods into the practice of the state apparatus, but, at times, continues it still more vigorously than did their predecessors.

Nixon has produced, in particular, an extremely radical reconstruction of the process of planning U.S. policy in future international crises and also of the process of making decisions during crises, having created a new organ within the bounds of the National Security Council--the Washington Special Actions Group.

This group was formed in April 1969 soon after the incident involving the American EC-121 reconnaissance plane shot down over Korea. For a long time its activity was maintained in secret. R. Nixon officially announced its existence in a message to Congress on 18 February 1970. In the great international crises of 1970 this group was the President's main consultative organ.

At any given moment the Washington Special Actions Group consists of five people-- the President's Assistant on National Security Affairs H. Kissinger (chairman), Deputy Secretary of State A. Johnson, Deputy Defense Secretary D. Packard, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff committee Admiral T. Moorer, and Director of the CIA R. Helms (Footnote: during the Indochina crisis the group additionally enlisted the services of the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs M. Green, Assistant Deputy Defense Secretary D. Doolin and Joint Staff Operations Director Lieutenant General J. Vogt, and at the time of the Middle East Crisis, Assistant Secretary of State for Middle Eastern and South Asian Affairs J. Sisco). Thus, for the first time a permanent organ was created for preparing decisions at the highest level during crisis situations.

The tendency to create such a narrow group has long existed in the United States. It is well known, for example, that under President D. Eisenhower, who was considered an active champion of observing the traditional rules in working out decisions within the framework of the National Security Council, the decision to land American troops in Lebanon in 1958 which led to acute international crisis, was taken by a narrow group of people gathered in the President's office after a meeting of the National Security Council. Decisions at the time of the Caribbean crisis of 1962 were worked out in the Executive Committee created by President Kennedy--a committee of 13 people whom he had personally selected. The most important decisions leading to the acute crisis situations resulting from the development of U.S. aggression in Vietnam, were taken under President Johnson repeatedly at lunch with the participation of three or four people.

As was noted in the report prepared by the Institute of Defense Analysis, generally, "in the Kennedy and Johnson years there existed a striking variety of such groups with an undefined statute and tasks. They appeared and disappeared with the ebb and flow of crises." (Footnote: "The President and the Management of National Security". A report by the Institute for Defense Analysis, N.Y., 1969 p 241). In this connection, several theorist-internationalists hastened to explain the existence of such groups as "a tendency in working out crisis decisions." (Footnote: "International Politics and Foreign Policy". Ed. by J. Rosenau, N.Y. 1969 p 465). The new U.S. administration has quite decidedly set about breaking with this tradition.

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At the same time, the Nixon administration's political makeup is distinctly expressed in the selection of the Washington Special Actions Group's personnel. As the weekly L'EXPRESS noted, "The Washington Special Actions Group is composed of the administration's hardliners." (Footnote: L'EXPRESS, No 983, 11-17 May 1970 p 6). Such a composition of the Washington Special Actions Group cannot but be reflected in the character of decisions taken.

The influence of the systematic approach instilled into the activity of U.S. highest leading organs was distinctly noticeable in the creation of the Washington Special Actions Group and was displayed, above all, in the fact that now there has been created a permanent mechanism for the final elaboration and "filtering" of alternative decisions, from which the U.S. President will make a choice in this or that crisis situation.

The process of taking decisions in crises is of exceptionally great significance, since after a number of days (and sometimes hours) of consideration the President, with the participation of his closest assistants takes decisions on actions, which can put in jeopardy the fates of entire countries and of the world. For the duration of all postwar history, U.S. ruling circles have been striving to improve their forces and the means of achieving their aims in crisis situations. In the last 10 years, measures have been taken for the modernization of such primary elements of this process as the collection and analysis of information, the formulation of aims and other things. Now an attempt is being undertaken to reconstruct one of the key elements--the elaboration and selection of final alternatives, one of which will thereafter become the decision.

Given all the innovations, the last word in taking decisions in international crisis situations rests with the President. The old rule that "crisis is the President's show" (Footnote: E. Weintal and C. Bartlett, Facing the Brink. An Intimate Study of Crisis Diplomacy. N.Y. 1967, p 112), remains immovable. Naturally, his decisions are conditioned by the basic law-governed phenomena of the foreign policy course of the United States--the main imperialist power. However, the importance of decisions, which are selected within the framework of these law-governed phenomena during a period of critical situations, is also great enough. In this sense the "crisis" decisions of the present American President, which laid the foundation for the great U.S. aggressive actions in the spring and fall of 1970, generated a lively discussion in the United States, in the course of which voices of alarm rang out clearly.

Washington's actions in the crisis situations of 1970 in Indochina and the Middle East basically reflect the general U.S. imperialist course. However the specific conditions of the situation that make up each of these "hot spots" have conditioned the famous "crisis policy" of the United States.

The U.S. invasion of Cambodia was comparatively carefully prepared under conditions when Washington had a certain freedom of action and sufficient time to analyze the situation and to take a decision. In accordance with all available American sources, the process of taking the decision concerning this very great aggressive act of the present administration stretched over 10 days--from 20 April, when R. Nixon suddenly in the late evening flew from his "Western White House" in San Clemente to the capital, until 30 April 1970, when U.S. Armed Forces were given the order to cross Cambodia's frontier.

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During those 10 days the National Security Council met twice and the Washington Special Actions Group met 6 times. Plans were examined successively for bringing South Vietnamese forces into Cambodia with the support of the U.S. Air Force, then for bringing in those same forces with the help of American military advisors and, finally, it was decided to use U.S. troops as the strike force of the invasion.

For the aggression in Cambodia, the United States deployed in South Vietnam groupings of forces ready for action at any moment. The purely military side of the invasion was worked out long before the events leading to the overthrow of Prince Norodom Sihanouk.

The situation in the Middle East in September 1970 developed differently for Washington. The clashes between the King's army and the Palestinian partisans in Jordan, which began 16 September 1970 after the army was brought into Amman, although not a surprise to Washington, did all the same present the United States with a rapidly changing situation. The mechanism of leadership worked in extreme haste (in the few days between 17 and 21 September 1970 the Washington special actions group sat almost continuously), having displayed a tendency to take spasmodic and extremely dangerous decisions in a critical and complex situation.

The comparison of these actions of Washington in Indochina and the Middle East--actions that took place in different situations and developed differently--offers the opportunity of exposing a few general features of the new administration's "crisis policy".

Above all, in both situations the tendency to rely on force--the threat of force or its use--at critical moments, is clearly and unequivocally reflected. Force, and primarily military force, remains, in the opinion of U.S. ruling circles, the main means of implementing their aims in periods of international crises.

All the basic variants of U.S. policy which were examined in the period of preparation for the "Cambodian operation", stemmed above all from reckoning on the use of American Armed Forces and creating a "position of strength". It is not possible to say that factors opposing the use of force were discounted completely. According to the American press, Nixon, Kissinger and others of the President's advisors discussed in detail the possible reaction of the Soviet Union and the PRC to an invasion of Cambodia and the position of the U.S. allies, and the consequences this step would evoke in American public opinion which is stormily protesting against any actions of escalation.

The problem of U.S. public reaction was discussed in detail, particularly at the National Security Council meeting on 26 April. Earlier, on 24 April, Kissinger organized a political game with five colleagues from his department who had come out against the new measures for extending military actions in Indochina, having given them the opportunity of formulating basic arguments (after Nixon's decision to invade Cambodia, some of them resigned as a mark of protest). However, all these factors were analyzed, to a considerable degree onesidedly, reckoning on finding ways of neutralizing them.

The use of force was also at the heart of the plans of actions in the Middle East discussed by Nixon and his advisors during the stormy days of 16 through 21 September 1970 (Footnote: INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, 28 September 1970) draft plans were examined for landing American troops in Amman, for air attacks by the air forces of the 6th Fleet against the Palestinian partisans' positions in north Jordan, and different variations of strikes on Jordan from the Israeli side, which in this situation was regarded essentially as a part of the American military mechanism.

III. 6 Jan 71

A 42

USSR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

At one stage Nixon suggested to Kissinger jointly to "lose" the military situation in order to expose "where the weak points might be" in the plans (Footnote: TIME 5 October 1970). They all revolved around using military force in the most different variants.

An extremely dangerous tendency was exposed in the choice of methods of using force. In the process of taking the decision on Cambodia the toughest of all the proposed alternatives was selected. Practically all the alternative variants proposed by the Washington Special Actions Group and the Pentagon suggested the use of force (Footnote: TIME, 11 May, 1970): It was intended to subject the territory of Cambodia to bombings or to render massive aid in the form of weapons to Lon Nol's government or to make wider use of South Vietnamese units or to implement the invasion with U.S. forces (the only nonmilitary alternative--to call a meeting of the international conference on Cambodia--was, so to speak, turned down from the outset). President Nixon, with the active participation of his advisers, took the most extreme decision--to implement the invasion with American forces.

In the course of the situation's development in the Middle East, it was also decided, in certain circumstances, to launch a military invasion into Jordan.

Here special efforts were made toward widely advertising Washington's "resolution" to implement direct intervention. As the American press noted, there was an obvious and typical example of "brinkmanship" "a calculated demonstration of force, widely popularized in order to achieve the maximum psychological effect" (Footnote: INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE 28 September 1970.) Reports concerning the movement of ships and the bringing of battalions and brigades to a state of combat preparedness quickly became the property of the mass information media. Bargaining on U.S. opponents yielding to blackmail, the atmosphere was artificially charged.

Furthermore, a tendency had formed and had obtained its final completion long since at the time of the Caribbean crisis--a tendency to take decisions in such situations without consulting U.S. allies or informing them of measures adopted, and without considering their reactions (Footnote: At the time of the invasion of Cambodia it was especially notable against the background of quite recent statements, made by the President a little more than two months before, in his foreign policy message, about a new spirit of "partnership" as the first principle of the "Nixon Doctrine"). It appeared in completed form in Washington's Cambodia and Jordan decisions.

The breadth of the Washington Special Actions Group's competence was distinctly defined during the period of these two crises. It fulfilled, as a minimum, a three-part function. First, in the period preceding the taking of decisions, the Washington Special Actions Group prepared the final composition of alternative variants and conducted a careful analysis of the possible courses of action. Second, after a decision had been taken, the Washington Special Actions Group prepared a specific political and military plan of operations, in particular, the detailed plan of the Cambodian invasion. Third, the Washington Special Actions Group itself--without the President's participation--took decisions on several specific actions--on new air raids on Cambodian territory, (Footnote: the New York TIMES 14 June 1970), on the transfer of aircraft carriers to the Mediterranean Sea, and on bringing forces on U.S. and FRG territory to a state of combat readiness for the invasion of Jordan. By this means, it once again confirmed its key and growing role in working out the U.S. course in international crisis situations.

III. 6 Jan 71

A 43

USSR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Finally, during the Middle East crisis, which had, as had already been said, developed spasmodically and from time to time got out of control, there was exposed a new and extremely dangerous tendency in the behavior of Washington officials--the ability at moments of special tension to lose their heads, and to set out upon patent adventures. It is a question of the decisions taken on 21 September, in certain circumstances (Footnote: In the event that the Palestinian partisans begin to gain victory over the King's army in Jordan and that the King's authority is threatened, to land American troops in Amman, and for Israel to invade north Jordan, reports of which filtered into the American press New York TIMES 8 October 1970).

Moreover, as the New York TIMES witnesses, it was, in principle, decided to utilize the U.S. 6th Fleet against UAR or USSR forces!, if they should come to the aid of the victims of aggression.

The intervention of friendly Arab countries, supported by forces of peace, as we know, put an end to the bloodshed in Jordan and created conditions for normalizing the situation in this country. USSR firmness played its not unimportant role as did other opponents of kindling a new military fire in the Middle East--opponents which warned Washington of the possible consequences of intervention.

All the same, the very fact of taking extremely risky decisions by the American leaders who in such moments, in a critical situation lost the ability to appraise soberly the consequences of their actions, cannot be ignored.

Examining U.S. policy in international crisis situations, one must, naturally, consider that it is not formed in a vacuum. Opposite the strength of the United States and its allies, upon which Washington's strategy sets its hopes, stands the strength of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, of the world revolutionary and national liberation movement. The sphere in which the United States can still allow itself the use of force has, throughout the postwar period, grown invariably narrower. The internal position in the country, where, in recent years, serious tendencies opposing military adventures have appeared, exerts a complex and far from simple influence upon U.S. behavior in crisis situations.

In these circumstances Washington has to maneuver and manipulate and it becomes increasingly difficult for it to ignore reality completely. Even in the critical situations in Indochina and the Middle East, the United States, in the final analysis, was obliged to retreat, in the first place by withdrawing its troops from Cambodia and secondly, by not having decided upon the planned intervention.

In this connection, the opinion now disseminated in U.S. leading circles, that by the power game of brinkmanship and by artificially heating the situation in these and other crisis situations, Washington will be able to frighten its opponents and achieve its goals, is an extremely dangerous delusion. Some people are even considering the utilization of carefully advertized recklessness in order to make their opponents more cautious and more yielding. But these are absurd calculations; and if their initiators frightened anyone it would, above all, be many Americans, who, understanding that attempts at the power game only evoke an appropriate corresponding response, fear--and not without cause--the aggravation of the international situation, new U.S. political failures and the growth of the threat of war.

III. 6 Jan 71

A 44

USSR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

In this way, in the modern situation the policy of "from a position of strength" cannot, on the whole, bring its authors success. Moreover, it is increasingly often becoming a source of ever new U.S. failures in the international arena, which is clearly shown particularly in the series of international crises of the postwar period. The appeal to the "from a position of strength policy" on the party of the present U.S. administration is a typical anachronism, although such actions do not become less dangerous because of this.

SOVIET COLONEL RECALLS CUBA'S COMMUNIST ACHIEVEMENTS

Moscow RED STAR 31 Dec 70 p 3 L

[Article by Col A. Leontyev: "The First Free Territory in America"]

[Text] Havana-Moscow--For a whole month we traveled around this fairytale, 1,200 kilometer-long island, about which Columbus said: "It is the most beautiful land which human eyes have seen." Havana's palaces and skyscrapers were inverted in the blue of the sea; regal palms glided past us along the slopes of the hills; the golden sands of the famous Varadero Beach, thickets of sugar cane, and nursery lakes teeming with crocodiles took their place....

We stayed in places of revolutionary battles, as visitors of soldiers and workers, and in study and tourist centers, had long talks with Cubans, and observed how they work and study, sing and dance....

We were engulfed by an entire waterfall of impressions, emotions, and ideas, and it was seemingly impossible to sort them out. But everything fell into place when the solemn, stirring words were heard on the radio:

"Havana calling--capital of socialist Cuba and the first free territory in America...."

For 12 years now each Havana broadcast has begun with these words. They contain the pride of the heroic people of Cuba who accomplished the revolution and are building socialism in a country which is situated a mere 90 miles from the citadel of world imperialism--the United States. They contain a challenge to the bosses of the United States who are continuing their attempts to stifle Cuba by means of an economic blockade and through the hands of hired killers and saboteurs.

Washington hates the new Cuba and is afraid that other Central and South American countries will follow its example. Indeed, Cuba shows them the path of deliverance from the terrible oppression of U.S. monopolies and from hunger and poverty.

Cuba is the first Latin American country where plants and factories belonging to the United States have been handed over to the workers, where the land is owned by those who cultivate it, where people are not threatened with unemployment and starvation, where illiteracy has been entirely liquidated, and where the people themselves are shaping their own destiny.

I shall give a few figures. Since the revolution the generation of electric power has more than doubled. Agricultural produce has increased twofold. The cattle population has increased from 3 to 7 million. In the Cauto Valley alone more rice is harvested now than throughout the entire country in 1958. Fish production has risen eightfold.

Comic strip pop bottles are fun to make. The main requirement, aside from several comic strips, are some empty pop bottles that have straight sides. The sides must be straight because you intend to tape comic strip frames to the glass and the pictures must be flat.

After gathering enough bottles and clipping out enough comic strips, cut each strip into frames, cutting at the lines that divide the frames.

If you wish, you can color the people and background of each frame with your poster paints.

Using transparent tape, attach each frame to the side of a bottle as in Figure 1 and 2.

The idea is to arrange the bottles in their proper sequence, according to the original frame sequence. To make a game of it, stand the bottles in a helter skelter group, and see how long it will take your friends to unscramble them and put them in their proper order.

Instead of using empty bottles, you may prefer to use unopened pop bottles. When the game has been played, let the guests open the bottles and drink the contents.

FIG. 1

FIG. 2

agent leads a manhunt for a Nazi war criminal believed to be living in a small town. Loretta Young, Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson.

11:30 (WJBK-2) "Rancho Notorious" ('52). Singer operates a hide-out for bandits during the 1870's. Marlene Dietrich, Mel Ferrer, Arthur Kennedy.

11:30 (CKLW-9) "Band of Angels" ('57). Beautiful aristocrat learns that her mother was a slave. Civil War drama with Clark Gable, Yvonne DeCarlo, Sidney Poitier.

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Aumor occurred about 15 minutes after the soccer match between Santos of Chile and Marte of El Salud at the Revolution場, on the outskirts of the city. The crowd of 20,000 Watched.

The population of suburban areas in 10 miles from down-ported feeling the shock.

some hills near the Mt. Lemen-
mon highway at the foot of
the Catalina Mountains.

Thinking the plane had crashed, he investigated. As he approached, Devine said, the pilot of the plane, on a dirt landing strip, gunned the engines and hurriedly took off, leaving behind 130 kilos, or about 260 pounds, of marijuana.

Burr said his department is
attempting to trace the light
plane.

STRIKE

## A tax hike is urged

The committee, headed by Sen. Boyd Tenney, R-Prescott, also heard a building progress report from Floyd Williams, state superintendent of buildings and grounds.

Williams said a new $2 million commerce building is scheduled for completion this May, a $2.5 million education building is on the drawing boards and a $2.7 million health and welfare building is in the planning stage.

He said down the road the state will need to add a $5 million wing to the west side of the Capitol Building to house the courts and the state's finance and revenue agencies.

SHARP ARI

Fresh beef to
Rinse tongue
2 stalks sliced cel-
4 whole cloves and
(May be pressure-
much water.) When
return to cooking w

To serve: Mel
in 2 T. flour, cook a

FOR HEALTH.

BALTIMORE SUN - 21 JANUARY 1971

# Do 'Backgrounder's'
Give Official Policy?

By JOHN S. CARROLL

Washington Bureau of The Sun

Washington, Jan. 20—The "backgrounder," a kind of anonymous press conference the government often uses in explaining itself, is one of the reasons people in Washington are disagreeing over whether President Nixon has gone back on his word in expanding the air war in Cambodia.

Some of the controversy has its roots in a backgrounder given last June 30 in Laguna Beach, Calif., while Mr. Nixon was visiting his seaside villa in nearby San Clemente. In the session it was made clear that the United States would not do what it is doing today in Cambodia.

On "Backgrounder's"

Before going into specifics, a word is in order on what a backgrounder is. Every month or so, often when the President is issuing an important policy statement, the White House press office arranges a background briefing on the subject.

As has been widely reported,

the briefer on foreign policy is usually Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, the President's national security adviser. Occasionally Dr. Kissinger is joined by Joseph J. Sisco, the State Department's Middle East policy chief.

Reporters who attend the briefings agree not to name the briefers in their accounts. They also agree not to use direct quotations, although the briefers' exact words are often used without quotation marks.

The briefer is often the "White House sources" or the "administration officials" one reads of in the press. The anonymity, according to those who arrange the backgrounders, allows the briefer to speak more freely.

Some members of the press have objected that these practices confuse the reader and spare public officials from being held accountable.

The Laguna Beach briefing last June 30 was held the day President Nixon issued a lengthy statement on Cambodia.

Ac-

Briefer's Reply

One of the questions that came up in the backgrounder was whether one could assume that the U.S. military would be authorized to fly further close-support missions in conjunction with South Vietnamese and Cambodian forces operating in Cambodia. The briefer replied:

If you assume this, you would be wrong. U.S. air power in Cambodia has the mission of interdicting the movement of supplies and men relevant to the war in Vietnam and designed to protect the security of our forces. It is not assigned the task of close air support.

The brieter continued:

There may be a situation in which it is difficult to draw a sharp distinction between those two missions, but those will be the rare exception.

From these words it was widely concluded that the U.S. would not get involved in close air support. But recently, dispatches from the field in Cambodia and South Vietnam have reported that such missions are being flown.

These reports have been confirmed by the administration, and Mr. Ziegler has acknowl-

edged an "expansion" of the air war—but not a policy change.

"What has happened is that there is increased air activity and increased air authority which has been given in Cambodia to deal with the situation I explained earlier relating to the dry season," Mr. Ziegler asserted under questioning yesterday. "But that is not a change in policy. That is increased air activity on the part of the U.S. in the Cambodian area."

Ziegler Refusal

Today the press secretary refused to say whether statements made at White House background briefings are statements of policy.

"I will not be responsive to your question," he said. "I think the backgrounders that we have and the purpose of them are self-evident."

9-F

A very personal and the mood in the
courtroom was slightly jocular.
Later, the psychiatrist's description
an irresistible impulse, adding, "He was
never insane; it was like a compulsion."

WASHINGTON STAR 20 January 1971 P1B (21)

General Ousts Army Doctor
From Panel Over Pot Views

By WALTER TAYLOR

Star Staff Writer

An Army doctor who testified
before a Senate subcommittee
last month that there is wide-
read use of drugs among serv-
icemen in Vietnam yesterday
was removed from a drug panel
at Ft. Meade by a superior offi-
cer.

Maj. Avrom C. Segal's philoso-
phy on the use of marijuana by
soldiers apparently differs so
substantially from that of Maj.
Gen. Richard C. Ciccolella that

the general was overheard to
shout:

"There will be no member on
this panel that thinks the way
you do about marijuana. Stay
the hell off this panel, and that's
an order."

Segal was one of three Army
doctors who spoke at the first of
three morning-long sessions of a
narcotics seminar, believed to
be the first of its kind ever con-
ducted at a stateside military
installation.

Segal, assigned to Kimbrough

Army Hospital at Ft. Meade, de-
clined to comment after the inci-
dent. But an associate said the
major has refused to condemn
the use of marijuana, though ad-
vocating strong enforcement of
regulations covering the use of
hard narcotics by servicemen.

The second officer, who asked
not to be identified, said Cicco-
lella ordered Segal to link the
use of marijuana to hard-core
addiction in his talk yesterday.
When the major refused, the of-
ficer said, Ciccolella removed
him from the panel.

Ciccolella is chief of staff at
the Ft. Meade headquarters of
the 1st Army, which has mili-
tary jurisdiction over 15 states
on the East Coast and in the
Midwest.

Segal is one of a number of
military officers who testified
last month before the Senate
subcommittee on alcoholism and
narcotics headed by Sen. Harold
Hughes, D-Iowa.

Much of the testimony then
described extensive use of
marijuana and hallucinogens by
soldiers in front-line areas of
Vietnam.

The Army said it has ap-
proved applications from 12
colleges for Reserve Officers
Training Corps programs.
Emphasis was given to getting
more Negroes into the service;
three of the new schools were
black.

Demonstrations against the
program and the firebombing
of about 30 R. O. T. C. campus
buildings during the Cambodian
invasion last spring have
dented but apparently not
broken the R. O. T. C. setup.

WASH. POST 1/21/71 P2

Culebra Protest

SAN JUAN, P.R.—A U.S.
District Court judge sign-
ed a temporary restraining
order requiring 49 Puerto
Ricans to abandon the
Navy's firing range on the
island of Culebra or face
arrest on trespass charges.

NEW YORK TIMES 21 January 1971 P12

U.S. Colonel in Saigon
Faces Marijuana Trial

SAIGON, South Vietnam,
Jan. 20 (UPI)—A United
States Air Force colonel is to
be tried by general court-
martial Feb. 8 on marijuana
charges, Air Force spokes-
men announced today.

The spokesmen said the
colonel, believed to be the
highest ranking officer to be

held on marijuana charges
here, was charged with use
and possession of marijuana,
and "solicitation for illegal
transfer" of the drug.

They identified him as Col.
Gerald V. Kehrli, 46 years
old, of Willmar, Minn., who
commanded a detachment of
the Military Airlift Command
at Tansonnhut Air Base out-
side Saigon.

Spokesmen were unable
immediately to supply further
details on Colonel Kehrli's
arrest.

10-F

Foreign Report

Published by The Economist Newspaper Limited
25 St James's Street, London, SW1
No. 1185 4 February 1971

Contents

Guerrillas at bay: (1) The Palestinians

Guerrillas at bay: (2) Latin America

Laos: Cutting off the war at source

Mr Nixon's Mr Loyal

The Spanish Sahara scramble

Mr Nixon's Mr Loyal

One consequence of the American air war in Cambodia and Laos has been to spotlight the uneasy position of the Secretary of State, **Mr Rogers**, in the Nixon Administration. Publicly, Mr Rogers maintains a steadfast loyalty to Mr Nixon; and verbally he has been as tough on Indochina as anyone in the White House, during the past week. But, privately, Mr Rogers has indicated in various ways that he is uneasy about the situation.

State Department officials with close access to the Secretary of State say he agrees with the ostensible purpose of the 'helicopter war' in Cambodia and Laos - that the United States must buy time in which to shield the continued withdrawal of American troops from South Vietnam. But they say that Mr Rogers is disturbed by the deeper implications of the recent military operations. He does not use the phrase coined by Mr Stewart Alsop - that the United States 'sleep-walked its way into Vietnam'. But this accurately expresses his concern that the Administration, with the best of intentions, could find itself bogged down in another full-scale Asian conflict - though he must know that President Nixon is unlikely to let this happen.

Mr Rogers's fundamental concern, however, is that the Administration has not adequately explained its Cambodian policy to the American people, and that the dominance of the Secretary of Defence, Mr Laird, and **Mr Henry Kissinger** in White House counsels has undercut the State Department in the conduct of foreign policy. Mr Rogers was upset by the way in which Mr Laird tried to dismiss the American role in Cambodia, and he has been embarrassed by the large number of queries that have come to the State Department, from prominent Americans and foreigners, asking whether the United States is violating the Cooper-Church amendment prohibiting the use of American ground forces in Cambodia.

After Mr Laird told a press conference that American airpower would be used in Cambodia (with the comment, 'I don't care to get into a question of semantics on that'), Mr Rogers hastily scheduled a press conference of his own. He told associates that the matter could not rest where Mr Laird had left it; that someone would have to try to explain American policy. Mr Rogers's press conference was postponed because he had to make a quick trip to Capitol Hill to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; when it finally was held, it was rated an indifferent performance.

State Department officials make no secret of their belief that the apparent ascendancy of Mr Laird and Mr Kissinger has seriously undermined Mr Rogers's status in foreign capitals. The Secretary of State, they point out, has to represent the United States at Nato meetings, and other regional and international conferences, and he is finding that his statements are not always taken as the definitive position of the American government.

Mr Kissinger, whose office is in the White House, a few steps from the President's office, sees Mr Nixon several times a day and accompanies the President on nearly all his trips to Florida and California. Daily personal access to his chief has understandably increased Mr Kissinger's influence; he has renounced his academic tenure at Harvard and seems prepared to work for Mr Nixon as long as Mr Nixon is in the White House.

All this has come as no particular surprise to Mr Rogers. He knew that Mr Nixon chose him as Secretary of State for his qualities of loyalty, not for his knowledge of

foreign affairs, which was modest. Like Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, Mr Nixon intended from the outset to be his own Secretary of State.

At the same time, the reports of Rogers-Kissinger rivalry must be put in perspective. These stories have been in circulation in Washington for two years. On the Middle East - which is almost as important a region for American politicians as Indochina - it is Mr Rogers, and not Mr Kissinger (who happens to be a Jew), who has made the initiatives, and he may have a bigger role in the history books than he has at present in the columns of the *New York Times*. Mr Rogers may look back, slightly nostalgically, to the days when he was Attorney-General in the Eisenhower Administration, but - even though he is an easy target for militant doves like Senator Fulbright - he is unlikely to be disloyal to Mr Nixon.

ARMED FORCES JOURNAL - 4 JANUARY 1971 (19)

# Ryan: Three Approaches to the Essential Qualitative Edge

By General John D. Ryan
Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force

ALL MAJOR AIR FORCE PROGRAMS over the past year have been strongly affected both by changes in the approach to foreign policy and by the reordering of priorities for federal spending.

As to foreign policy, the Nixon Doctrine has stressed a reduction of the U.S. military presence in overseas areas. For the future, our security arrangements with allied and friendly countries will be keyed to a greater reliance on their manpower and on the superior technology of the U.S.

This transition in foreign policy has important implications for the Air Force. These implications are inherent in the very nature of aerospace operations which are geared to the more advanced technologies. We must, therefore, be prepared to carry out—as in the Vietnamization program—extensive training for the air forces of countries whose security is threatened. When directed by the Secretary of Defense, we must also be prepared to provide direct support involving the employment of sophisticated aerospace systems.

With regard to the impact of continuing budget constraints, one effect on the Air Force is reflected in the reduction of 950 aircraft in our inventory from 1969 to mid-1971. Further, our pur chase of just over 370 aircraft during FY 71 compares with more than 945 in FY 69. In fact, the aircraft buy for this fiscal year is the lowest we have had since the days of the Army Air Corps in 1935. More than half of this new procurement will be transferred to the armed forces of the allied nations. The ICBM force has remained stable at just over 1,000 missiles.

## Personnel Cuts

Like the other Services, we are also taking a substantial cut in personnel. People are not only our most important and valuable asset, they also represent the largest single Air Force expenditure. This fact, by itself, accounts in large degree for the provision in the FY 71 budget for an Air Force with a projected total officer and airman strength of 762,000—well below the 857,000 we had on board at the start of the Vietnam War.

An important fact to remember in considering budget pressures toward personnel cuts is that if the retention rate were higher, our pro rata personnel costs could be reduced proportionately. Although we have a good record for keeping men in the Service, in an average year we still have to procure and train 12,000 new officers, 100,000 new airmen, and 65,000 civilians. I will deal later with some of the actions we would like to take to improve personnel procurement and retention.

At this point, however, I think it important to consider these downward trends in weapon inventories and force levels in relation to those aspects of the expanding military threat that most

directly concern the Air Force. The Soviets now have about 50% more ICBMs, either operational or under construction, than we do. They are still producing ICBMs. They probably will overcome our lead in Polaris-type submarines in about four years. They have developed and tested multiple re-entry vehicles for their ICBMs and a Fractional Orbit Bombardment System (FOBS). They are emphasizing development of a missile system tailored to attack hardened targets. All of this could mean the Soviets are building toward a first-strike capability.

In the area of limited warfare, the Russians have more than twice the number of high-performance tactical fighters than we have in the active Air Force inventory. If they want to, they can put into operational use three new models in the next three years, each of them superior to U.S. fighters in important performance areas.

Even this brief sketch of the threat that relates primarily to the Air Force should be adequate to support one conclusion of particular significance: the single factor of quality is now assuming overriding importance as a requisite for force effectiveness.

To achieve the qualitative edge that is becoming more essential every day, there are three broad courses of action that we have to pursue. As I have already indicated, the most basic and fundamental of these is to offer the career incentives that will enable us to attract and retain people of superior motivation and ability. The second course of action is the attainment of quality through the intensive exploitation of our advanced technology. The third is improvement of management and management techniques.

## Career Incentives

Where people are concerned, we are trying to improve career incentives in the areas of both material compensation and leadership. On the material side, we believe a significant increase in starting pay for both officers and airmen will be necessary to compete with industry in the job market. Legislation to raise the starting pay of our enlisted people by 20% is currently before Congress. We hope to obtain similar consideration for young officers entering the military service. Starting pay is one of the few tangible bits of information a young man has in comparing the jobs available to him.

In addition to starting pay, we are considering the use of procurement bonuses. This incentive is needed to attract and competitively compensate those skilled individuals necessary adequately to exploit our advanced technology. We would like to equalize compensation for married and unmarried airmen. At present, married airmen, through increased living allowances, are paid more for doing the same job than single airmen. Equal pay for equal work should be a normal expectancy of a military career

in the future.

We also want to improve on-base bachelor housing and allow bachelors to live off base if they prefer to. The requirement for group living in base barracks is an irritant that does not exist in any comparable civilian job.

Further, we are continuing our efforts to expand the availability of family housing on base.

The President has stated an all-volunteer Armed Force as a national objective. Secretary Laird has established 1 July 1973 as our goal to achieve the objective.

We believe all of the career incentives mentioned, and possibly more, will be required in an all-volunteer environment to continue to attract and retain the high-quality people we have in the Air Force today.

## Formidable Problems

An all-volunteer Armed Force will negate the existence of an active draft. This poses formidable problems for all Services. Although the Air Force is now a volunteer force, we estimate that in the neighborhood of one-half of our current volunteers are draft-motivated to some degree. For this reason, it seems prudent to approach the zero draft gradually or incrementally, rather than abruptly. Putting even a reduced-draft system into effect, however, would still emphasize the need for the improved incentives that I have listed.

In trying to offer greater incentives to top-quality people, we place improvements in leadership on a par with increases in material compensation.

We know that today's young people are better educated, more knowledgeable, and more skeptical than their predecessors. They are less willing to respond to the mere symbols of authority, but more willing to follow intelligent leadership. Once they are convinced that something is worthwhile, they are more dedicated. They are far more concerned with personal identity than with personal security. The abilities of these young people help significantly our efforts to improve the force.

The upgrading of personnel skill levels and experience is being matched by a corresponding effort to modernize our aircraft and missiles. Accenting the need for modernization is the fact that 50% of our manned aircraft are over nine years old and 25% of our tactical force are over 13 years old.

In advancing our programs to acquire new systems, we are confronted by a persistent problem in that maintaining an operational force demands a significant portion of the resources that could otherwise be applied against our future requirements. Thus, tradeoffs, by necessity, are being made between the hardware needed for today and the more advanced development leading to such items as vertical takeoff aircraft and additional space systems.

Some of the systems we are trying to bring into the force over the next five years will incorporate important advances in technology. As one example, the use of weight-saving composite materials made from boron and graphite

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

6-F