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[y]

A fuller statement of the challenge of collective defense came in the Alastair Buchan lecture in London on June 25, 1976 (#71). The democracies had the resources to maintain an adequate defense posture in Europe; they needed to maintain the political will:

## Security and the Democracies

Security is the bedrock of all that we do. A quarter century ago, the American defense commitment to Europe provided the shield behind which Western Europe recovered its economic health and political vitality. Today, our collective defense alliance—and the U.S.-Japanese relationship—continue to be essential for global stability. But the nature of security and strategy has fundamentally changed since the time when our alliances were founded:

- The Soviet Union has recovered from the devastation of World War II and pressed vigorously ahead on the path of industrial growth. Possessing resources on a continental scale and imposing on its people enormous sacrifices in the name of its ideology, the U.S.S.R. has developed its economic strength and technology to a point where it can match the West in many sectors of industrial and military power. It shows no signs of changing its priorities.

- For centuries, it was axiomatic that increases in military power could be translated into almost immediate political advantage. It is now clear that in strategic weaponry, new increments of weapons or destructiveness do not automatically lead to either military or political gains. The destructiveness of strategic weapons has contributed to the emergence of nuclear stalemate. Neither side, if it acts with minimum prudence, will let the balance tip against it, either in an arms race or in an agreement to limit arms.

- Beneath the nuclear umbrella, the temperature to probe with regional forces or proxy wars increases. The steady growth of Soviet conventional military and naval power and its expanding global reach cannot be ignored. Conventional forces and military assistance to allies assume pivotal importance. We must insure that the strength and flexibility of all forces capable of local defense are enhanced. And we must conduct a prudent and forceful foreign policy that is prepared to use our strength to block expansionism.

These new realities demand from us steadiness, above all. Democratic societies have always fluctuated in their attitude toward defense—between complacency and alarmist concern. The long leadtimes of modern weapons and their complexity make both these aberrations dangerous. We cannot afford alternation between neglect and bursts of frenzy if we are to have a coherent defense program and public support for the necessary exertions. We need an allied defense posture that is relevant to our dangers, credible to both friends and adversaries, and justifiable to our peoples. And we must be prepared to sustain it over the long term.

It is imperative that we maintain the programs that insure that the balance is preserved. But we owe it to ourselves to see the military balance in proper perspective. Complacency may produce weakness, but exaggeration of danger can lead to a loss of will. To be sure, there has been a steady buildup of Soviet military power. But we have also seen to the steady growth and improvement of our own forces over the same period.

- We have always had to face Soviet ground forces larger than our own, partly because of the Soviet Union's definition of its needs as a power in the heart of the Eurasian landmass, with perceived threats on both flanks. Its naval power, while a growing and serious problem, is far weaker than combined allied naval strength in terms of tonnage, firepower, range, access to the sea, experience, and seamanship.

- The United States, for its part, is expanding its Army from 13 to 16 divisions through new measures of streamlining forces; we are increasing our combat forces in Europe; we plan to station a new Army brigade on the critical sector of the north German plain; we are augmenting our naval forces. Our European allies have completed major programs to build common infrastructure. We have undertaken new joint efforts of standardization and interoperability of allied forces.

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[Y]

—U.S. strategic forces are superior in accuracy, diversity, reliability, survivability, and numbers of separately targetable nuclear warheads. We have a commanding lead in strategic bombers. In addition, there are American deployments overseas and the nuclear forces of two Atlantic allies.

—Even with our different priorities, the economic and technological base which underlies Western military strength remains overwhelmingly superior in size and capacity for innovation. The Soviet Union suffers endemic weakness in its industry and agriculture; recent studies indicate that this chronic inefficiency extends even into their military sector to a much greater extent than realized before.

These strengths of ours demonstrate that our present security posture is adequate and that it is well within our capacities to continue to balance the various elements of Soviet power. To maintain the necessary defense is a question of leadership more than of power. Our security responsibility is both manageable and unending. We must undertake significant additional efforts for the indefinite future. For as far ahead as we can see, we will live in a twilight area between tranquillity and open confrontation.

This is a task for both sides of the Atlantic. Our defense effort within the alliance will be importantly affected by the degree to which the American public is convinced that our allies share similar perceptions of the military challenge and a comparable determination to meet it. The greatest threat to the alliance would occur if, for whatever reason—through misreading the threat, or inattention to conventional forces, or reductions of the defense efforts of allies, or domestic developments within NATO members—U.S. public support for NATO were weakened.

The challenge of building sufficient hardware is easier than those of geopolitical understanding, political coordination, and above all, resolve. In the nuclear age, once a change in the geopolitical balance has become unambiguous, it is too late to do anything about it. However great our strength, it will prove empty if we do not resist seemingly marginal changes whose cumulative impact can undermine our security. Power serves little purpose without the doctrines and concepts which define where our interests require its application.

Therefore let us not paralyze ourselves by a rhetoric of weakness. Let us concentrate on building the understanding of our strategic interests which must underlie any policy. The fact is that nowhere has the West been defeated for lack of strength. Our setbacks have been self-inflicted, either because leaders chose objectives that were beyond our psychological capabilities or because our legislatures refused to support what the executive branch believed was essential. This—and not the various "gaps" that appear in the American debate in years divisible by four—is the deepest security problem we face.

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[Y]

Moral Unity: Eurocommunism

The unity of the industrial democracies was not only
economic but moral.

One of the dangers spawned by the economic and social
tension produced by the energy crisis was the menace of Commu-
nist Parties in Western European countries. On this topic,
HK believed that the United States had a duty to express its
disapproval of so-called "Eurocommunism," if only to avoid
misleading Europeans into believing that we were indifferent
to what it represented. (A particular concern was the Italian
general election coming up in June 1976. In the 1976 Presi-
dential campaign, candidate Jimmy Carter made a point of stress-
ing his commitment to "noninterference" in such matters.)

The issue seems to have come up first in 1975 in
connection with the Portuguese revolution. HK addressed
the topic on August 14, 1975 in a speech in Birmingham be-
fore the Southern Commodity Producers Conference (#39). He
also warned the Soviet Union against interfering:

But the United States has never accepted
that the Soviet Union is free to relax ten-
sions selectively or as a cover for the pursuit
of unilateral advantage. In Portugal, a focus
of current concern, the Soviet Union should
not assume that it has the option, either
directly or indirectly, to influence events
contrary to the right of the Portuguese peo-
ple to determine their own future. The in-
volvement of external powers for this
purpose in a country which is an old friend
and ally of ours is inconsistent with any
principle of European security.

Events in Portugal have their origin in
the dynamics of Portuguese history. But 80
percent of the Portuguese people have de-
clared unmistakably their desire for a
democratic system and democratic parties.
The attempt by an antidemocratic and
doctrinaire minority to thwart this desire is

meeting inevitable and growing popular
resistance.

The United States welcomed the Portu-
guese revolution. We and our allies have sup-
ported its aims diplomatically and materially.
We sympathize with those moderate elements
who seek to build Portugal by democratic
means. We will oppose and speak out against
the efforts of a minority that appears to be
subverting the revolution for its own pur-
poses. The Portuguese people should know
that we and all the democratic countries of
the West are deeply concerned about their
future and stand ready to help a democratic
Portugal.

And at some point we and our European
allies must ask ourselves whether major
Communist influence in a government is com-
patible with membership in an alliance
dedicated to resisting Communist aggres-
sion.

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[N]

HK spoke again on the moral unity of the industrial democracies in his address in Boston on March 11, 1976, before the Boston World Affairs Council (#54). He cast doubt on whether Communist Parties in Western Europe were compatible with democracy or with the interests of the West:

## The Moral Unity of the Great Democracies

Our efforts to build peace and progress reflect our deep-seated belief in freedom and in the hope of a better future for all mankind. These are values we share with our closest allies, the great industrial democracies.

The resilience of our countries in recovering from economic difficulty and in consolidating our cooperation has an importance far beyond our immediate well-being. For while foreign policy is unthinkable without an element of pragmatism, pragmatism without underlying moral purpose is like a rudderless ship.

Together, the United States and our allies have maintained the global peace and sustained the world economy for more than 30 years. The spirit of innovation and progress in our societies has no match anywhere, certainly not in societies laying claim to being "revolutionary." Rarely in history have alliances survived—let alone flourished—as ours have in vastly changing global and geopolitical conditions. The ideals of the industrial democracies give purpose to our efforts to improve relations with the East, to the dialogue with the Third World, and to many other spheres of common endeavor.

Our ties with the great industrial democracies are therefore not alliances of convenience but a union of principle in defense of values and a way of life.

It is in this context that we must be concerned about the possibility of Communist parties coming to power—or sharing in power—in governments in NATO countries. Ultimately, the decision must, of course, be made by the voters of the countries concerned. But no one should expect that this question is not of concern to this government.

Whether some of the Communist parties in Western Europe are in fact independent

of Moscow cannot be determined when their electoral self-interest so overwhelmingly coincides with their claims.

Their internal procedures—their Leninist principles and dogmas—remain the antithesis of democratic parties. And were they to gain power, they would do so after having advocated for decades programs and values detrimental to our traditional ties. By that record, they would inevitably give low priority to security and Western defense efforts, which are essential not only to Europe's freedom but to maintaining the world balance of power. They would be tempted to orient their economies to a much greater extent toward the East. We would have to expect that Western European governments in which Communists play a dominant role would, at best, steer their countries' policies toward the positions of the nonaligned.

The political solidarity and collective defense of the West, and thus NATO, would be inevitably weakened, if not undermined. And in this country, the commitment of the American people to maintain the balance of power in Europe, justified though it might be on pragmatic geopolitical grounds, would lack the moral base on which it has stood for 30 years.

We consider the unity of the great industrial democracies crucial to all we do in the world. For this reason we have sought to expand our cooperation to areas beyond our mutual defense—in improved political consultation, in coordinating our approaches to negotiations with the East, in reinforcing our respective economic policies, in developing a common energy policy, and in fashioning common approaches for the increasingly important dialogue with the developing nations. We have made remarkable progress in all these areas. We are determined to continue. Our foreign policy has no higher priority.

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HK made the same point in a speech in Phoenix be-
fore a luncheon meeting of the Downtown Rotary Club on
April 16, 1976 (#60):

The Challenge of Democracy

Our first priority is our relationship with
the great industrial democracies.

There is no doubt that freedom today is
under serious challenge. Democratic socie-
ties are in a numerical minority in the
world; and within many of them, antidemo-
cratic forces are gaining in strength.

The dangers are real, but so is our col-
lective capacity to respond. We and our allies
account for 65 percent of the world's pro-
duction and 70 percent of its trade; we are
the world's most industrialized and urban-
ized societies; it is we who are the pioneers
of the modern age, we who have the experi-
ence, the intellectual creativity, and the re-
sources to lead attempts to solve the eco-
nomic and social problems facing this shrink-
ing planet—there is no reason for us to
falter. Many of the challenges to the indus-
trial democracies are of their own making.
Therefore they can be mastered with con-
fidence, vision, and creativity.

Together with the other industrial democ-
racies we face, with confidence, a vast
agenda:

—The United States is determined to protect our nation's security and that of our friends and allies; we will do our part to maintain the global balance that has preserved peace and freedom for three decades.

—Together we will foster economic prog-

ress and social justice in our societies, for
the principles of freedom and human dig-
nity which we cherish must rest on a firm
foundation of responsiveness to the needs
of our peoples.

—We will intensify collaboration on the
great new issues of our time: the economic,
political, and social challenges of global
interdependence, the easing of tensions be-
tween East and West, and the forging of
cooperation between developed and develop-
ing countries.

—The United States has encouraged and welcomed those of its allies that moved from dictatorship toward democracy. For the same reason we will continue to warn against those who would turn over a major share in Western democratic governments to Communist parties suddenly seeking respectability. We would do our allies no favor if we encouraged wishful thinking that the advent of Communist parties into power will not represent a watershed in our relations. The basic reality is that our people will not accept the same close and confidential relationship with Western countries where Communist parties have been granted a major share in government.

—We will stand for the cause of liberty
and independence around the world; for if
we do not champion our own cause, no one
else will do it for us.

—We will never forget that the democra-
tic nations hold in trust humanity's highest
principles and aspirations and that they
thus bear a grave responsibility.

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[y]

And finally, in a speech to the IISS in London on June 25, 1976, inaugurating the Alastair Buchan memorial lecture series (#71), HK spoke again eloquently of the moral unity of the West. Democracy faced several challenges in a new era, of which one was the challenge of non-democratic groups and parties in Western societies:

## The Future of Democratic Societies

In every dimension of our activities, then, the industrial democracies enter the new era with substantial capacities and opportunities. At the same time, it would be idle to deny that in recent years the moral stamina of the West has been seriously challenged.

Since its beginnings, Western civilization has clearly defined the individual's relationship to society and the state. In southern Europe, the humanism of the Renaissance made man the measure of all things. In northern Europe, the Reformation, in proclaiming the priesthood of all believers and offering rewards for individual effort, put the emphasis on the individual. In England, the sense of justice and human rights and responsibilities evolved in the elaboration of the common law. Two hundred years ago the authors of our Declaration of Independence drew upon this heritage; to them every human being had inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The state existed to protect the individual and permit full scope for the enjoyment of these rights.

Today in the West, 30 years after the Marshall plan, our deepest challenge is that a new generation must explore again the issues of liberty and social responsibility, in an era when societies have grown vastly in size, complexity, and dynamism.

The modern industrial society, though founded in freedom and offering prosperity, risks losing the individual in the mass and fostering his alienation. The technical complexity of public issues challenges the func-

tioning of democracy. Mass media and the weakening of party and group structures further the isolation of the individual; they transform democratic politics, adding new elements of volatility and unpredictability. The bureaucratic state poses a fundamental challenge to political leadership and responsiveness to public will.

Basic moral questions are raised: How do we inspire a questioning new generation in a relativistic age and in a society of impersonal institutions? Will skepticism and cynicism sap the spiritual energies of our civilization at the moment of its greatest technical and material success? Having debunked authority, will our societies now seek refuge in false simplifications, demagogic certitudes, or extremist panaceas?

These questions are not a prediction but a test—a test of the creativity and moral fortitude of our peoples and leaders.

Western civilization has met such tests before. In the late 15th century, Europe was in a period of gloomy introspection, preoccupied with a sense of despair and mortality. The cities which had sparked its revival following the Islamic conquests were in decline. Its territory was being diminished by the depredations of a powerful invader from the East. Its spiritual, economic, and cultural center—Italy—was a prey to anarchy and dismemberment.

And yet Europe at that very moment was already well launched on one of the world's periods of greatest political and intellectual

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advance. The Renaissance and Reformation, the great discoveries, the revival of humanistic values, the industrial and democratic revolutions—these were all to create the character and the dynamism of the Western civilization of which we, on both sides of the Atlantic, are the heirs.

Similarly today, the West has assets to meet its challenges and to draw from them the material for new acts of creation. It is our nations that have been the vanguard of the modern age. Intellectually and morally, it is our societies that have proven themselves the vast laboratory of the experiment of modernization. Above all, it is the Western democracies that originated—and keep alive today—the vision of political freedom, social justice, and economic well-being for all peoples. None of us lives up to this vision ideally or all the time. But the rigorous standard by which we judge ourselves is what makes us different from totalitarian societies, of the left or the right.

This, then, is our moral task:

—First, as democratic governments we must redeem, over and over again, the trust of our peoples. As a nation which has accepted the burden of leadership, the United States has a special responsibility: we must overcome the traumas of the recent period, eradicate their causes, and preserve the qualities which world leadership demands. In Europe, wherever there has been a slackening in governmental responsiveness to the needs of citizens, there should be reform and revival.

—Second, we must confront the complexities of a pluralistic world. This calls for more

than specific technical solutions. It requires of leaders a willingness to explain the real alternatives, no matter how complicated or difficult. And it requires of electorates an understanding that we must make choices amidst uncertainty, where the outcome may be neither immediate nor reducible to simple slogans.

—Third, we must clarify our attitudes toward political forces within Western societies which appeal to electorates on the ground that they may bring greater efficiency to government. But we cannot avoid the question of the commitment of these forces to democratic values nor a concern about the trends that a decision based on temporary convenience would set in motion. At the same time, opposition to these forces is clearly not enough. There must be a response to legitimate social and economic aspirations and to the need for reforms of inadequacies from which these forces derive much of their appeal.

—Finally, the solidarity of the democratic nations in the world is essential both as material support and as a moral symbol. There could be no greater inspiration of our peoples than the reaffirmation of their common purpose and the conviction that they can shape their fortune in freedom.

We cannot afford either a perilous complacency or an immobilizing pessimism. Alastair Buchan posed his questions not to induce paralysis, but as a spur to wiser action and fresh achievement.

We know what we must do. We also know what we can do. It only remains to do it.

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## Japan

Japan was not neglected as a key partner among the democratic nations. In an address on June 18, 1975, before the Japan Society in New York (#33), HK expressed the American commitment to Japan:

America's ties with Japan are strong, close, and full of promise. Tonight I want to describe the importance of this relationship—for America, for Asia, and for the world. This occasion comes as a welcome opportunity. The tragic end of our involvement in Indochina has stimulated questions, among Asians as well as Americans, about the future of U.S. foreign policy. But paradoxically, these events have also driven home the recognition, among Asians as well as Americans, of how essential a strong and purposeful United States is to global peace and progress.

As we and Japan seek to shape the future together, we face a world profoundly different from that in which our relationship was forged.

The bipolar world of the 1950's and 1960's has disappeared. The reemergence of Europe and Japan, the rivalry among the Communist powers, the growth of military technologies, the rise and increasing diversity of the so-called Third World, have created a new international environment—a world of multiple centers of power, of ideological differences both old and new, clouded by nuclear peril and marked by the new imperatives of interdependence.

American policy has sought to shape out of this a new international structure based on equilibrium rather than domination, negotiation rather than confrontation, and a consciousness of global interdependence as the basis of the ultimate fulfillment of national objectives.

As the members of this society have long

recognized, the relationship between the United States and Japan is crucial to this design. It is central to the continued stability, progress, and prosperity of the international community, and it is fundamental to American policy in Asia.

—Our Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security reflects an enduring sense of common interest in the peace of Asia. Through many changes in conditions and alignments, our ties have proven their continuing and indispensable validity for our two countries and for global stability.

—As maritime trading nations with complementary economies, the United States and Japan account for 52 percent of the production and 26 percent of the trade of the entire non-Communist industrialized world. We possess the world's most dynamic economies. As economic superpowers, our respective policies profoundly affect each other and the world at large.

—Our nations share an enduring commitment to the political values of free societies and an abiding concern for the well-being of our fellow men.

Japan's evolution over the last 30 years into a major factor on the world scene inevitably has brought changes in the style of our relations even as the community of our mutual interests has grown. Adjustments in U.S. economic policies and a new policy toward China in 1971 led to painful but transitory misunderstandings to which—let us be frank—our own tactics contributed. We have learned from experience; these strains are behind us; our policies are mov-

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ing in harmony in these areas; our consultations on all major issues are now close, frequent, and frank.

U.S.-Japanese bilateral relations, I am pleased to say, have never been better in 30 years.

It is a fitting symbol, therefore, that in his first trip abroad as chief of state, President Ford visited Japan last November. We look forward to the visit of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor, whose presence will lend further dignity and strength to the ties between us. And before the Emperor's arrival, Prime Minister Miki will come to Washington for consultations on the foreign policy and economic issues facing our two countries.

I cannot refer to this series of consultations without paying tribute to Eisaku Sato, a great leader of Japan, a great champion of Japanese-American friendship, and one of the world's great statesmen. I sought his counsel on each of my five visits to Japan, even after he had left office. I was privileged to know him as a colleague and a personal friend. I shall miss him greatly.

## The Foundations of Our Partnership

Japan and the United States have known each other for a century and a quarter. Our relationship has passed through an incredible range: from curiosity to competition, conflict, occupation, reconciliation, to alliance and mutual dependence. This long, complicated, and varied experience has taught us that our close association is more essential than ever and that the dramatic differences in national styles and situations are a strength to be husbanded rather than a weakness to be overcome.

We Americans are a disparate people—heterogeneous in our origins, constantly striving to redefine what we have in common. Japan, on the other hand, is a country of unusual cohesiveness and homogeneity. For Americans, contracts and laws are prime guarantors of social peace. The Japanese depend less on legal and formal rules to preserve social harmony than on the quality of human relationships and on un-

stated patterns of consensus and obligation.

Our language is designed for categorization. It invites logical distinctions and value judgments. The Japanese have lived together for so long and shared so many experiences that they frequently communicate through intuition and indirection, occasionally without need of words. The Japanese prize form and mood as well as content. We honor content above all and frequently exhibit impatience with emphasis on style.

The United States is blessed with vast land and ample resources; abundance is taken for granted. Japan is a great industrial power, but its prosperity is more recent and—because of the dependence of its industry on imported food, energy, raw materials, and external markets—more vulnerable.

In foreign policy, the United States has assumed global security responsibilities. Japan has devoted its energies to the growth of its economy and commerce, while—alone among the world's great powers—forswearing large military forces or assertive diplomacy.

Communication between cultures is always difficult. But the United States and Japan have achieved an increasing sensitivity, sometimes fascination, with our national differences. Our two nations supremely demonstrate the possibility of close and enduring association between two different cultures and two distant continents. It is an extraordinary achievement, and we too often take it for granted.

We formed a political alliance and security relationship in a period of Japanese dependence. War had shattered her economy and political system. Japan accepted American leadership in that difficult period and only gradually began to reassert an autonomous diplomacy and active political involvement in the world around her.

Japan's emergence as a major economic power and international force has substantially transformed our relations in recent years.

The reversion of Okinawa eliminated the last major vestige of the war from our

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Department of State Bulletin

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bilateral agenda. We have made significant progress in removing the trade imbalance which was so often an irritant in our relations. In response to Japanese concerns, the United States has reaffirmed its specific commitments as supplier and purchaser of important goods and materials.

Our relationship, which was forged by the necessities of security, has flourished as well on the other contemporary challenges: improving relations with the Communist countries, advancing the prosperity of the industrial democracies, and building a new era of cooperation among all nations.

Our most immediate shared interest, naturally, is in Asia.

## The United States and Asia

The security interests of all the great world powers intersect in Asia, particularly in Northeast Asia. China comprises the heartland of the continent. The Soviet Far East spreads across the top of Asia. The Japanese islands span 2,000 miles of ocean off the mainland. America's Pacific presence encompasses the entire region. Western Europe has important economic links with Asia and feels indirectly the effects of any disturbance of the equilibrium in the area.

Asia's share of the world's population and resources is immense. In the last two decades, the Asian-Pacific economy has experienced more rapid growth than any other region. It is here that the United States has its largest and fastest growing overseas commerce. We have as vital an interest in access to Asia's raw materials as Asia has to our markets and technology.

The ties between Asia and America have a deeper philosophical and human dimension. The influence of America and the West stimulated the transformation of much of Asia during the past 100 years. From the days of the New England transcendentalists to the modern period, Asian culture and ideas have significantly touched American intellectual life, thereby reflecting the universality of human aspirations.

The role of Asia, then, is potentially decisive for the solution of the contemporary agenda of peace and progress and the quality of life.

This is why, in spite of recent events, the United States will not turn away from Asia or focus our attention on Europe to the detriment of Asia. Our relationships with Europe and Japan are equally vital; each is essential to global peace and security. In the modern world the problems and opportunities of each area overlap and are inseparable from those of the other. Our fidelity to our commitments will be as strong in one part of the globe as in the other.

Nor can we confine our Asian policy to Japan without destroying the underpinnings of the U.S.-Japanese relationship. The interests that bind Japan to Asia are no less vital than those binding it to America and the other nations of the West. The value of our political and security relationship depends on its contribution to a broad balance of security in Asia. This is decisive for Japan as well as for us.

* * *

## The United States and Japan

### The Challenge of Peace and Security

Japan's contribution to a peaceful world is unique. Despite its industrial prowess Japan elected to forgo the military attributes of great-power status, limiting itself to modest conventional self-defense forces and relying for its security on the support of the United States and the good will of others.

In this framework, Japan has thrived. Its security has been assured; its democratic institutions have flourished. Its economy has achieved unparalleled growth, partly because through much of this period Japan enjoyed assured access to imported raw materials and food at reasonable prices. Japan has been able to develop constructive economic and political relations with its neighbors, thereby contributing to regional stability and growth.

The events of recent years have transformed this relatively simple universe. The

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interaction among the major powers has become much more complex than in the fifties or early sixties. The oil crisis of 1978 confronted Japan with its economic vulnerability. Today suppliers of raw materials are presenting a variety of new demands that are not easily accommodated in the context of existing world trade and monetary structures.

These changing circumstances have required both Japan and the United States to rethink old premises and devise new, creative approaches. By their nature, these problems require collaborative, not separate responses. Japan and the United States must relate national security to international reconciliation and national growth to international cooperation.

And again in a speech in Detroit on November 24, 1975, before a dinner meeting sponsored by the Economic Club of Detroit (#45), in advance of President Ford's trip to Japan and the Pacific basin. HK declared that Japan was "our principal Asian ally" and a "permanent friend:"

We will continue to strengthen our partnership with Japan. Japan is our principal Asian ally and largest overseas trading partner; Japan's participation is essential to international efforts to promote economic recovery. Our hopes for a peaceful and prosperous Asia depend in large part on Japan's creative collaboration on many international issues. Japan's experiment in political leadership without the attributes of military power is anchored in turn upon our security treaty, which threatens no one and is widely recognized as a pillar of regional stability.

In short, we regard Japan not as an occasional or temporary ally, but as a permanent friend.

In the early 1970's, in response to Japan's growing economic strength and some bilateral strains, we went through a period of adjustment in our relations. There were frictions, some avoidable by more thoughtful U.S. actions. But these tensions have been overcome by devoted effort on both sides. Today our relations are the best they have been in 30 years. We face no serious bilateral problems. We are collaborating on a vast agenda: to advance the prosperity of the industrial democracies, to ease tensions with the Communist countries, and to extend the new era of cooperation to the members of the less developed world.

Our bilateral relationship, which depends so much upon intangibles of conduct and understanding, has acquired a deeper qual-

ity. There have been important cultural exchanges, which have enhanced our sensitivity to each other's national style and values. The first visit by an American President to Japan last fall and the historic visit of the Emperor and the Empress to the United States—and the warm reception that each people extended to the other's leader—demonstrated the extraordinary depth and strength of this friendship.

We do not propose to rest on the accomplishments of the past.

- We will preserve the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security while continuing to adapt its practical arrangements to the changing military and political environment.

- We will strengthen our political consultation, in the full realization that we will not always pursue identical policies but that we have it in our power to assure compatible approaches and full understanding of occasional disagreements.

- We will harmonize even more closely our national policies to combat recession and promote economic expansion.

- We will continue to deepen the cultural dimension of our ties, which strengthens the bonds between our peoples.

In all our dealings we intend to honor a higher standard of concern and consultation than normally obtains even between allies—one that reflects the profound quality of our partnership.

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On July 22, 1976, in Seattle, before a luncheon (№73) sponsored by the Downtown Rotary Club and the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, HK spoke again on the subject of America's relations with Asia. He reiterated our commitment to Japanese-American partnership and declared that our relations were "better than they have ever been:"

No relationship is more important to the United States than our alliance with Japan. Mutual security remains fundamental to our collaboration; but in a new era we have extended our partnership to a broad range of common interests: easing tensions in Asia, solving regional and global problems, and combining our vast economic strength to spur stable and noninflationary world economic growth.

In the early 1970's, Japan and the United States passed through an inevitable period of adjustment from dependence and American predominance to equality and mutual responsibility. There were frictions over textiles and monetary policies and over the timing of our essentially parallel China policies. But these difficulties have been overcome; they proved to be the growing pains of a more mature and equal relationship.

Today our relations with Japan are better than they have ever been. There are no significant bilateral disputes. We have developed a clearer common perception of our security requirements, which will be further enhanced by the recently formed Joint Committee on Defense Cooperation. We have injected greater balance and reciprocity into our economic relations. We have learned to identify and deal with po-

tential difficulties before they become politically explosive. We have consulted with greater frequency and frankness and in greater depth than in any previous period. Both nations are displaying sensitivity to the intangibles of our relationship and have built a wide base of public support for closer cooperation.

Our relationship with Japan plays a central role in furthering stability and progress in Asia and the world. Our security relationship is crucial for the global balance of power. Japan is our largest overseas trading partner. Each of us seeks to improve relations with Moscow and Beijing, to ease tensions in Korea, to encourage a stable political evolution in Southeast Asia. Each of us cooperates in the development of effective international efforts to promote stable economic growth, strengthen bonds among the industrial democracies, and shape more positive ties between the industrial and developing countries.

Japan and the United States share a common dedication to the principles of democracy. And so close consultation on key regional and global issues is at the heart of our respective policies. The United States will make every effort to strengthen these bonds.

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III. U.S.-SOVIET RELATIONS

Detente and Human Rights

During 1973, a debate erupted over the moral dimension of U.S-Soviet relations. The Soviet crackdown against dissidents, and Sakharov's sudden endorsement of the Jackson Amendment concerning Soviet Jewish emigration, prompted liberals to unite with conservatives against detente. American liberals had a long-standing moral aversion to the Nixon Administration's balance of power approach to world affairs; American conservatives, having no geopolitical tradition of their own, were similarly confused by a policy of negotiation with the USSR over SALT and other areas of cooperation. Both came together in what purported to be "moral" objections to the Nixon Administration's approach to U.S.-Soviet relations.

HK sought to respond on the philosophical plane in his speech on October 8, 1973, before the Third Pacem in Terris Conference in Washington sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions (#5). After a philosophical discussion which has been covered in an earlier section of this paper, HK turned specifically to the debate over detente. He made a case for its moral validity, and, citing the Middle East war, reminded the Soviet Union that detente depended on geopolitical restraint:

We are at one of those rare moments where through a combination of fortuitous circumstances and design man seems in a position to shape his future. What we need is the confidence to discuss issues without bitter strife, the wisdom to define together the nature of our world, as well as the vision to chart together a more just future.

Détente With the Soviet Union

Nothing demonstrates this need more ur-
gently than our relationship with the Soviet
Union.

This administration has never had any
illusions about the Soviet system. We have
always insisted that progress in technical
fields, such as trade, had to follow—and re-
flect—progress toward more stable inter-
national relations. We have maintained a
strong military balance and a flexible de-
fense posture as a buttress to stability. We
have insisted that disarmament had to be
mutual. We have judged movement in our
relations with the Soviet Union not by
atmospherics but by how well concrete prob-

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lems are resolved and by whether there is
responsible international conduct.

Coexistence, to us, continues to have a
very precise meaning:

- We will oppose the attempt by any country to achieve a position of predominance either globally or regionally.

- We will resist any attempt to exploit a policy of détente to weaken our alliances.

- We will react if relaxation of tensions is used as a cover to exacerbate conflicts in international trouble spots.

The Soviet Union cannot disregard these principles in any area of the world without imperiling its entire relationship with the United States.

On this basis we have succeeded in transforming U.S.-Soviet relations in many important ways. Our two countries have concluded a historic accord to limit strategic arms. We have substantially reduced the risk of direct U.S.-Soviet confrontation in crisis areas. The problem of Berlin has been resolved by negotiation. We and our allies have

engaged the Soviet Union in negotiations on major issues of European security, including a reduction of military forces in central Europe. We have reached a series of bilateral agreements on cooperation—health, environment, space, science and technology, as well as trade. These accords are designed to create a vested interest in cooperation and restraint.

Until recently the goals of détente were not an issue. The necessity of shifting from confrontation toward negotiation seemed so overwhelming that goals beyond the settlement of international disputes were never raised. But now progress has been made—and already taken for granted. We are engaged in an intense debate on whether we should make changes in Soviet society a pre-condition for further progress or indeed for following through on commitments already made. The cutting edge of this problem is the congressional effort to condition most-favored-nation (MFN) trade status for other countries on changes in their domestic systems.

This is a genuine moral dilemma. There are genuine moral concerns on both sides of the argument. So let us not address this as a debate between those who are morally sensitive and those who are not, between those who care for justice and those who are oblivious to humane values. The attitude of the American people and government has been made emphatically clear on countless occasions in ways that have produced effective results. The exit tax on emigration is not being collected, and we have received assurances that it will not be reapplied; hardship cases submitted to the Soviet Government are being given specific attention; the rate of Jewish emigration has been in the tens of thousands, where it was once a trickle. We will continue our vigorous efforts on these matters.

But the real debate goes far beyond this: Should we now tie demands which were never raised during negotiations to agreements that have already been concluded? Should we require as a formal condition internal changes that we heretofore sought to foster in an evolutionary manner?

Let us remember what the MFN question specifically involves. The very term "most favored nation" is misleading in its implication of preferential treatment. What we are talking about is whether to allow normal economic relations to develop—of the kind we now have with over 100 other countries and which the Soviet Union enjoyed until 1951. The issue is whether to abolish discriminatory trade restrictions that were imposed at the height of the cold war. Indeed, at that time the Soviet Government discouraged commerce because it feared the domestic impact of normal trading relations with the West on its society.

The demand that Moscow modify its domestic policy as a precondition for MFN or détente was never made while we were negotiating; now it is inserted after both sides have carefully shaped an overall mosaic. Thus it raises questions about our entire bilateral relationship.

Finally, the issue affects not only our rela-

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tionship with the Soviet Union but also with
many other countries whose internal struc-
tures we find incompatible with our own.
Conditions imposed on one country could
inhibit expanding relations with others,
such as the People's Republic of China.

We shall never condone the suppression of
fundamental liberties. We shall urge humane
principles and use our influence to promote
justice. But the issue comes down to the
limits of such efforts. How hard can we
press without provoking the Soviet leader-
ship into returning to practices in its for-
eign policy that increase international
tensions? Are we ready to face the crises
and increased defense budgets that a return
to cold war conditions would spawn? And
will this encourage full emigration or en-
hance the well-being or nourish the hope
for liberty of the peoples of Eastern Europe
and the Soviet Union? Is it détente that has
prompted repression—or is it détente that
has generated the ferment and the demand
for openness which we are now witnessing?

For half a century we have objected to
Communist efforts to alter the domestic

structures of other countries. For a genera-
tion of cold war we sought to ease the risks
produced by competing ideologies. Are we
now to come full circle and insist on domestic
compatibility as a condition of progress?

These questions have no easy answers.
The government may underestimate the mar-
gin of concessions available to us. But a fair
debate must admit that they are genuine
questions, the answers to which could affect
the fate of all of us.

Our policy with respect to détente is clear:
We shall resist aggressive foreign policies.
Détente cannot survive irresponsibility in
any area, including the Middle East. As for
the internal policies of closed systems, the
United States will never forget that the
antagonism between freedom and its enemies
is part of the reality of the modern age.
We are not neutral in that struggle. As long
as we remain powerful, we will use our in-
fluence to promote freedom, as we always
have. But in the nuclear age we are obliged
to recognize that the issue of war and peace
also involves human lives and that the at-
tainment of peace is a profound moral
concern.

HK addressed the human rights issue--the specific issue of Soviet emigration--in testimony before the Senate Finance Committee on March 7, 1974, during hearings on the Trade Bill (#12). There were sharp limits to what domestic transformations we could hope to bring about in the Soviet system by legislative fiat:

This administration has, from its incep-
tion, sought to create the conditions neces-
sary to move us from an era of confrontation
to a sustained period of peace and interna-
tional stability. Détente between East and
West has been part of a wider design:

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### Question of Human Rights in the U.S.S.R.

Let me now turn to a more detailed discussion of one particularly vexing aspect of our trade strategy: the normalization of commercial relations with the Soviet Union.

The most painful aspect of this debate—for me personally and for many others in this administration—centers around the question of respect for human rights in the Soviet Union.

This is not a dispute between the morally sensitive and the morally obtuse. It is, rather, a problem of choosing between alternatives.

I do not oppose the objective of those who wish to use trade policy to affect the evolution of Soviet society; it does seem to me, however, that they have chosen the wrong vehicle and the wrong context. We cannot accept the principle that our entire foreign policy—or even an essential component of that policy such as a normalization of our trade relations—should be made dependent on the transformation of the Soviet domestic structure.

I say this with some anguish, since both as a historian and as one whose own origins make him particularly conscious of the plight of minority groups, I would prefer that we could do otherwise.

Let us remember that we seek détente with the Soviet Union for one overwhelming reason: Both countries have the capability to destroy each other—and most of the rest of the world in the process. Thus, both of us have an overriding obligation to do all in our power to prevent such a catastrophe.

Détente is not rooted in agreement on values; it becomes above all necessary because each side recognizes that the other is a potential adversary in a nuclear war. To us, détente is a process of managing relations with a potentially hostile country in order to preserve peace while maintaining our vital

interests. In a nuclear age, this is in itself an objective not without moral validity—it may indeed be the most profound imperative of all.

Détente is founded on a frank recognition of basic differences and dangers. Precisely because we are conscious that these differences exist, we have sought to channel our relations with the U.S.S.R. into a more stable framework—a structure of interrelated and interdependent agreements. Forward movement in our relations must be on a broad front, encompassing a wide range of mutually reinforcing activities, so that groups and individuals in both countries will have a vested interest in the maintenance of peace and the growth of a stable international order.

Since détente is rooted in a recognition of differences and based on the prevention of disaster, there are sharp limits to what we can insist upon as part of this relationship. We have a right to demand responsible international behavior from the U.S.S.R.; we did not hesitate to make this clear during the Middle East crisis. We also have a right to demand that agreements we sign are observed in good faith.

But with respect to basic changes in the Soviet system, the issue is not whether we condone what the U.S.S.R. does internally; it is whether and to what extent we can risk other objectives—and especially the building of a structure for peace—for these domestic changes. I believe that we cannot and that to do so would obscure, and in the long run defeat, what must remain our overriding objective: the prevention of nuclear war.

### Impact of Denial of MFN to the U.S.S.R.

These considerations take on added force if we place trade and economic relations with the U.S.S.R. in the perspective of the past few years. When this administration assumed office it was under great pressure to relax restrictions upon East-West trade. Arguments at that time—when our trading position with other parts of the world was

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deteriorating and our friends in other industrialized countries were moving energetically into Eastern markets—emphasized not only the economic benefits to us but also stressed that expanded trade would improve relations where diplomacy had failed to do so.

The administration then took the view—which it has never abandoned—that intensified trade should grow out of a generally improved relationship; in short, that our relations with the U.S.S.R. should proceed on a broad front. We were often criticized for failing to move fast enough on trade, for linking trade to other international developments, and for depriving the U.S. business community of lucrative opportunities. Not once did anyone raise questions about the relationship of trade to the Soviet domestic system.

The administration pursued its strategy with determination, despite the pressures to which it was subjected. It was only after the 1972 summit that the President determined that trade could reasonably be expanded. By that time we were on the way to a Viet-Nam settlement, Berlin had been the subject of a major formal agreement, the first SALT [Strategic Arms Limitation Talks] agreements had been completed, a set of principles setting standards for U.S.-Soviet relations had been signed at the summit, a series of bilateral cooperation agreements in a wide field of activities had been signed and were in process of implementation. In sum, both in substance and tone the U.S.-Soviet relationship had undergone significant change and a process of normalization committing the top leaders on both sides had been initiated. In this setting, the gradual transformation of trading relationships was a logical step that could serve to provide additional incentives for maintaining the course which both sides had set for themselves.

The Moscow summit communique clearly indicated that the normalization of trading relationships would be an important task in the months ahead. When the President reported to the Congress immediately upon his return from Moscow, he explained his philosophy and purposes and discussed the accomplishments of the visit. In none of the

commentaries on the Moscow summit was there any significant opposition voice raised against the course we were pursuing in the economic sphere. It seemed to command the most widespread understanding and approval. Certainly the question of the Soviet domestic structure was not cited as an obstacle to the processes we had set in motion. Thus, to bring the issue to the fore now will involve profound questions of whether we negotiated in good faith.

This explains the administration's concern with title IV of the trade bill as it now stands.

* * *

The amendment, if adopted, will almost certainly prove counterproductive: It will not enhance emigration but stop it altogether. The experience of the past five years demonstrates that as our relations with the Soviet Union improve, emigration rises as well. Over the past five years, there have been breakthroughs in Soviet emigration practices unimaginable during the years of confrontation. In March 1973 the President was assured by Soviet authorities that current emigration policy, which had brought about a significant increase in the rate of emigration, would be continued indefinitely. The President was also assured that the "education tax" would be waived across the board. Despite complicating international developments, both of these commitments have thus far been fully met. Some 33,500 Soviet Jews arrived in Israel during 1973, putting the total for 1969-73 over the 81,000 mark.

The present emigration picture is not as bright as we would like; it has never been our view that the status quo is satisfactory. The administration of Soviet emigration policy often seems arbitrary. Some 1,300 individuals currently in the U.S.S.R. have been denied permission to emigrate to Israel. But the basic fact remains that as we have moved from confrontation to negotiation, emigration has increased from the sporadic trickle of the 1960's to a relatively steady flow of some 2,500 a month in the 1970's.

The issue before us is not adequately expressed by setting "economic détente" against "moral détente." The basic issue is

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how best to move from our present situation to a safer, freer, and more humane world, while at the same time bringing important economic and political benefits to the United States.

We ask the Congress for responsible consideration of how we can give substance to our ideals without jeopardizing other inter-

ests in which human values—and, indeed, perhaps humanity itself—are also at stake. At this moment in the evolution of world affairs, a moment fraught with promise as well as danger, we ask the Congress for its support in building a progressive world and contributing toward a lasting peace.

The most extensive and comprehensive statement of our detente policy was HK's presentation to the SFRC on September 19, 1974, during the SFRC's hearings on detente (#15). HK's statement began with a general description of what we meant by a policy of "detente," its historical origins, and its goals. Discussing emigration, the statement noted that the moral dilemma of dealing with Communist governments "has troubled the American people and the Congress since 1917." We were not neutral about human rights but there were limits to the domestic changes we could bring about in the Soviet system:

### I. The Challenge

Since the dawn of the nuclear age the world's fears of holocaust and its hopes for peace have turned on the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Throughout history men have sought peace but suffered war; all too often, deliberate decisions or miscalculations have brought violence and destruction to a world yearning for tranquillity. Tragic as the consequences of violence may have been in the past, the issue of peace and war takes on unprecedented urgency when, for the first time in history, two nations have the capacity to destroy mankind. In the nuclear age, as President Eisenhower pointed out two decades ago, "there is no longer any alternative to peace."

The destructiveness of modern weapons defines the necessity of the task; deep differences in philosophy and interests between the United States and the Soviet Union point up its difficulty. These differences do not spring from misunderstanding or personalities or transitory factors:

- They are rooted in history and in the way the two countries have developed.

- They are nourished by conflicting values and opposing ideologies.

- They are expressed in diverging national interests that produce political and

- They are influenced by allies and friends whose association we value and whose interests we will not sacrifice.

Paradox confuses our perception of the problem of peaceful coexistence: if peace is pursued to the exclusion of any other goal, other values will be compromised and perhaps lost; but if unconstrained rivalry leads to nuclear conflict, these values, along with everything else, will be destroyed in the resulting holocaust. However competitive they may be at some levels of their relationship, both major nuclear powers must base their policies on the premise that neither can expect to impose its will on the other without running an intolerable risk. The challenge of our time is to reconcile the reality of competition with the imperative of coexistence.

There can be no peaceful international order without a constructive relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. There will be no international stability unless both the Soviet Union and the United States conduct themselves with restraint and unless they use their enormous power for the benefit of mankind.

Thus we must be clear at the outset on what the term "détente" entails. It is the search for a more constructive relationship with the Soviet Union reflecting the realities I have outlined. It is a continuing process, not a final condition that has been or can

be realized at any one specific point in time. And it has been pursued by successive American leaders, though the means have varied as have world conditions.

Some fundamental principles guide this policy:

The United States cannot base its policy solely on Moscow's good intentions. But neither can we insist that all forward movement must await a convergence of American and Soviet purposes. We seek, regardless of Soviet intentions, to serve peace through a systematic resistance to pressure and con-ciliatory responses to moderate behavior.

We must oppose aggressive actions and irresponsible behavior. But we must not seek confrontations lightly.

We must maintain a strong national defense while recognizing that in the nuclear age the relationship between military strength and politically usable power is the most complex in all history.

Where the age-old antagonism between freedom and tyranny is concerned, we are not neutral. But other imperatives impose limits on our ability to produce internal changes in foreign countries. Consciousness of our limits is recognition of the necessity of peace—not moral callousness. The preservation of human life and human society are moral values, too.

We must be mature enough to recognize that to be stable a relationship must provide advantages to both sides and that the most constructive international relationships are those in which both parties perceive an element of gain. Moscow will benefit from certain measures, just as we will from others. The balance cannot be struck on each issue every day, but only over the whole range of relations and over a period of time.

## II. The Course of Soviet-American Relations

In the first two decades of the postwar period U.S.-Soviet relations were characterized by many fits and starts. Some encouraging developments followed the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, for example. But at

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the end of the decade the invasion of Czechoslovakia brought progress to a halt and threw a deepening shadow over East-West relations.

During those difficult days some were tempted to conclude that antagonism was the central feature of the relationship and that U.S. policy—even while the Viet-Nam agony raised questions about the readiness of the American people to sustain a policy of confrontation—had to be geared to this grim reality. Others recommended a basic change of policy; there was a barrage of demands to hold an immediate summit to establish a better atmosphere, to launch the SALT talks [Strategic Arms Limitation Talks], and to end the decades-old trade discrimination against the Soviet Union, which was widely criticized as anachronistic, futile, and counterproductive.

These two approaches reflected the extremes of the debate that had dominated most of the postwar period; they also revealed deep-seated differences between the American and the Soviet reactions to the process of international relations.

For many Americans, tensions and enmity in international relations are anomalies, the cause of which is attributed either to deliberate malice or misunderstanding. Malice is to be combated by force, or at least isolation; misunderstanding is to be removed by the strenuous exercise of good will. Communist states, on the other hand, regard tensions as inevitable byproducts of a struggle between opposing social systems.

Most Americans perceive relations between states as either friendly or hostile, both defined in nearly absolute terms. Soviet foreign policy, by comparison, is conducted in a gray area heavily influenced by the Soviet conception of the balance of forces. Thus Soviet diplomacy is never free of tactical pressures or adjustments, and it is never determined in isolation from the prevailing military balance. For Moscow, East-West contacts and negotiations are in part designed to promote Soviet influence abroad, especially in Western Europe—and to gain formal acceptance of those elements of the

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[Y]

status quo most agreeable to Moscow.

The issue, however, is not whether peace and stability serve Soviet purposes, but whether they serve our own. Indeed, to the extent that our attention focuses largely on Soviet intentions we create a latent vulnerability. If détente can be justified only by a basic change in Soviet motivation, the temperature becomes overwhelming to base U.S.-Soviet relations not on realistic appraisal but on tenuous hopes: a change in Soviet tone is taken as a sign of a basic change of philosophy. Atmosphere is confused with substance. Policy oscillates between poles of suspicion and euphoria.

Neither extreme is realistic, and both are dangerous. The hopeful view ignores that we and the Soviets are bound to compete for the foreseeable future. The pessimistic view ignores that we have some parallel interests and that we are compelled to coexist. Détente encourages an environment in which competitors can regulate and restrain their differences and ultimately move from competition to cooperation.

### A. American Goals

America's aspiration for the kind of political environment we now call détente is not new.

The effort to achieve a more constructive relationship with the Soviet Union is not made in the name of any one administration or one party or for any one period of time. It expresses the continuing desire of the vast majority of the American people for an easing of international tensions and their expectation that any responsible government will strive for peace. No aspect of our policies, domestic or foreign, enjoys more consistent bipartisan support. No aspect is more in the interest of mankind.

In the postwar period repeated efforts were made to improve our relationship with Moscow. The spirits of Geneva, Camp David, and Glassboro were evanescent moments in a quarter century otherwise marked by tensions and by sporadic confrontation. What is new in the current period of relaxation of tensions is its duration, the scope of the

relationship which has evolved, and the continuity and intensity of consultation which it has produced.

A number of factors have produced this change in the international environment. By the end of the sixties and the beginning of the seventies the time was propitious—no matter what administration was in office in the United States—for a major attempt to improve U.S.-Soviet relations. Contradictory tendencies contested for preeminence in Soviet policy; events could have tipped the scales toward either increased aggressiveness or toward conciliation.

—The fragmentation in the Communist world in the 1960's challenged the leading position of the U.S.S.R. and its claim to be the arbiter of orthodoxy. The U.S.S.R. could have reacted by adopting a more aggressive attitude toward the capitalist world in order to assert its militant vigilance; instead, the changing situation and U.S. policy seem to have encouraged Soviet leaders to cooperate in at least a temporary lessening of tension with the West.

—The prospect of achieving a military position of near parity with the United States in strategic forces could have tempted Moscow to use its expanding military capability to strive more determinedly for expansion; in fact, it tempered the militancy of some of its actions and sought to stabilize at least some aspects of the military competition through negotiations.

—The very real economic problems of the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe could have reinforced autarkic policies and the tendency to create a closed system; in actuality, the Soviet Union and its allies have come closer to acknowledging the reality of an interdependent world economy.

—Finally, when faced with the hopes of its own people for greater well-being, the Soviet Government could have continued to stimulate the suspicions of the cold war to further isolate Soviet society: in fact, it chose—however inadequately and slowly—to seek to calm its public opinion by joining in a relaxation of tensions.

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For the United States the choice was clear: To provide as many incentives as possible for those actions by the Soviet Union most conducive to peace and individual well-being and to overcome the swings between illusionary optimism and harsh antagonism that had characterized most of the postwar period. We could capitalize on the tentative beginnings made in the sixties by taking advantage of the compelling new conditions of the seventies.

We sought to explore every avenue toward an honorable and just accommodation while remaining determined not to settle for mere atmospherics. We relied on a balance of mutual interests rather than Soviet intentions. When challenged—such as in the Middle East, the Caribbean, or Berlin—we always responded firmly. And when Soviet policy moved toward conciliation, we sought to turn what may have started as a tactical maneuver into a durable pattern of conduct.

Our approach proceeds from the conviction that, in moving forward across a wide spectrum of negotiations, progress in one area adds momentum to progress in other areas. If we succeed, then no agreement stands alone as an isolated accomplishment vulnerable to the next crisis. We did not invent the interrelationship between issues expressed in the so-called linkage concept; it was a reality because of the range of problems and areas in which the interests of the United States and the Soviet Union impinge on each other. We have looked for progress in a series of agreements settling specific political issues, and we have sought to relate these to a new standard of international conduct appropriate to the dangers of the nuclear age. By acquiring a stake in this network of relationships with the West, the Soviet Union may become more conscious of what it would lose by a return to confrontation. Indeed, it is our hope that it will develop a self-interest in fostering the entire process of relaxation of tensions.

## B. *The Global Necessities*

In the late 1940's this nation engaged in a great debate about the role it would play

in the postwar world. We forged a bipartisan consensus on which our policies were built for more than two decades. By the end of the 1960's the international environment which molded that consensus had been transformed. What in the fifties had seemed a solid bloc of adversaries had fragmented into competing centers of power and doctrine; old allies had gained new strength and self-assurance; scores of new nations had emerged and formed blocs of their own; and all nations were being swept up in a technology that was compressing the planet and deepening our mutual dependence.

Then as now, it was clear that the international structure formed in the immediate postwar period was in fundamental flux and that a new international system was emerging. America's historic opportunity was to help shape a new set of international relationships—more pluralistic, less dominated by military power, less susceptible to confrontation, more open to genuine cooperation among the free and diverse elements of the globe. This new, more positive international environment is possible only if all the major powers—and especially the world's strongest nuclear powers—anchor their policies in the principles of moderation and restraint. They no longer have the power to dominate; they do have the capacity to thwart. They cannot build the new international structure alone; they can make its realization impossible by their rivalry.

Détente is all the more important because of what the creation of a new set of international relations demands of us with respect to other countries and areas. President Ford has assigned the highest priority to maintaining the vitality of our partnerships in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Our security ties with our allies are essential, but we also believe that recognition of the interdependence of the contemporary world requires cooperation in many other fields. Cooperation becomes more difficult if the United States is perceived by allied public opinion as an obstacle to peace and if public debate is polarized on the issue of whether friendship with the United States is inconsistent with East-West reconciliation.

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Fourth, we must know what can and can-
not be achieved in changing human condi-
tions in the East.

The question of dealing with Communist
governments has troubled the American peo-
ple and the Congress since 1917. There has
always been a fear that by working with a
government whose internal policies differ so
sharply with our own we are in some man-
ner condoning these policies or encouraging
their continuation. Some argue that until
there is a genuine "liberalization"—or signs
of serious progress in this direction—all ele-
ments of conciliation in Soviet policy must
be regarded as temporary and tactical. In
that view, demands for internal changes
must be the precondition for the pursuit of a
relaxation of tensions with the Soviet Un-
ion.

Our view is different. We shall insist on
responsible international behavior by the So-
viet Union and use it as the primary index
of our relationship. Beyond this we will use
our influence to the maximum to alleviate
suffering and to respond to humane appeals.
We know what we stand for, and we shall
leave no doubt about it.

Both as a government and as a people we
have made the attitude of the American peo-
ple clear on countless occasions in ways that
have produced results. I believe that both the

executive and the Congress, each playing its
proper role, have been effective. With re-
spect to the specific issue of emigration:

- The education exit tax of 1971 is no
longer being collected. We have been assured
that it will not be reapplied.

- Hardship cases submitted to the So-
viet Government have been given increased
attention, and remedies have been forthcom-
ing in many well-known instances.

- The volume of Jewish emigration has
increased from a trickle to tens of thousands.

- And we are now moving toward an un-
derstanding that should significantly dimin-
ish the obstacles to emigration and ease the
hardship of prospective emigrants.

We have accomplished much. But we can-
not demand that the Soviet Union, in effect,
suddenly reverse five decades of Soviet, and
centuries of Russian, history. Such an at-
tempt would be futile and at the same time
hazard all that has already been achieved.
Changes in Soviet society have already oc-
curred, and more will come. But they are
most likely to develop through an evolution
that can best go forward in an environment
of decreasing international tensions. A re-
newal of the cold war will hardly encourage
the Soviet Union to change its emigration
policies or adopt a more benevolent attitude
toward dissent.

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The debate over the moral dimension of detente was an important topic in HK's Minneapolis speech of July 15, 1975, on "the moral foundations of foreign policy" (#36). As in the 1974 detente statement (above), HK noted--in answer to critics on the right--that experience showed that the American public would not support a strong foreign policy if it believed that its own government was the source of tensions:

## Morality and Policy

The relation of morality to policy is thus not an abstract philosophical issue. It applies to many topics of the current debate. It applies to relations with the Communist powers, where we must manage a conflict of moral purposes and interests in the shadow of nuclear peril; and it applies in our political ties with nations whose domestic practices are inconsistent with our own.

Our relationship with the Communist powers has raised difficult questions for Americans since the Bolshevik Revolution. It was understood very early that the Communist system and ideology were in conflict with our own principles. Sixteen years passed before President Franklin Roosevelt extended diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Government. He did so in the belief, as he put it, that "through the resumption of normal relations the prospects of peace over all the world are greatly strengthened."

Today again courageous voices remind us of the nature of the Soviet system and of our duty to defend freedom. About this there is no disagreement.

There is, however, a clear conflict between two moral imperatives which is at the heart of the problem. Since the dawn of the nuclear age, the world's fears of holocaust and its hopes for a better future have both hinged on the relationship between the two super-powers. In an era of strategic nuclear balance-when both sides have the capacity to destroy civilized life-there is no alternative to coexistence.

In such conditions the necessity of peace is itself a moral imperative. As President Kennedy pointed out: ²

... in the final analysis our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all moral.

It is said, correctly, that the Soviet perception of "peaceful coexistence" is not the same as ours, that Soviet policies aim at the furthering of Soviet objectives. In a world of nuclear weapons capable of destroying mankind, in a century which has seen resort to brutal force on an unprecedented scale and intensity, in an age of ideology which turns the domestic policies of nations into issues of international contention, the problem of peace takes on a profound moral and practical difficulty. But the issue, surely, is not whether peace and stability serve Soviet purposes, but whether they also serve our own. Constructive actions in Soviet policy are desirable whatever the Soviet motives.

This government has stated clearly and constantly the principles which we believe must guide U.S.-Soviet relations and international conduct and which are consistent with both our values and our interests:

- We will maintain a strong and flexible military posture to preserve our security. We will as a matter of principle and national interest oppose attempts by any country to achieve global or regional predominance.

- We will judge the state of U.S.-Soviet relations not by atmospherics, but by whether concrete problems are successfully resolved.

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—All negotiations will be a two-way street, based on reciprocity of benefit and reliable observance of agreements.

—We will insist, as we always have, that progress in U.S.-Soviet economic relations must reflect progress toward stable political relationships.

—We will never abandon our ideals or our friends. We will not negotiate over the heads of, or against the interests of, other nations.

—We will respond firmly to attempts to achieve unilateral advantage or to apply the relaxation of tensions selectively.

Beyond the necessities of coexistence there is the hope of a more positive relationship. The American people will never be satisfied with simply reducing tension and easing the danger of nuclear holocaust. Over the longer term, we hope that firmness in the face of pressure and the creation of incentives for cooperative action may bring about a more durable pattern of stability and responsible conduct.

Today's joint manned mission in space—an area in which 15 years ago we saw ourselves in almost mortal rivalry—is symbolic of the distance we have traveled. Practical progress has been made on a wide range of problems. Berlin has been removed as a source of conflict between East and West; crises have been dampened; the frequency of U.S.-Soviet consultation on bilateral and multilateral problems is unprecedented; the scope of bilateral exchanges and cooperation in many fields is in dramatic contrast to the state of affairs ten, even five, years ago. The agreements already achieved to limit strategic armament programs—the central weapons of our respective military arsenals—are unparalleled in the history of diplomacy.

Your Senator Mondale is a strong and constructive advocate of such strategic arms control efforts.

Our immediate focus is on the international actions of the Soviet Union not because it is our only moral concern, but because it is the sphere of action that we can most directly and confidently affect. As a consequence of improved foreign policy relationships, we have successfully used our influence to promote human rights. But we have done so quietly, keeping in mind the delicacy of the problem and stressing results rather than public confrontation.

Therefore critics of détente must answer: What is the alternative that they propose? What precise policies do they want us to change? Are they prepared for a prolonged situation of dramatically increased international danger? Do they wish to return to the constant crises and high arms budgets of the cold war? Does détente encourage repression—or is it détente that has generated the ferment and the demands for openness that we are now witnessing? Can we ask our people to support confrontation unless they know that every reasonable alternative has been explored?

In our relations with the Soviet Union, the United States will maintain its strength, defend its interests, and support its friends with determination and without illusion. We will speak up for our beliefs with vigor and without self-deception. We consider détente a means to regulate a competitive relationship—not a substitute for our own efforts in building the strength of the free world. We will continue on the course on which we are embarked, because it offers hope to our children of a more secure and a more just world.

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At the end of July and beginning of August 1975 came the Helsinki summit and the Final Act of the CSCE. This was the target of right-wing criticism at home. In a speech in Birmingham before the Southern Commodity Producers Conference on August 14, 1975 (#38), HK defended the Helsinki accord, particularly on the ground that it elevated human rights to a major focus of East-West diplomacy in Europe.

At the same time, the hope for lasting peace depends on building habits of restraint and moderation among the superpowers. The United States has stated these principles on many occasions and embodied them in formal documents in our summit meetings with Soviet leaders. Similar principles of international conduct were stated in the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe signed by 35 heads of government in Helsinki two weeks ago. They are not a guarantee of peace but a definition of peace, a standard of behavior to which we must insure adherence by our own determination and vigilance. They are a framework for our own efforts, not a substitute for them.

The United States pursues the process of easing tensions from a position of self-confidence and strength. It is not we who were on the defensive at Helsinki; it is not we who were being challenged by all the delegations to live up to the principles being signed. At Helsinki, for the first time in the

postwar period, human rights and fundamental freedoms became recognized subjects of East-West discourse and negotiation. The conference put forward our standards of humane conduct, which have been—and still are—a beacon of hope to millions.

The winds of change are blowing from the West; the idéals of liberty and the challenges of technical innovation come from the West. The efforts of Communist countries to participate in the rest of the world, after decades of autarchy, are a sign of the vigor and attraction of our economic system. These are assets of our diplomacy, which we should be prepared to use.

In the age of thermonuclear weapons and strategic equality, the relaxation of tensions is the only responsible course and the only policy that can be pursued by any Administration charged with responsibility for the lives of Americans. The American people have no desire for a policy of confrontation for its own sake. When both sides have the military power to annihilate mankind, it would be utter recklessness to invite tension needlessly.

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In his speech to the UN General Assembly on September 22, 1975 (#42), HK described the record of detente--in effect, calling Americans' attention to the international community's support for a policy of lessening of tensions:

## East-West Relations

Peace, to be secure, must place on a more durable and reliable basis the relations between the nations possessing the means to destroy our planet.

In recent years, the bipolar confrontation of the last generation has given way to the beginning of dialogue and an easing of direct conflict. In this body, of all organizations, there is surely an appreciation of the global importance of lessened tension between the nuclear superpowers. All nations have a stake in its success. When weapons of mass destruction can span continents in minutes, nuclear conflict threatens the survival of all mankind.

We recognize that the suspicion and rivalry of a generation will not be swept away with a document or a conference. Real ideological and political differences exist. We shall firmly defend our vital interests and those of our friends. But we shall never lose sight of the fact that in our age peace is a practical necessity as well as a moral imperative. We shall pursue the relaxation of tensions on the basis of strict reciprocity. We know the difference between posturing and policy; we will not encourage the belief that anyone can benefit from artificial tensions. We are deeply conscious that we owe it to future generations not to be swayed by

momentary passions.

The state of U.S.-Soviet relations today and just a decade ago present a dramatic contrast. The world is no longer continually shaken by chronic and bitter confrontations. Periodic consultations—including at the highest level—encourage restraint and amplify areas of mutual interest. The forthcoming meeting between President Ford and General Secretary Brezhnev should strengthen this process.

Principles of mutual restraint have been enunciated at various summit meetings; they were reaffirmed by the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe two months ago. These principles provide a standard of behavior by which our actions will be tested. If they are observed—as we insist—and if neither side seeks unilateral advantage, the specter of general war will be lifted not only from our own people but from all nations. There is no more important task before us.

We have likewise pursued more constructive and beneficial relationships with the countries of Eastern Europe. The United States has many traditional and deep-rooted bonds of friendship with the proud peoples of that region. We see widening possibilities for practical cooperation as the barriers between East and West in Europe diminish.

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In his Bicentennial statement of March 16, 1976, before the SFRC (#55), HK gave a useful summary of the Ford Administration's detente policy. The policy was founded on maintaining the military balance, negotiating solutions to political problems, and in inculcating the habit of superpower restraint:

In an age when two nations have the power to visit utter destruction on the whole planet in hours, there can be no greater imperative than assuring a rational and secure relationship between the nuclear superpowers. This is a challenge without precedent. Historically a conflict of ideology and geopolitical interest such as now characterizes the international scene has almost invariably led to war. But in the age of strategic equality, humanity could not survive such a repetition of history. War would mean mutual suicide.

Therefore, with respect to the Soviet Union, the United States faces the necessity of a dual policy. We must preserve stability but not rest upon it. We must firmly resist and deter adventurism. But at the same time we must keep open the possibility of more constructive relations between the United States and the Soviet Union—resolving political disputes by negotiation, such as Berlin; working out stable agreements to limit strategic arms on both sides, as in the SALT One agreements and the accord at Vladivostok; and when political conditions permit it, developing our bilateral cooperation in economic and other fields to give both sides a vested interest in continuing and improving political relations.

We have an obligation to mankind to work for a more secure world. We have an obligation to the American people to insure that a crisis, if it is imposed upon us, does not result from any lack of vision of the United States.

We face a long-term problem, and we must

fashion and maintain a long-term policy. An equilibrium of power is indispensable to any hope of peace. But a balance of power constantly contested is too precarious a foundation for our long-term future. So this country, in its third century, must avoid the twin temptations of provocation and escapism. We must maintain a steady and confident course; it must be a policy that our adversaries respect, our allies support, and our people believe in and sustain.

By whatever name we call it, the U.S.-Soviet relationship must be founded on certain fundamental principles, which this country has affirmed consistently for the last seven years:

- First, we will maintain our military strength. The United States must maintain an equilibrium of power through a strong national and allied defense. The United States will do what is necessary to maintain the balance in all significant categories of military strength, including conventional as well as strategic forces.

- Secondly, this country is prepared to negotiate solutions to political problems. The 1971 agreement on Berlin is an example. And both superpowers share a basic responsibility to insure that the world is spared the holocaust of a nuclear war. Strategic arms limitation is therefore a permanent, mutual, and fundamental interest. At Vladivostok in 1974, President Ford reached agreement on the outline of a comprehensive agreement putting an equal ceiling on strategic forces on both sides for a 10-year period. The issues that remain in completing that agreement

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ment are soluble. An agreement on the basis of strict reciprocity is attainable.

—Both sides have vital interests, but have an overriding interest in avoidance of major conflict. Therefore long-term peace can only be founded on the practice and habit of restraint. Exploiting local crises for unilateral gain is not acceptable. This nation will not seek confrontations lightly, but we are determined to defend peace by systematic resistance to pressures and irresponsible actions. The growth of Soviet economic and military power could not have been prevented; what can be prevented is the use of that power to upset the global balance. Without restraint there is no possibility of a meaningful relaxation of tensions.

—If we preserve security on this basis, opportunities exist for creative diplomacy to engage the Soviet Union more firmly in constructive participation in the international system. We are prepared to hold out the prospect of increasing bilateral cooperation in the economic, technical, and other fields to give both sides an increasing stake in positive political relations. Over the long term we have it within our capacity to make our coexistence durable and secure and to turn it into cooperation.

This is the broad agenda for the future of the U.S.-Soviet relationship. More specifically:

—We cannot prevent the growth of Soviet power, but we can prevent its use for unilateral advantage and political expansion.

—We must accept the reality that sovereign states, especially ones of roughly equal power, cannot impose unacceptable conditions on each other, and ultimately and inevitably must proceed by compromise.

—The United States will never stand for violation of a solemn treaty or agreement.

—We can never tolerate a shift in the strategic balance against us, either in unsatisfactory agreements or violations of agreements or by neglect of our own defense requirements.

—We are determined to pursue the effort to negotiate a saner and more secure strategic balance on equitable terms because it is in our interest and in the interest of world peace.

Any Administration conscious of the long-term requirements of peace will find itself implementing the same dual approach of firmness in the face of pressure and readiness to work for a more cooperative world. Of course, differences are inevitable as to the practical application of these principles. But as President Kennedy said:

> ... in the final analysis our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.

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[Y]

A more sophisticated summary statement of the rationale for detente was made as part of the Buchan lecture in London on June 25, 1976 (#71). Detente, of course, was not only an American policy but an allied policy as well. The West had to remember the lesson of World War II, but also the lesson of World War I: A balance of forces, to be secure, had to be maintained by a diplomacy that nurtured restraint:

## East-West Relations

As long ago as the Harmel report of December 1967, the Atlantic alliance has treated as its "two main functions" the assurance of military security and realistic measures to reduce tensions between East and West. We never considered confrontation—even when imposed on us by the other side—or containment an end in itself. Nor did we believe that disagreements with the Soviet Union would automatically disappear. On the contrary, the very concept of "détente" has always been applicable only to an adversary relationship. It was designed to prevent competition from sliding into military hostilities and to create the conditions for the relationship to be gradually and prudently improved.

Thus, alliance policy toward the East has two necessary dimensions. We seek to prevent the Soviet Union from transforming its

military power into political expansion. At the same time, we seek to resolve conflicts and disputes through negotiation and to strengthen the incentives for moderation by expanding the area of constructive relations.

These two dimensions are mutually reinforcing. A strong defense and resistance to adventurism are prerequisites for efforts of conciliation. By the same token, only a demonstrated commitment to peace can sustain domestic support for an adequate defense and a vigilant foreign policy. Our public and Congress will not back policies which appear to invite crises, nor will they support firmness in a crisis unless they are convinced that peaceful and honorable alternatives have been exhausted. Above all, we owe it to ourselves and to future generations to seek a world based on something more stable and hopeful than a balance of terror constantly contested.

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However we label such a policy, it is imposed by the unprecedented conditions of the nuclear age. No statesman can lightly risk the lives of tens of millions. Every American President, after entering office and seeing the facts, has come to President Eisenhower's view that there is no alternative to peace.

Our generation has been traumatized by World War II, because we remember that war broke out as a result of an imbalance of power. This is a lesson we must not forget. But neither must we forget the lesson of World War I, when war broke out despite an equilibrium of power. An international structure held together only by a balance of forces will sooner or later collapse in catastrophe. In our time this could spell the end of civilized life. We must therefore conduct a diplomacy that deters challenges if possible and that contains them at tolerable levels if they prove unavoidable—a diplomacy that resolves issues, nurtures restraint, and builds cooperation based on mutual interest.

This policy has critics in all our countries. Some take for granted the relative absence of serious crises in recent years, which the policy has helped to bring about, and then fault it for not producing the millennium, which it never claimed. Some caricature its objectives, portraying its goals in more elevated terms than any of its advocates, and then express dismay at the failure of reality to conform to this impossible standard. They describe détente as if it meant the end of all rivalry; when rivalry persists, they conclude that détente has failed and charge its advocates with deception or naivete. They measure the success of policy toward adversaries by criteria that should be reserved for traditional friendships. They use the reality of competition to attack the goal of coexistence, rather than to illustrate its necessity.

In fact, this policy has never been based on such hope or gullibility. It has always been designed to create conditions in which a cool calculus of interests would dictate restraint rather than opportunism, settlement of conflicts rather than their exacerbation. Western policies can at best manage and shape, not assume away, East-West competition.

A pivot of the East-West relationship is the U.S.-Soviet negotiation on limitation of strategic arms. Increasingly, strategic forces find their function only in deterring and matching each other. A continuing buildup of strategic arms therefore only leads to fresh balances, but at higher levels of expenditures and uncertainties. In an era of expanding technological possibilities, it is impossible to make rational choices of force planning without some elements of predictability in the strategic environment. Moreover, a continuing race diverts resources from other needed areas such as forces for regional defense, where imbalances can have serious geopolitical consequences. All these factors have made arms limitation a practical interest of both sides, as well as a factor for stability in the world.

We have made considerable progress toward curbing the strategic arms race in recent years. We will continue vigorously to pursue this objective in ways which protect Western interests and reflect the counsel of our allies.

In defining and pursuing policies of relaxing tensions with the East, the unity of the industrial democracies is essential. Our consultations have been intensive and frequent, and the record of Western cohesion in recent years has been encouraging—in the negotiations leading to the Four Power Agreement on Berlin, in the mutual and balanced force reduction talks, in the SALT negotiations [Strategic Arms Limitation Talks], and in the preparation for the European Security Conference.

Allied cooperation and the habits of consultation and coordination which we have formed will be even more important in the future. For as the policy of relaxing tensions proceeds, it will involve issues at the heart of all our interests.

No one should doubt the depth of our commitment to this process. But we also need to be clear about its limits and about our conception of reciprocity:

—We should require consistent patterns of behavior in different parts of the world. The West must make it clear that coexist-

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ence requires mutual restraint, not only in Europe and in the central strategic relationship but also in the Middle East, in Africa, in Asia—in fact, globally. The NATO Foreign Ministers, at their Oslo meeting last month, stressed the close link between stability and security in Europe and in the world as a whole. We must endorse this not only by our rhetoric but above all by our actions.

—We should make clear the tolerable definition of global ideological rivalry. We do not shrink from ideological competition. We have every reason for confidence in the indestructible power of man's yearning for freedom. But we cannot agree that ideology alone is involved when Soviet power is extended into areas such as southern Africa in the name of "national liberation" or when regional or local instabilities are generated or exploited in the name of "proletarian internationalism."

—We should not allow the Soviet Union to apply détente selectively within the alliance. Competition among us in our diplomatic or economic policies toward the East risks dissipating Western advantages and opening up Soviet opportunities. We must resist division and maintain the closest coordination.

The process of improving East-West relations in Europe must not be confined to relations with the Soviet Union. The benefits of relaxation of tensions must extend to Eastern as well as Western Europe. There should be no room for misconceptions about U.S. policy:

—We are determined to deal with Eastern Europe on the basis of the sovereignty and independence of each of its countries. We recognize no spheres of influence and no tensions to hegemony. Two American Presidents and several Cabinet officials have visited Romania and Poland as well as non-aligned Yugoslavia, to demonstrate our stake in the flourishing and independence of those nations.

—For the same reason, we will persist in our efforts to improve our contacts and develop our concrete bilateral relations in economic and other fields with the countries of Eastern Europe.

—The United States supports the efforts of West European nations to strengthen their bilateral and regional ties with the countries of Eastern Europe. We hope that this process will help heal the divisions of Europe which have persisted since World War II.

—And we will continue to pursue measures to improve the lives of the people in Eastern Europe in basic human terms—such as freer emigration, the unification of families, greater flow of information, increased economic interchange, and more opportunities for travel.

The United States, in parallel with its allies, will continue to expand relationships with Eastern Europe as far and as fast as is possible. This is a long-term process; it is absurd to imagine that one conference by itself can transform the internal structure of Communist governments. Rhetoric is no substitute for patient and realistic actions. We will raise no expectations that we cannot fulfill. But we will never cease to assert our traditional principles of human liberty and national self-determination.

The course of East-West relations will inevitably have its obstacles and setbacks. We will guard against erosion of the gains that we have made in a series of difficult negotiations; we will insure that agreements already negotiated are properly implemented. We must avoid both sentimentality that would substitute good will for strength and mock toughness that would substitute posturing for a clear conception of our purposes.

We in the West have the means to pursue this policy successfully. Indeed, we have no realistic alternative. We have nothing to fear from competition: If there is a military competition, we have the strength to defend our interests; if there is an economic competition, we won it long ago; if there is an ideological competition, the power of our ideas depends only on our will to uphold them.

We need only to stay together and stay the course. If we do so, the process of East-West relations can, over time, strengthen the fabric of peace and genuinely improve the lives of all the peoples around the world.

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## SALT and the Military Balance

One of the pillars of Presidents Nixon's and Ford's foreign policy--the commitment to a strong defense--ironically became a campaign issue in the mid-70's. The end of the Vietnam war reduced the strength of the liberal anti-defense coalition; the debacle in Vietnam and the Soviet military buildup generated pressures from the other side. The Administration was caught in the middle as an amazing shift in the public debate took place.

While this shift was taking place, HK explained the importance of military strength in an address to the American Legion National Convention in Miami on August 20, 1974 (#15). We needed to maintain the strategic balance and, also, our conventional strength. Power in the modern world was enormously complex:

Dwight Eisenhower added another dimension. He called attention to the necessity of a strong standing defense. In his words "the weak have no assurance of peace. They can only accept the future without influence upon it." But he also understood that in the nuclear age strength cannot be an end in itself. He proclaimed what no President since has ever forgotten: "There is no longer any alternative to peace."

So our search for peace begins with America's strength. For other nations to have confidence in our purposes and faith in our word, America must remain a military power second to none. As I can attest from experience, in time of crisis and at the conference table, America's military might is the foundation of our diplomatic strength. We have made progress toward peace in recent years because we have been flexible, but also because we have been resolute. Let us never forget that conciliation is a virtue only in those who are thought to have a choice.

- A strong defense is the essential deterrent to aggression. By demonstrating that there is no alternative to negotiation, it is the precondition of our policy of relaxing tensions with our adversaries.

- A strong defense is the cement of our alliances, reinforcing our partners' will to join in the common defense. It is the basis of mutual

confidence and thus of our cooperation across the whole spectrum of our common interests.

Since the Second World War, each administration regardless of party has supported the maintenance of our military strength. And on every major question of national defense for the past quarter century Congress has supported the President. This is a proud record which we must and will sustain.

But we are living in an age when the issues of defense are of unprecedented complexity. In the nuclear age we must:

- Allocate resources between strategic and tactical forces.

- Relate military strength to foreign policy goals.

- Maintain our security while ending and ultimately reversing the arms race.

In an era of rough strategic balance, the threat to launch an all-out nuclear war grows less and less credible; hence it is less and less likely to deter the full range of potential conflicts. Military challenges at the conventional level may become more difficult to prevent. Thus the political and military importance of tactical forces grows correspondingly.

Our conventional forces must therefore be

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strong. They keep the nuclear threshold high by helping to contain, discourage, or altogether prevent hostilities. They are the essential tool of our diplomacy in times of crisis. In no recent crisis did we come close to using our strategic forces, but on many occasions our tactical forces were alerted or deployed to deter aggressive actions or to defend the interests of America and its allies. About one-third of our conventional forces are deployed abroad. They are there to serve these purposes. They are not overseas as a favor to foreigners; they are abroad as part of our defense.

American forces in Europe are a vivid illustration of these principles. Reducing our forces there unilaterally would risk serious military and political instability in the center of Europe, enhance Soviet political influence by default, and, ironically, make reliance on nuclear weapons more necessary. It would undercut promising negotiations for the mutual reduction of forces. The defense of Western Europe remains—as it has been throughout the postwar period—the cornerstone of our own security.

Just as we must assure a balance of conventional forces, so we must also assure a nuclear balance. We are determined never to fall behind in nuclear arms. We will never accept the strategic preponderance of another power. We will maintain our strategic weapons program at whatever level is required to achieve this end.

The definition of adequacy or sufficiency or equivalence is not simple, however. Throughout history the essential task of national security was to accumulate military power. It would have seemed inconceivable even a generation ago that such power, once gained, could not be translated directly into foreign policy advantage.

Today we, as well as the Soviet Union, must start from the premise that in the nuclear era an increase in certain categories of military power does not necessarily represent an increase of usable political strength. When two nations are already capable of destroying each other, an upper limit exists beyond which additional weapons lose their political significance. The overwhelming destructiveness of nuclear weapons makes it

difficult to relate their use to specific political objectives and may indeed generate new political problems.

A continual expansion of strategic forces by both sides will not result in greater security. It will only lead to new balances at higher levels of complexity and risk and at exorbitant cost. It will generate an atmosphere of hostility and suspicion that makes political conflict more likely and that will over time thwart aspirations for a more tranquil and secure world.

This is why President Ford, an ardent advocate of national defense, as one of his first acts as President has invited the Soviet leaders to join with us in an intensified effort to negotiate an effective and equitable limitation of strategic arms.

We will be guided by two basic principles:

- First, until further arms limits are negotiated we will maintain American strategic strength, whatever the cost. Our power will not falter through lack of resolve or sacrifice.

- Second, we will pursue the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks with an energy and conviction equal to the challenge before us. We are determined to become the masters of our own technology, not its slave.

The President has asked me to emphasize that in his view the choice is clear. We will maintain the nuclear balance by unilateral actions if we must and by negotiations if at all possible. I can assure you that these negotiations will not fail for lack of good will and readiness to explore new solutions on our part.

* * *

We have a long tradition in this country of arming with great haste when war comes upon us and disarming with even greater haste when the war is over. We have tended to view our relations with nations in terms of absolutes—friend or foe, ally or adversary, unlimited war or permanent peace. We have acted in cycles of overcommitment and withdrawal, enthusiasm and cynicism.

This we can no longer afford. We must commit ourselves for the long haul. The search for peace is not a part-time job.

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[Y]

Again the fullest statement of HK's position on defense and arms control was the presentation on detente to the SFRC on September 19, 1974 (#16). HK explained why it was essential to maintain a military balance and why arms control was essential to make it secure. In this context he defended SALT against critics who claimed that it "enabled" the Soviet Union to expand its strategic forces. He explained our objectives in SALT II, which envisioned both reductions in numbers and restrictions on characteristics that could tempt a first strike:

### D. The Strategic Relationship

We cannot expect to relax international tensions or achieve a more stable international system should the two strongest nuclear powers conduct an unrestrained strategic arms race. Thus, perhaps the single most important component of our policy toward the Soviet Union is the effort to limit strategic weapons competition.

The competition in which we now find ourselves is historically unique:

- Each side has the capacity to destroy civilization as we know it.

- Failure to maintain equivalence could jeopardize not only our freedom but our very survival.

- The lead time for technological innovation is so long, yet the pace of change so relentless, that the arms race and strategic policy itself are in danger of being driven by technological necessity.

- When nuclear arsenals reach levels involving thousands of launchers and over 10,000 warheads, and when the characteristics of the weapons of the two sides are so incommensurable, it becomes difficult to determine what combination of numbers of strategic weapons and performance capabilities would give one side a militarily and politically useful superiority. At a minimum, clear changes in the strategic balance can be achieved only by efforts so enormous and by increments so large that the very attempt would be highly destabilizing.

- The prospect of a decisive military advantage, even if theoretically possible, is

politically intolerable; neither side will passively permit a massive shift in the nuclear balance. Therefore the probable outcome of each succeeding round of competition is the restoration of a strategic equilibrium, but at increasingly higher levels of forces.

- The arms race is driven by political as well as military factors. While a decisive advantage is hard to calculate, the appearance of inferiority—whatever its actual significance—can have serious political consequences. With weapons that are unlikely to be used and for which there is no operational experience, the psychological impact can be crucial. Thus each side has a high incentive to achieve not only the reality but the appearance of equality. In a very real sense each side shapes the military establishment of the other.

If we are driven to it, the United States will sustain an arms race. Indeed, it is likely that the United States would emerge from such a competition with an edge over the Soviet Union in most significant categories of strategic arms. But the political or military benefit which would flow from such a situation would remain elusive. Indeed, after such an evolution it might well be that both sides would be worse off than before the race began. The enormous destructiveness of weapons and the uncertainties regarding their effects combine to make the massive use of such weapons increasingly incredible.

The Soviet Union must realize that the overall relationship with the United States will be less stable if strategic balance is sought through unrestrained competitive

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programs. Sustaining the buildup requires exhortations by both sides that in time may prove incompatible with restrained international conduct. The very fact of a strategic arms race has a high potential for feeding attitudes of hostility and suspicion on both sides, transforming the fears of those who demand more weapons into self-fulfilling prophecies.

The American people can be asked to bear the cost and political instability of a race which is doomed to stalemate only if it is clear that every effort has been made to prevent it. That is why every President since Eisenhower has pursued negotiations for the limitation of strategic arms while maintaining the military programs essential to strategic balance.

There are more subtle strategic reasons for our interest in SALT. Our supreme strategic purpose is the prevention of nuclear conflict through the maintenance of sufficient political and strategic power. Estimates of what constitutes "sufficiency" have been contentious. Our judgments have changed with our experience in deploying these weapons and as the Soviets expanded their own nuclear forces. When in the late 1960's it became apparent that the Soviet Union, for practical purposes, had achieved a kind of rough parity with the United States, we adopted the current strategic doctrine.

We determined that stability required strategic forces invulnerable to attack, thus removing the incentive on either side to strike first. Reality reinforced doctrine. As technology advanced, it became apparent that neither side *could* realistically expect to develop a credible disarming capability against the other except through efforts so gigantic as to represent a major threat to political stability.

One result of our doctrine was basing our strategic planning on the assumption that in the unlikely event of nuclear attack, the President should have a wide range of options available in deciding at what level and against what targets to respond. We designed our strategic forces with a substantial measure of flexibility, so that the U.S. re-

sponse need not include an attack on the aggressor's cities—thus inviting the destruction of our own—but could instead hit other targets. Translating this capability into a coherent system of planning became a novel, and as yet uncompleted, task of great complexity; but progress has been made. In our view such flexibility enhances the certainty of retaliation and thereby makes an attack less likely. Above all, it preserves the capability for human decision even in the ultimate crisis.

Another, at first seemingly paradoxical, result was a growing commitment to negotiated agreements on strategic arms. SALT became one means by which we and the Soviet Union could enhance stability by setting mutual constraints on our respective forces and by gradually reaching an understanding of the doctrinal considerations that underlie the deployment of nuclear weapons. Through SALT the two sides can reduce the suspicions and fears which fuel strategic competition. SALT, in the American conception, is a means to achieve strategic stability by methods other than the arms race.

Our specific objectives have been:

1. To break the momentum of ever-increasing levels of armaments;

2. To control certain qualitative aspects—particularly MIRV's [multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles];

3. To moderate the pace of new deployments; and

4. Ultimately, to achieve reductions in force levels.

The SALT agreements already signed represent a major contribution to strategic stability and a significant first step toward a longer term and possibly broader agreement.

When the first agreements in 1972 were signed, the future strategic picture was not bright:

> —The Soviet Union was engaged in a dynamic program that had closed the numerical gap in ballistic missiles; they were deploying three types of ICBM's [intercontinental

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nental ballistic missiles], at a rate of over 200 annually, and launching on the average eight submarines a year with 16 ballistic missiles each.

—The United States had ended its numerical buildup in the late 1960's at a level of 1,054 ICBM's and 656 SLBM's [submarine-launched ballistic missiles]. We were emphasizing technological improvements, particularly in MIRV's for the Poseidon and Minuteman missiles. Our replacement systems were intended for the late 1970's and early 1980's.

—By most reasonable measurements of strategic power, we held an important advantage, which still continues. But it was also clear that if existing trends were maintained the Soviet Union would, first, exceed our numerical levels by a considerable margin and then develop the same technologies we had already mastered.

The agreements signed in 1972 which limited antiballistic missile [ABM] defenses and froze the level of ballistic missile forces on both sides represented the essential first step toward a less volatile strategic environment.⁴

—By limiting antiballistic missiles to very low levels of deployment, the United States and the Soviet Union removed a potential source of instability; for one side to build an extensive defense for its cities would inevitably be interpreted by the other as a step toward a first-strike capability. Before seeking a disarming capability, a potential aggressor would want to protect his population centers from incoming nuclear weapons.

—Some have alleged that the interim agreement, which expires in October 1977, penalizes the United States by permitting the Soviet Union to deploy more strategic missile launchers, both land based and sea based, than the United States. Such a view is misleading. When the agreement was signed in May 1972, the Soviet Union already possessed more land-based intercontinental

ballistic missiles than the United States, and given the pace of its submarine construction program, over the next few years it could have built virtually twice as many nuclear ballistic missile submarines.

The interim agreement confined a dynamic Soviet ICBM program to the then-existing level; it put a ceiling on the heaviest Soviet ICBM's, the weapons that most concern us; and it set an upper limit on the Soviet submarine-launched ballistic missile program. No American program was abandoned or curtailed. We remained free to deploy multiple warheads. No restraints were placed on bombers—a weapons system in which we have a large advantage. Indeed, the U.S. lead in missile warheads is likely to be somewhat greater at the end of this agreement than at the time of its signature.

The SALT One agreements were the first deliberate attempt by the nuclear superpowers to bring about strategic stability through negotiation. This very process is conducive to further restraint. For example, in the first round of SALT negotiations in 1970-72, both sides bitterly contested the number of ABM sites permitted by the agreement; two years later both sides gave up the right to build more than one site. In sum, we believed when we signed these agreements—and we believe now—that they had reduced the danger of nuclear war, that both sides had acquired some greater interest in restraint, and that the basis had been created for the present effort to reach a broader agreement.

The goal of the current negotiations is an agreement for a 10-year period. We had aimed at extending the interim agreement with adjustments in the numbers and new provisions aimed at dealing with the problem of MIRV's. We found, however, that our negotiation for a two- or three-year extension was constantly threatened with irrelevance by the ongoing programs of both sides that were due to be deployed at the end of or just after the period. This distorted the negotiation and, indeed, devalued its significance. We shifted to the 10-year approach because the period is long enough to cover

⁴For texts of the ABM Treaty and the Interim Agreement on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, see BULLETIN of June 26, 1972, pp. 918 and 920.

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all current and planned forces but not so long as to invite hedges that would defeat the purpose of an arms control agreement. In fact, it invites a slowing down of planned deployments; further, a period of this length will allow us to set realistic ceilings that represent more than a temporary plateau from which to launch a new cycle in the arms race. Future reductions thus become a realistic objective.

With respect to ceilings on strategic forces, we have defined our goal as essential equivalence in strategic capabilities. What constitutes equivalence involves subjective judgment. Because U.S. and Soviet forces are different from each other—in number and size of weapons, in technological refinement, in performance characteristics—they are difficult to compare.

Yet in the negotiations we shall, for example, have to compare heavy bombers, in which the United States is ahead, with heavy missiles, which the U.S.S.R. has emphasized. We shall have to decide whether to insist on equivalence in every category or whether to permit trade-offs in which an advantage in one category compensates for a disadvantage in another. The equation does not remain static. We shall have to relate present advantages to potential development, existing disparities to future trends. This is a difficult process, but we are confident that it can be solved.

Numerical balance is no longer enough. To achieve stability, it will be necessary to consider as well the impact of technological change in such areas as missile throw weight, multiple reentry vehicles, and missile accuracy. The difficulty is that we are dealing not only with disparate levels of forces but with disparate capabilities, MIRV technology being a conspicuous example. The rate of increase of warheads is surging far ahead of the increase in delivery vehicles. This is why the United States considers MIRV limitation an essential component of the next phase of the SALT negotiations. If we fail, the rate of technology will outstrip our capacity to design effective limitations; constantly proliferating warheads of increasing

accuracy will overwhelm fixed launchers. An arms race will be virtually inevitable.

The third area for negotiations is the pace of deployments of new or more modern systems. Neither side will remain in its present position without change for another decade. The Soviets are already embarked on testing an initial deployment of a third generation of ICBM's and on a third modification of submarine-launched missiles—though the rate of deployment so far has been far short of the maximum pace of the late sixties.

For our part, we are planning to introduce the Trident system and to replace the B-52 force with the B-1; we also have the capability of improving our Minuteman ICBM system, adding to the number as well as capability of MIRV missiles, and if we choose, of deploying mobile systems, land based or airborne. Thus our task is to see whether the two sides can agree to slow the pace of deployment so that modernization is less likely to threaten the overall balance or trigger an excessive reaction.

Finally, a 10-year program gives us a chance to negotiate reductions. Reductions have occasionally been proposed as an alternative to ceilings; they are often seen as more desirable or at least easier to negotiate. In fact, it is a far more complicated problem. Reductions in launchers, for example, if not accompanied by restrictions on the number of warheads, will only magnify vulnerability. The fewer the aim points, the simpler it would be to calculate an attack. At the same time, reductions will have to proceed from some baseline and must therefore be preceded by agreed ceilings—if only of an interim nature. But a 10-year program should permit the negotiation of stable ceilings resulting from the start of a process of reductions.

Détente is admittedly far from a modern equivalent to the kind of stable peace that characterized most of the 19th century. But it is a long step away from the bitter and aggressive spirit that has characterized so much of the postwar period. When linked to such broad and unprecedented projects as

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SALT, détente takes on added meaning and opens prospects of a more stable peace. SALT agreements should be seen as steps in a process leading to progressively greater stability. It is in that light that SALT and related projects will be judged by history.

HK reiterated the importance of military strength in a speech in Atlanta before the Southern Council on International and Public Affairs and the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce on June 23, 1975 (#34):

What, then, is required of us? What are the elements of our strength?

*First of all, we must maintain the bedrock of our security. While foreign policy must reach beyond military concerns, there can be no substitute for maintaining our own defenses and the objective conditions of our security. An equilibrium of power is essential to any stable international order. A world in which the survival of nations is at the mercy of others is a world of insecurity, instability, and oppression.*

America's military strength has always been used to defend, never to oppress. At home, we have already adapted our defense budget to accord with our national priorities. In terms of its portion of the Federal budget and of the gross national product,

our defense spending is at the lowest level in 25 years. Yet the trend of military programs of our potential adversaries is in the direction of expansion. Therefore there is an irreducible minimum below which we cannot go without allowing important interests of the United States and its allies to be endangered. We will seek prudent measures of arms control to enhance our security. But this Administration is determined never to allow the military defenses of the United States to be dismantled.

We strive to create the conditions for accommodation and reconciliation of differences with adversaries. But conciliation must not flow from weakness; flexibility is a virtue only in those who are thought to have an alternative.

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The debate over detente heated up in early 1976 under pressure of the Reagan challenge to Ford. HK devoted a major speech to the subject in San Francisco on February 3, 1976, before a luncheon sponsored by the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco and the World Affairs Council of Northern California (#49). The speech covered two subjects specifically: SALT and Angola. Ironically, HK was defending SALT against an attack by doctrinaire right-wingers who had done nothing to help the administration resist the Soviet challenge in Angola.

The Angola position of the speech will be covered in a later section; the SALT portion is included here.

HK explained how the Nixon Administration had defended our military strength against massive assaults from the Congress and had been attacked for years for being excessively bellicose in crises. He explained that the unilateral procurement programs of both sides, not SALT, accounted for the strategic balance of the 1970's, and that SALT I prevented the deterioration of the American position. He rebutted charges of Soviet violations of the SALT accords:

## The Contemporary Challenge of Relations

The issue of how to deal with the Soviet Union has been a central feature of American policy for three decades. What is new today is the culmination of 30 years of post-war growth of Soviet industrial, technologi-

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cal, and military power. No American policy caused this; no American policy could have prevented it. But American policy can keep this power from being used to expand Soviet influence to our detriment; we have the capacity to enable allies and friends to live with a sense of security; we possess the assets to advance the process of building an international order of cooperation and progress.

We must do so, however, in unprecedented conditions. In previous periods, rivalry between major powers has almost invariably led to war. In our time, when thermonuclear weapons threaten casualties in the hundreds of millions, such an outcome is unthinkable. We must manage a fundamental clash of ideologies and harness the rivalry of the nuclear superpowers, first into coexistence, and then mold coexistence into a more positive and cooperative future. For as President Kennedy once said:²

In the period after World War II, our nightmare was that the Soviet Union, after consolidating its occupation of Eastern Europe, might seek to spread its control to other contiguous areas in Europe and Asia. Our policies therefore sought to build alliances and positions of military strength from which we could contain and isolate the Soviet Union. In this manner the Soviet Union might be forced to settle for peace; transformations might occur within Soviet society that would curb expansionist tendencies and make the U.S.S.R. over time into a more cooperative participant in the international system.

These policies served us and our allies well. Soviet expansion was checked. Behind our shield of security and with our assistance, our friends and allies in Western Europe restored their economies and rebuilt their democratic institutions.

Yet the hope that these policies would

produce permanent stability, positive evolution of the Soviet system, and greater normality was only partially realized. In the immediate postwar period, the aggressiveness of Soviet ideology in the Stalinist era obscured some of the real weaknesses of the Soviet state. Indeed, as late as 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis, the United States enjoyed a five-to-one superiority in strategic missiles, a three-to-one superiority in strategic bombers, total naval superiority everywhere, and rough equality on the ground in Europe.

Gradually, with the acquisition of nuclear technology and the transformation of the international system through decolonization, the Soviet Union began to emerge as a first-class military power.

In strategic military terms the U.S.S.R. has achieved a broad equality with the United States, as was inevitable for a large nation whose rulers were prepared to impose great sacrifices on their people and to give military strength the absolute top priority in resources. With only half of our gross national product, Soviet military expenditures exceed those of the United States.

For the first time in history, the Soviet Union can threaten distant places beyond the Eurasian landmass—including the United States. With no part of the world outside the range of its military forces, the U.S.S.R. has begun to define its interests and objectives in global terms. Soviet diplomacy has thrust into the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. This evolution is now rooted in real power, rather than a rhetorical manifestation of a universalist doctrine which in fact has very little validity or appeal.

Coping with the implications of this emerging superpower has been our central security problem for the last several years. This condition will not go away. And it will perhaps never be conclusively “solved.” It will have to be faced by every Administration for the foreseeable future.

Our policy must deal with the consequences. The emergence of ambitious new powers into an existing international structure is a recurrent phenomenon. Historically, the adjustment of an existing order to the

²For President Kennedy's address at American University, Washington, D.C., on June 10, 1963, see BULLETIN of July 1, 1963, p. 2.

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arrival of one or more new actors almost invariably was accompanied by war—to impede the upstart, to remove or diminish some of the previously established actors, to test the balance of forces in a revised system. But in the nuclear era, when casualties in a general nuclear war will involve hundreds of millions in a matter of days, the use of force threatens utter catastrophe. It is our responsibility to contain Soviet power without global war, to avoid abdication as well as unnecessary confrontation.

This can be done, but it requires a delicate and complex policy. We must strive for an equilibrium of power, but we must move beyond it to promote the habits of mutual restraint, coexistence, and ultimately cooperation. We must stabilize a new international order in a vastly dangerous environment, but our ultimate goal must be to transform ideological conflict into constructive participation in building a better world.

This is what is meant by the process called détente—not the hunger for relaxation of tension, not the striving for agreements at any price, not the mindless search for friendly atmosphere which some critics use as naive and dangerous caricatures.

The policies pursued by this Administration have been designed to prevent Soviet expansion but also to build a pattern of relations in which the Soviet Union will always confront penalties for aggression and also acquire growing incentives for restraint. These goals are well within our capacities. Soviet power is evolving with considerable unevenness. Soviet society is no longer totally cut off from contact with or the influences of the world around it, nor is it without its own needs for outside relationships. It is the great industrial democracies, not the Soviet Union, that are the engine of the world economy and the most promising partners for the poorer nations.

The industrial democracies, if they face their challenges with confidence, if they do not mesmerize themselves with the illusion of simple solutions, possess vast strengths to contain Soviet power and to channel that power in constructive directions.

Our essential task is to recognize the

need for a dual policy that simultaneously and with equal vigor resists expansionist drives and seeks to shape a more constructive relationship. We must prevent the Soviet Union from translating its growing strength into global or regional preponderance. But we must do so without escalating every crisis into a massive confrontation. In recent years, the United States has firmly resisted attempts by the Soviet Union to establish a naval base in Cuba, to impede the access routes to Berlin, to exploit the explosive situation in the Middle East. Recently we have sought to halt blatant intervention in Angola—until prevented from doing so by congressional action.

At the same time, we have a historic obligation to mankind to engage the Soviet Union in settlements of concrete problems and to push back the shadow of nuclear catastrophe. At the very least we owe it to our people to demonstrate that their government has missed no opportunity to achieve constructive solutions and that crises which have occurred were unavoidable. For whatever the rhetoric, Americans will not support confrontations they consider contrived.

This is why the United States has set forth principles of responsible relations in the nuclear age: Respect for the interests of all, restraint in the uses of power, and abstention from efforts to exploit instability or local conflicts for unilateral advantage. The United States has sought to give life to these principles in major negotiations on arms control, the prevention of accidental war, and in the settlement of political issues such as Berlin. And we have begun to construct a network of cooperative agreements in a variety of functional areas—economic, scientific, medical, environmental, and others—which promise concrete benefits if political conditions permit their full implementation and further development.

It has been our belief that, with patience, a pattern of restraints and a network of vested interests can develop which will give coexistence a more hopeful dimension and make both sides conscious of what they would stand to lose by reverting to the poli-

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tics of pressure, confrontation, and crisis.

This policy reflects the deepest aspirations of the American people.

In the early 1970's when current U.S.-Soviet relations were shaped, our nation had already passed through traumatic events and was engaged in an anguishing war. There were riots in the streets and on the campuses demanding rapid progress toward peace. Every new defense program was challenged—including the ABM [antiballistic missiles], which was approved by only one vote, the development of multiple warheads, the Trident submarine, and the B-1 bomber. Successive Congresses passed resolutions urging the Administration to reorder our national priorities away from defense. We were continually attacked for not making concessions in the SALT talks [Strategic Arms Limitation Talks]. The Congress and many interest groups pressed continually for the opening up of East-West trade and agitated against the Administration's approach of linking progress in economic relations with prior progress in political relations. Throughout the course of 1970 and 1971, we were involved in a series of crises with the Soviet Union and were often accused of provocation or bellicosity in the process.

Thus, only a few short years ago, the pressures in this country and from our allies were overwhelmingly to move rapidly toward better relations with Moscow. We resisted these pressures then, just as we now refuse to let ourselves be stampeded in the opposite direction. In the Administration's view the country needs a balanced policy, combining firmness and conciliation, strong defense and arms control, political principles and economic incentives. And it must be a policy for the long term that the American people can sustain, offering promise of a constructive future.

It is therefore ironic that our national debate seems now in many respects to have come full circle. The conditions in which détente originated are largely forgotten. Those who pressed for concessions and unilateral restraint toward Moscow now accuse the government of being too conciliatory. Those who complain about our failure to re-

spond with sufficient vigor to Soviet moves are often the very ones who incessantly seek to remove this country's leverage for influence or action—through restrictions on trade and credit, through weakening our intelligence capabilities, through preventing aid to friends who seek to resist Soviet aggression.

The restrictions on trade and credit are a case in point. The human rights issue is a matter of deep and legitimate concern to all Americans. But the congressional attempt to link it openly with economic relations, without subtlety or understanding of Soviet politics, both deprived us of economic levers and sharply reduced Soviet emigration. Other industrial countries have stepped in to provide credits and technology, with less concern for the objective of inducing political restraint which we had envisaged.

So let us understand the scope and limits of a realistic policy:

- We cannot prevent the growth of Soviet power, but we can prevent its use for unilateral advantage and political expansion.

- We cannot prevent a buildup of Soviet forces, but we have the capacity, together with our allies, to maintain an equilibrium. We cannot neglect this task and then blame the Soviet Union if the military balance shifts against us.

- We have the diplomatic, economic, and military capacity to resist expansionism, but we cannot engage in a rhetoric of confrontation while depriving ourselves of the means to confront.

- We must accept that sovereign states, especially of roughly equal power, cannot impose unacceptable conditions on each other and must proceed by compromise.

- We must live with the reality of the nuclear threat, but we have it in our power to build a new relationship that transcends the nuclear peril.

So let us end the defeatist rhetoric that implies that Soviet policy is masterful, purposeful, and overwhelming while American policy is bumbling, uncertain, and weak. Let us stop pretending that somehow tough

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rhetoric and contrived confrontations show confidence in America. The opposite is true. Those who are prepared to base their policy on reality, those who assert that the American people will support a complex policy of firmness and conciliation and that this policy will succeed, show a real faith in our capacities and our future. We have a design and the material assets to deal with the Soviet Union. We will succeed if we move forward as a united people.

Against this background let me discuss two current issues that illustrate the two strands of policy that we are concurrently pursuing:

- The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, in which we are seeking to shape a more positive future.

- The Angolan situation, where we are attempting to curb Soviet expansionism.

## Strategic Arms Limitation

There is one central fact that distinguishes our era from all previous historical periods: the existence of enormously destructive weapons that can span unlimited distances almost instantaneously. No part of the globe is beyond reach. No part of the globe would be spared the effects of a general nuclear exchange.

For centuries it was axiomatic that increases in military power could be translated into almost immediate political advantage. It is now clear that new increments of strategic weaponry do not automatically lead to either political or military gains. Yet, in the nature of things, if one side expands its strategic arsenal, the other side will inevitably match it. The race is maintained partly because a perceived inequality is considered by each side as politically unacceptable even though it has become difficult to define precisely what purely military purpose is served.

We thus face a paradox: At current and foreseeable levels of nuclear arms, it becomes increasingly dangerous to invoke them. In no crisis since 1962 have the strategic weapons of the two sides determined the outcome. Today these arsenals increasingly find their purpose primarily in matching and de-

terrering the forces of the opponent. For under virtually no foreseeable circumstance could the United States—or the Soviet Union—avoid 100 million dead in a nuclear exchange. Yet the race goes on because of the difficulty of finding a way to get off the treadmill.²

This condition imposes a unique and heavy responsibility on the leaders of the two nuclear superpowers. Sustaining the nuclear competition requires endless invocations of theoretical scenarios of imminent or eventual nuclear attack. The attempt to hedge against all conceivable contingencies, no matter how fanciful, fuels political tensions and could well lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. The fixation on potential strategic arms imbalances that is inherent in an unrestrained arms race diverts resources into strategically unproductive areas—particularly away from forces for local defense, where shortfalls and imbalances could indeed be turned rapidly to our disadvantage. If no restraint is developed, the competition in strategic arms can have profound consequences for the future of international relations and indeed of civilization.

The United States therefore has sought and achieved since 1963 a series of arms control agreements which build some restraint into nuclear rivalry. There was a significant breakthrough to limit strategic weapons in 1972. If the 1974 Vladivostok accord leads to a new agreement, an even more important advance will have been made.

Yet, at this critical juncture, the American people are subjected to an avalanche of charges that SALT is a surrender of American interests. There are assertions that the United States is falling behind in the stra-

² To be sure, there exist scenarios in planning papers which seek to demonstrate how one side could use its strategic forces and how in some presumed circumstance it would prevail. But these confuse what a technician can calculate with what a responsible statesman can decide. They are invariably based on assumptions such as that one side would permit its missile silos to be destroyed without launching its missiles before they are actually hit—on which no aggressor would rely where forces such as those possessed by either the United States or the U.S.S.R. now and in the years ahead are involved. [Footnote in original.]

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tegic competition and that SALT has contributed to it. There are unsupportable charges that the Soviets have systematically violated the SALT agreements.

None of this is accurate. What are the facts?

First of all, American policy decisions in the 1960's set the level of our strategic forces for the 1970's. We then had the choice between continuing the deployment of large, heavy-throwweight missiles like the Titan or Atlas or undertaking development and deployment of large numbers of smaller, more flexible ICBM's [intercontinental ballistic missiles] or combinations of both types. The Administration then in office chose to rely on an arsenal of 1,000 small, sophisticated, and highly accurate ICBM's and 656 submarine-launched missiles on 41 boats, along with heavy bombers; we deployed them rapidly and then stopped our buildup of launchers unilaterally in the 1960's when the programs were complete. Only 54 of the heavy Titans were retained and still remain in the force.

The Soviets made the opposite decision; they chose larger, heavier missiles; they continued to build up their forces through the 1960's and 1970's; they passed our numerical levels by 1969-70 and continued to add an average of 200 missiles a year until stopped by the first SALT agreement.

Thus, as a consequence of decisions made a decade ago by both sides, Soviet missiles are superior in throwweight while ours are superior in reliability, accuracy, diversity, and sophistication and we possess larger numbers of warheads. In 1972 when the SALT agreement was signed, the Soviet Union was still building at the rate of 90 land-based and 120 sea-based launchers a year-while we were building none, as a result of our own repeatedly reaffirmed unilateral decisions of a decade previously. Since new American programs to redress the balance had only recently been ordered, there was no way to reduce the numerical gap before the late seventies when more modern sea-based missiles and bombers were scheduled to become operational.

The interim SALT agreement of 1972

froze overall numbers of launchers on both sides for five years, thereby limiting the momentum of Soviet programs without affecting any of ours. It stopped the Soviet buildup of heavy missile launchers. It forced the Soviets to agree to dismantle 210 older land-based missiles to reach permitted ceilings on missile-carrying submarines. The agreed-upon silo limitations permitted us to increase the throwweight of our own missiles, if we decided on this avenue of improving our strategic forces. We have so far chosen not to do so, although, through research and development, we retain the option. By any measure, the SALT agreements prevented the then-evolving gap in numbers from widening while enabling us to retain our advantage in other categories and easing the problem of redressing the balance when new programs became operational. What no negotiation could do is reverse by diplomacy the results of our own longstanding decisions with respect to weapons design and deployment.

Moreover, the SALT agreements ended for an indefinite period the prospect of a dangerous and uncertain competition in antiballistic missile defense-a competition that promised no strategic advantage, but potentially serious instabilities and the expenditure of vast sums of money.

The first SALT agreements were therefore without question in the American national interest. In the five-year respite gained by the 1972 interim agreement, it was our intention to negotiate a long-term pact on offensive weapons that would firmly fix both sides at an equal level once our new programs became operational. This is precisely what President Ford achieved at Vladivostok in November 1974.

In this accord in principle, both sides agreed on a ceiling of 2,400 strategic weapons covering strategic systems and heavy bombers-but not counting any of our forward-based aircraft in Europe, or our allies' strategic weapons, many of which can reach Soviet soil. The ceiling of 2,400 is lower than the level the Soviet Union already has reached; it would require the dismantling of many Soviet weapons, while the planned

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levels and composition of our forces would not need to be reduced or changed. An equal ceiling of 1,320 was placed on numbers of strategic weapons with multiple warheads. Soviet heavy missile launchers will remain frozen. These limits would cap the strategic competition in numbers for a 10-year period, yet preserve all the programs we need to assure deterrence and strategic sufficiency.

Obviously no single agreement can solve every problem. This is not a question of loop-holes, but of evolving technology, with respect to which we intend to remain vigilant. We will negotiate carefully to make certain that the national interest and national security are protected. But if we succeed in turning the Vladivostok accord into a 10-year agreement, we will have crossed the threshold between total unrestrained competition and the difficult but promising beginning of long-term strategic equilibrium at lower levels of forces. The United States and the Soviet Union have already agreed to turn to reductions in strategic forces in the next phase of the negotiations, starting in 1977.

One would have thought that these accomplishments would speak for themselves. Instead, they have triggered a flood of charges which mislead the American people and our friends, give a wrong impression of irresoluteness to our adversaries, and complicate the prospects for a new agreement that is in the overriding national interest.

No charge is more irresponsible and potentially more dangerous than the allegation that the United States has knowingly tolerated violations of the first SALT agreements.

What are the facts? A Standing Consultative Commission was created by the agreements of 1972 precisely to consider disputes or ambiguities in implementation. Such incidents were almost certain to arise in a first, quite limited agreement between longstanding adversaries possessing weapons systems of great complexity whose growth is verified not by some neutral policing mechanism but by each side's own intelligence systems. Every questionable activity that has arisen has been systematically analyzed by this government and considered by the President

and his advisers. Whenever any question remained, it was then promptly raised with the Soviets. All instructions to the American representative on the Consultative Commission reflected the unanimous views of all U.S. agencies concerned and the data and assessment produced jointly by them. No one had a bias in favor of absolving the Soviets—an inherently malicious charge. No one prevented all questionable or suspicious activities from being raised with the Soviets. And not all the questioned activities were on the Soviet side.

All of these issues have been and will continue to be seriously handled and dealt with through a process that has proved effective. Yet irresponsible charges continue to lump together incidents that have been explained or are still being considered with wild allegations that have no foundation. They sometimes put forward inaccurate figures and data which often can be refuted only by divulging sensitive intelligence information. Yet with all the recent flurry of allegations, no recommendations are made of what countermeasures we should take or how to assess the significance of any given alleged violation.

In what way do the alleged violations affect the strategic equation? In what manner, if any, have we been foreclosed from protecting ourselves? Would those who inaccurately allege violations simply throw over all the agreements regardless of the benefits they provide the United States? Would they halt the negotiation of further agreements? What purpose is served by leading our public and the Soviet Union to believe—totally incorrectly—that the United States is blind to violations or that its government deliberately deceives its people? Can anyone seriously believe that this Administration which has strenuously resisted Communist advances in every part of the world—and is often strongly criticized for it—would ignore Soviet violations of a formal agreement?

I can assure you that this Administration will not tolerate violations. It will continue to monitor Soviet compliance meticulously. It will pursue energetically all ambiguities or signs of noncompliance. But it will not

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be driven by demagoguery to make false or
hasty judgments. No department or agency
charged with responsibility for this problem
holds the view that any violations have
occurred.

As we assess SALT we must face squarely
one question: What is the alternative to the
agreement we have and seek? If the SALT
process falters, we must consider what new
or additional strategic programs we would
undertake, their likely cost, and above all,
their strategic purpose.

An accelerated strategic buildup over the
next five years could cost as much as an ad-
ditional $20 billion. Failing a satisfactory
agreement, this will surely be the path we
must travel. It would be a tragically missed
opportunity. For in the process of such a
buildup, and the atmosphere it would en-
gender, it would be difficult to return to
serious negotiations for some time. Tensions
are likely to increase; a new, higher baseline
will emerge from which future negotiations
would eventually have to begin. And in the
end, neither side will have gained a strategic
advantage. At the least, they will have

wasted resources. At worst, they will have
increased the risks of nuclear war.

Of course the Soviet Union must ponder
these alternatives as well. Their sense of re-
sponsibility must equal ours if there is to
be an equitable and durable agreement based
on strict reciprocity. We consider a SALT
agreement important, but we will take no
chances with our national security.

Let me sum up:

- We will never stand for the violation of a solemn treaty or agreement, and we will remain alert.

- We will never tolerate a shift in the strategic balance against us—by violations of agreements, by unsatisfactory agreements, or by neglect of our own programs. We will spend what is necessary to maintain strategic sufficiency.

- The President is determined to pursue the effort to negotiate a saner strategic balance on equitable terms—because it is in our interest and because we have an obligation to our own people and to world peace.

HK replied to the right-wing critics again in an
address in Boston on March 11, 1976, before the Boston
World Affairs Council (#54). The substance was the same
as the San Francisco speech five weeks earlier, but the
tone was somewhat sharper and the Boston speech received
more attention. In the speech, HK reminded his listeners
of the lesson of World War I: "that an equilibrium based
on constant confrontation will ultimately end in cata-
clysm." He criticized those who "portray an exaggerated
specter of Soviet power and of American weakness." He
appealed for national unity:

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In an era when two nations have the power to visit utter devastation on the world in a matter of hours, there can be no greater imperative than assuring that the relationship between the superpowers be managed effectively and rationally.

This is an unprecedented task. Historically, a conflict of ideology and geopolitical interests such as that which characterizes the current international scene has almost invariably led to conflict. But in the age of thermonuclear weapons and strategic equality, humanity could not survive such a repetition of history. No amount of tough rhetoric can change these realities. The future of our nation and of mankind depends on how well we avoid confrontation without giving up vital interests and how well we establish a more hopeful and stable relationship without surrender of principle.

We therefore face the necessity of a dual policy. On the one hand, we are determined to prevent Soviet military power from being used for political expansion; we will firmly discourage and resist adventurist policies. But at the same time, we cannot escalate every political dispute into a central crisis; nor can we rest on identifying foreign policy with crisis management. We have an obligation to work for a more positive future. We must couple opposition to pressure and irresponsibility with concerned efforts to build a more cooperative world.

History can inform—or mislead—us in this quest.

For a generation after World War II, statesmen and nations were traumatized by the experience of Munich; they believed that history had shown the folly of permitting an adversary to gain a preponderance of power. This was and remains a crucial lesson.

A later generation was chastened by the experience of Viet-Nam; it is determined that America shall never again overextend and exhaust itself by direct involvement in remote wars with no clear strategic significance. This, too, is a crucial lesson.

But equally important and too often neglected is the lesson learned by an earlier generation. Before the outbreak of the First World War, there was a virtual equilibrium of power. Through crisis after crisis, nations moved to confrontation and then retreated to compromise. Stability was taken for granted until—without any conscious decision to overturn the international structure—a crisis much like any other went out of control. Nation after nation slid into a war whose causes they did not understand but from which they could not extricate themselves. The result was the death of tens of millions, the destruction of the global order, and domestic upheavals whose consequences still torment mankind.

If we are to learn from history, we cannot pick and choose the lessons from which we will draw inspiration. The history of this century tells us:

- That an imbalance of power encourages aggression;

- That overcommitment cannot be sustained domestically; and

- That an equilibrium based on constant confrontation will ultimately end in cataclysm.

But the lessons of history are never automatic; each generation must apply them to concrete circumstances.

There is no question that peace rests, in the first instance, on the maintenance of a balance of global stability. Without the ultimate sanction of power, conciliation soon becomes surrender. Moderation is a virtue only in those who are thought to have a choice.

No service is done to the nation by those who portray an exaggerated specter of Soviet power and of American weakness, by those who hesitate to resist when we are challenged, or by those who fail to see the opportunities we have to shape the U.S.-Soviet relationship by our own confident action.

Soviet strength is uneven; the weaknesses and frustrations of the Soviet system are glaring and have been clearly documented.

April 5, 1976

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Despite the inevitable increase in its power, the Soviet Union remains far behind us and our allies in any overall assessment of military, economic, and technological strength; it would be reckless in the extreme for the Soviet Union to challenge the industrial democracies. And Soviet society is no longer insulated from the influences and attractions of the outside world or impervious to the need for external contacts.

The great industrial democracies possess the means to counter Soviet expansion and to moderate Soviet behavior. We must not abdicate this responsibility by weakening ourselves either by failing to support our defenses or refusing to use our power in defense of our interests; we must, along with our allies, always do what is necessary to maintain our security.

It is true that we cannot be the world's policeman. Not all local wars and regional conflicts affect global stability or America's national interest. But if one superpower systematically exploits these conflicts for its own advantage and tips the scales decisively by its intervention, gradually the overall balance will be affected. If adventurism is allowed to succeed in local crises, an ominous precedent of wider consequence is set. Other nations will adjust their policies to their perception of the dominant trend. Our ability to control future crises will diminish. And if this pattern is not broken, America will ultimately face harder choices, higher costs, and more severe crises.

But our obligation goes beyond the balance of power. An equilibrium is too precarious a foundation for our long-term future. There is no tranquillity in a balance of terror constantly contested. We must avoid the twin temptations of provocation and escapism. Our course must be steady and not reflect momentary fashions; it must be a policy that our adversaries respect, our allies support, and our people believe in and sustain.

Therefore we have sought with the Soviet Union to push back the shadow of nuclear catastrophe—by settling concrete problems such as Berlin so as to ease confrontations and negotiating on limitation of strategic arms so as to slow the arms race. And we

have held out the prospect of cooperative relations in the economic and other fields if political conditions permit their implementation and further development.

It goes without saying that this process requires reciprocity. It cannot survive a constant attempt to seek unilateral advantage. It cannot, specifically, survive any more Angolas. If the Soviet Union is ready to face genuine coexistence, we are prepared to make every effort to shape a pattern of restraint and mutual interest which will give coexistence a more reliable and positive character making both sides conscious of what would be lost by confrontation and what can be gained by cooperation.

And we are convinced that when a vigorous response to Soviet encroachment is called for, the President will have the support of the American people—and of our allies—to the extent that he can demonstrate that the crisis was imposed upon us; that it did not result from opportunities we missed to improve the prospects of peace.

No policy will soon, if ever, eliminate the competition and irreconcilable ideological differences between the United States and the Soviet Union. Nor will it make all interests compatible. We are engaged in a protracted process with inevitable ups and downs. But there is no alternative to the policy of penalties for adventurism and incentives for restraint. What do those who speak so glibly about "one-way streets" or "preemptive concessions" propose concretely that this country do? What precisely has been given up? What level of confrontation do they seek? What threats would they make? What risks would they run? What precise changes in our defense posture, what level of expenditure over what period of time, do they advocate? How, concretely, do they suggest managing the U.S.-Soviet relationship in an era of strategic equality?

It is time we heard answers to these questions.

In short we must—and we shall—pursue the two strands of our policy toward the Soviet Union: Firmness in the face of pressure and the vision to work for a better future. This is well within our capacities. We

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owe this to our people, to our future, to our allies, and to the rest of mankind.

* * *

The world watches with amazement—our adversaries with glee and our friends with growing dismay—how America seems bent on eroding its influence and destroying its achievements in world affairs through an orgy of recrimination.

They see our policies in Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, in Latin America, in East-West relations undermined by arbitrary congressional actions that may take decades to undo.

They see our intelligence system gravely damaged by unremitting, undiscriminating attack.

They see a country virtually incapable of behaving with the discretion that is indispensable for diplomacy.

They see revelations of malfeasance abroad on the part of American firms wreak grave damage on the political structures of friendly nations. Whatever wrongs were committed—reprehensible as they are—should be dealt with in a manner consistent with our own judicial procedures and with the dignity of allied nations.

They see some critics suddenly pretending that the Soviets are 10 feet tall and that America, despite all the evidence to the contrary, is becoming a second-rate nation. They know these erroneous and reckless allega-

tions to be dangerous, because they may, if continued, persuade allies and adversaries of our weakness, tempting the one to accommodation and the other to adventurism.

They see this Administration—which has been condemned by one set of critics for its vigorous reaction to expansionism in Southeast Asia, in the Middle East, in Africa—simultaneously charged by another group of opponents with permitting unilateral Soviet gains.

They see that the Administration whose defense budgets have been cut some $39 billion by the Congress in the past seven years is simultaneously charged with neglecting American defenses.

The American people see all this, too, and wonder when it will end. They know that we cannot escape either our responsibilities or the geopolitical realities of the world around us. For a great nation that does not manage events will soon be overwhelmed by them.

If one group of critics undermines arms control negotiations and cuts off the prospect of more constructive ties with the Soviet Union while another group cuts away at our defense budgets and intelligence services and thwarts American resistance to Soviet adventurism, both combined will—whether they have intended it or not—end by wrecking the nation's ability to conduct a strong, creative, moderate, and prudent foreign policy. The result will be paralysis, no matter who wins in November. And if America cannot act, others will, and we and all the free peoples of the world will pay the price.

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In Dallas on March 22, 1976, before a dinner sponsored by the Southern Methodist University, the World Affairs Council of Dallas, and other local organizations (#56), HK devoted a speech to the subject of defense. He discussed the complexities of defense policy: the problem of rapid technological advance and the long lead times of weapons procurement, the factors determining the strategic balance, the advantages of arms control, and the increasing importance of forces for regional defense and the geopolitical balance. Critics were focusing on the wrong questions:

As Secretary of State I am not, of course, directly involved in the preparation of our defense budget or in decisions regarding particular weapons programs. But as the President's principal adviser on foreign policy, no one knows better than I that a strong defense is crucial for our role in the world. For a great and responsible power, diplomacy without strength would be empty. If we were weak we could not negotiate; we could only hope or accommodate. It is the confidence of strength that permits us to act with conciliation and responsibility to help shape a more peaceful world.

Other nations must not be led to doubt either our strength or our resolution. For how others see us determines the risks they are prepared to run and the degree to which they are willing to place confidence in our policies. If adversaries consider us weak or irresolute, testing and crises are inevitable. If allies doubt our constancy, retreat and political shifts are certain.

And so as Secretary of State, I am inevitably a partisan of a strong America and a strong defense as the underpinning of a

strong foreign policy. I have a responsibility to make clear to the American people and to other nations that our power is indeed adequate to our current challenges, that we are improving our forces to meet changing conditions, that America understands its interests and values and will defend them, and that the American people will never permit those hostile to us to shape the world in which we live.

I do not accept the propositions that other nations have gained military ascendancy over us, that the Administration has neglected our defenses, or that negotiations to reduce the threat of nuclear war are unwise. These charges sound remarkably like the "missile gap" claims which aroused anxieties in 1960, only to dissolve suddenly a few weeks after the election.

Ladies and gentlemen, we do face serious challenges to our security. They derive from the unprecedented conditions of the thermonuclear age, the ambiguities of contemporary power, and the perpetual revolution in technology. Our task is to understand the real and permanent requirements of our security, rather than to be seduced by the

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outmoded vocabulary of a simpler time.

What are the national security issues we
face? What is the true condition of our na-
tional defense?

—First, the inevitable growth of Soviet
economic and military power has produced
essential strategic equality. We cannot halt
this growth, but we must counterbalance it
and prevent its use for political expansion.

—Second, America remains the most pow-
erful nation in the world. It will remain so,
if the Congress approves the President's
proposed defense budget. But evolving tech-
nology and the military programs of others
impose upon us the need for constant vigi-
lance and continuing major effort.

—Third, technology has revolutionized the
instruments of war and introduced an un-
paralleled complexity into the perceptions of
power and the choices that we must make
to maintain it. The defense establishment
we have today is the product of decisions
taken 10 to 15 years ago. Equally, the de-
cisions we make today will determine our
defense posture in the eighties and beyond.
And the kind of forces we have will deter-
mine the kind of diplomacy we are able to
conduct.

—Fourth, as nuclear arsenals grow, the
horrors of nuclear war become ever more
apparent while at the same time the threat
of all-out nuclear war to deter or resist less-
than-all-out aggression becomes ever less
plausible. Under the umbrella of strategic
equivalence, testing and probing at the local
and regional levels become more likely.
Hence over the next decade we must increase
and modernize the forces—air, land, and
sea—for local defense.

—Fifth, while a weak defense posture pro-
duces a weak foreign policy, a strong defense
does not necessarily produce a strong for-
eign policy. Our role in the world depends
as well on how realistically we perceive our
national interests, on our unity as a people,
and on our willingness to persevere in pur-
suit of our national goals.

—Finally, for Americans, physical
strength can never be an end in itself. So
long as we are true to ourselves, every Ad-

ministration has the obligation to seek to
control the spiral of nuclear weapons and to
give mankind hope for a more secure and
just future.

The Long-Range Challenge of Defense

Let me discuss each of these challenges.

To cope with the implications of Soviet
power has become a permanent responsibil-
ity of American defense and foreign policy.
Sixty years of Soviet industrial and eco-
nomic growth, and a political system that
gives top priority to military buildup, have—
inevitably—brought the Soviet Union to a
position of rough equilibrium with the
United States. No policy or decision on our
part brought this about. Nothing we could
have done would have prevented it. Nothing
we can do now will make it disappear.

But while we cannot prevent the growth
of Soviet military strength, we can and must
maintain the strength to balance it and in-
sure that it will not be used for political
expansion. There is no alternative to a sub-
stantial defense budget over the long term.
We have a permanent responsibility and
need a steady course that does not change
with the fads of the moment. We cannot
afford the oscillation between assaults on
defense spending and cries of panic, between
cuts of $40 billion in Administration defense
budget requests over seven years and
charges of neglect of our defenses.

This claim on our perseverance is a new
experience for Americans. Throughout most
of our history we have been able to mobilize
urgently in time of war and then to disarm
unilaterally when victory was achieved.
After World War II we rapidly demobi-
lized our armies, relying largely on our nu-
clear monopoly to preserve the peace. Thus,
when the Korean war broke out we were
little better prepared than we had been 10
summers previously. Only recently have we
begun to understand—and then reluctantly
—that foreign policy and military strategy
are inextricably linked, that we must main-
tain defense preparedness over the long
term, and that we will live for as far ahead

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as we can see in a twilight between tranquillity and open confrontation. We need a defense posture that is relevant to our dangers, comprehensible to our friends, credible to our adversaries, and that we are prepared to sustain over the long term.

## The Imperatives of Technology

Technology has transformed the conditions and calculations of military strength in unprecedented fashion.

The paradox of contemporary military strength is that a momentous increase in the element of power has eroded the traditional relationship of power to policy. Until the end of World War II, it would never have occurred to a leader that there might be an upper limit to useful military power. Since the technological choices were limited, strength was largely defined in quantitative terms. Today, the problem is to insure that our strength is relevant to our foreign policy objectives. Under current conditions, no matter how we or our adversaries improve the size or quality of our strategic arsenals, one overriding fact remains: an all-out strategic nuclear exchange would kill hundreds of millions on both sides in a matter of hours and utterly devastate the nations involved.

Thus the current strategic problem is virtually the diametric opposite of the historic one. Planners used to pursue increased overall power. Today we have a total strength unimaginable a generation ago, but we must design, diversify, and refine our forces so that they are relevant to—and able to support—rational foreign policy objectives. Historically, military planners could treat the technology of their time as stable; today, technology revolutionizes military capabilities in both strategic and tactical forces every decade and thus presents policymakers with an ever-increasing spectrum of choice.

And yet, the choices we make now will not, in most cases, really affect the structure of our forces for from 5 to 10 years—the time it takes to design new weapons, build them, and deploy them. Thus the policies

Administrations are able to carry out are largely shaped by decisions in which they took no part. Decisions made in the 1960's largely determined our strategic posture for the 1970's. We can do little to change the impact of those earlier decisions; the Administration in power in the eighties will be able to do little to change the impact of the decisions we make today. This is a sobering challenge, and it turns national security policy into a nonpartisan responsibility.

In choosing among the options that technology gives, we—and every Administration—must keep certain principles in mind:

- First, we must not simply duplicate Soviet choices. The Soviet Union has a different geopolitical problem, a different force structure, and perhaps a different strategic doctrine.

- Second, because of the costs of modern forces, we face complex choices. In many areas we face a trade-off between quantity and quality, between numbers and sophistication.

- Third, because of our higher wage scales, particularly for our volunteer forces, any increase in our forces will weigh much more heavily on our economy than on that of adversaries whose pay scales are only a fraction of ours. For this reason, and the value we place on human life, we have always had an incentive, *indeed an imperative*, to put a premium on technology—where we are superior—rather than on sheer numbers.

- Fourth, we must see beyond the numbers game. Quality confers advantages as much as quantity and can sometimes substitute for it. Yet even we cannot afford every weapon that technology makes possible.

- Fifth, at some point numbers count. Technology cannot substitute indefinitely for numerical strength. The belief that there is an unlimited amount of fat to be cut in the defense budget is an illusion. Reductions almost inevitably translate into a reduction of effectiveness.

America possesses the economic and tech-

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nological foundation to remain militarily pre-
eminent; we can afford whatever military
forces our security requires. The challenge
we face is not to our physical strength—
which is unequaled—but to our will to main-
tain it in all relevant categories and to use
it when necessary to defend our interests
and values.

Strategic Forces

Our nation's security requires, first and foremost, strategic forces that can deter attack and that insure swift and flexible retaliation if aggression occurs.

We have such forces today. Our technology has always been ahead of the U.S.S.R. by at least five years; with appropriate effort we can insure that this will continue to be the case.

We are determined to maintain the strategic balance at whatever level is required. We will never allow the balance to be tipped against us either by unilateral decision or a buildup of the other side, by a one-sided agreement or by a violation of an agreement.

But we must be clear what maintaining
the balance means. We must not mesmerize
ourselves with fictitious "gaps." Our forces
were designed according to different criteria
than those of the Soviet Union; their ade-
quacy must be judged by our strategic
needs, not theirs.

In the middle sixties we could have con-
tinued the deployment of heavy throw-
weight missiles, following the Titan or the
Atlas. But the Administration then in office
decided instead to rely—in addition to our
large bomber force—on an arsenal of 1,000
new relatively light, sophisticated, and ex-
tremely accurate intercontinental ballistic
missiles and 656 submarine-launched mis-
siles on 41 boats. We deployed these systems
rapidly, halting our buildup of launchers in
the 1960's when it was judged that techno-
logical improvements were more important
than an increase in numbers.

The Soviet Union chose a different course.
Because of its more limited technological

capabilities, it emphasized missiles whose
greater throw-weight compensated for their
substantially poorer accuracy. But—con-
trary to the expectations of American offi-
cials in the 1960's—the Soviets also chose to
expand their numbers of launchers beyond
what we had. Thus, the Soviets passed our
numerical levels by 1970 and continued to
add an average of 200 missiles a year—until
we succeeded in halting this buildup in the
SALT agreement of 1972.

Therefore—as a consequence of unilateral
decisions made a decade ago by both sides—
Soviet missile forces today are somewhat
larger in number and considerably heavier
in throw-weight, while ours are superior in
reliability, accuracy, diversity, and sophisti-
cation. We possess far larger numbers of
warheads—8,500 to their 2,500—and we
have several hundred more strategic
bombers.

Whether we move in the direction of
greater throw-weight will largely depend on
recommendations made by the Department
of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff; it
is not essentially a foreign policy decision.
But in making it we will be governed by our
needs, not by a compulsion to duplicate the
Soviet force structure.

The destructiveness of missiles depends on
a combination of explosive power and accu-
racy. For most purposes, as accuracy im-
proves, explosive power becomes less impor-
tant—and heavy land-based missiles become
in fact more vulnerable. Since we have
stressed accuracy, we may decide that we
do not need to approach the level of throw-
weight of Soviet weapons, though nothing—
certainly no SALT agreement—prevents us
from substantially increasing our throw-
weight if we choose.

Whatever our decision regarding technical
issues, no responsible leader should encour-
age the illusion that America can ever again
recapture the strategic superiority of the
early postwar period. In the forties, we had
a nuclear monopoly. In the fifties and early
sixties, we had overwhelming preponderance.
As late as the Cuban missile crisis of 1962,
the Soviet Union possessed less than 100

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strategic systems while we had thousands.

But today, when each side has thousands of launchers and many more warheads, a decisive or politically significant margin of superiority is out of reach. If one side expands or improves its forces, sooner or later the other side will balance the effort.

The Soviet Union first developed an ICBM; we matched it. We then added a lead in numbers of strategic missiles to the lead we already had in bombers; they caught up and surpassed us in missile numbers, though we still remain far ahead in numbers of bombers. When our Trident submarines are in production by the end of this decade, we will begin to redress that numerical imbalance as well as improve the flexibility and survivability of our forces.

We were the first to put modern ballistic missiles on submarines, and we were the first to put multiple warheads on missiles. Though we remain ahead in both categories, the Soviets found ways to narrow the gap. And the same will be true in the future, whether in missile accuracy or submarine, aircraft, or cruise missile technology.

The pattern is clear. No net advantage can long be preserved by either side. A perceived inequality could shake the confidence of other countries even when its precise military significance is difficult to define. Therefore we certainly will not permit a perceived or actual imbalance to arise against us and the Soviet Union is likely to follow similar principles.

The probable outcome of each succeeding round of the strategic arms race will be the restoration of equilibrium, at a higher and costlier level of forces and probably with less political stability. Such temporary advantages as can be achieved are not strategically decisive.

The long leadtimes for the deployment of modern weapons should always permit countermeasures to be taken. If both sides remain vigilant, neither side will be able to reduce the effects of a counterblow against it to acceptable levels.

Those who paint dark vistas of a looming U.S. inferiority in strategic weapons ignore

these facts and the real choices facing modern leaders.

No nuclear weapon has ever been used in modern wartime conditions or against an opponent possessing means of retaliation. Indeed, neither side has even tested the launching of more than a few missiles at a time; neither side has ever fired them in a north-south direction as they would have to do in wartime. Yet initiation of an all-out surprise attack would depend on substantial confidence that thousands of reentry vehicles launched in carefully coordinated attacks—from land, sea, and air—would knock out all their targets thousands of miles away with a timing and reliability exactly as predicted, before the other side launched any forces to preempt or retaliate, and with such effectiveness that retaliation would not produce unacceptable damage. Any miscalculation or technical failure would mean national catastrophe. Assertions that one side is “ahead” by the margins now under discussion pale in significance when an attack would depend on decisions based on such massive uncertainties and risks.

For these reasons, the strategic arsenals of the two sides find their principal purpose in matching and deterring the forces of the opponent and in making certain that third countries perceive no inequality. In no recent crisis has an American President come close to considering the use of strategic nuclear weapons. In no crisis since 1962—and perhaps not even then—has the strategic balance been the decisive factor. Even in Korea, when we possessed an overwhelming superiority, it was not relevant to the outcome.

## Strategic Arms Limitation

It is against this background that we have vigorously negotiated mutual limitations in strategic arms. These are compelling reasons for pursuing such talks.

—Since successive rounds of competitive programs will almost certainly yield only equilibrium, we have sought to regulate the

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competition and to maintain the equivalence
that will exist in any case at lower levels.

—Stabilizing the strategic balance frees
resources to strengthen our forces in areas
where they are most needed; it will ease the
problem of enhancing our capabilities for re-
gional defense and in seapower, the areas
where an imbalance could have serious geo-
political consequences.

—Agreed limitations and a more calcu-
lable strategic relationship will facilitate ef-
forts to reduce political confrontations and
crises.

—And, finally, the American people ex-
pect their leaders to pursue every respon-
sible approach to peace and stability in the
thermonuclear era. Only then can we expect
them to support the sacrifices necessary to
maintain our defensive strength.

We have made progress toward these
goals. In the 1972 SALT agreements we
froze antiballistic missile systems in their
infancy and thus avoided potentially massive
expenditures and instabilities. We halted the
momentum of the Soviet missile buildup for
five years—a period in which, because of the
long leadtimes involved, we had no capacity
for deployment of our own. We intended to
use that five-year interval to negotiate a
longer term and more comprehensive agree-
ment based on numerical equality and, fail-
ing that, to close the numerical gap by our
own efforts as our modernization programs
developed.

This is precisely what President Ford
achieved at Vladivostok a year and a half
ago and what we are trying to enshrine in a
binding treaty that would run through 1985.
Both sides would have equal ceilings on mis-
siles, heavy bombers, and on multiwarhead
missiles; this would require the Soviets to
dismantle many weapons, while our planned
forces would not be affected. And neither
the weapons of our allies nor our forward-
based nuclear systems, such as carriers and
tactical aircraft, would be included; these
had been Soviet demands since 1969.

These are major accomplishments which
are overwhelmingly in our interest, particu-
larly when we compare them to the situation

which could have prevailed had we failed to
achieve restraints on Soviet programs. Nev-
ertheless, very important issues remain to be
resolved. We will make every effort to con-
clude a satisfactory agreement, but we will
be driven solely by the national interest and
not by arbitrary or artificial deadlines.

The SALT agreements are the opposite of
one-sided concessions to the U.S.S.R., as they
are so often portrayed. Soviet offensive pro-
grams were slowed; none of ours were af-
fected. Nor has the Administration counte-
nanced Soviet violations of the first SALT
agreement, as has been irresponsibly
charged. In fact we have carefully watched
every aspect of Soviet performance. It is the
unanimous view of all agencies of our gov-
ernment—only recently reconfirmed—that
no Soviet violation has occurred and that
none of the ambiguous actions that we have
noted and raised has affected our security.
But we will remain vigilant. All ambiguous
information will be carefully analyzed. No
violations will be tolerated. We will insist on
full explanations where questionable activity
has occurred.

We will maintain the strategic balance at
whatever level is required—preferably with-
in the limits of successful SALT negotia-
tions but, if necessary, without those limits.
We will not heed those who maintain that all
that is required are limited, minimum deter-
rence forces—to threaten the Soviet civilian
population. To follow their advice would de-
prive us of all options save capitulation and
the massive destruction of civilian life; it
would create a large numerical imbalance
against us, which could have significant po-
litical consequences, possibly tempting our
adversaries and upsetting our friends.

But neither will we be deflected by con-
trived and incredible scenarios, by inflated
versions of Soviet strength, or by irrespon-
sible attacks on SALT into diverting defense
resources away from vital areas—the forces
for regional and local defense and our Navy.
For these are the areas where shortfalls and
imbalances can rapidly turn into geopoliti-
cal shifts that jeopardize our fundamental
interests and those of our allies.

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## Military Strength for Regional Defense

Under conditions of nuclear parity, world peace is more likely to be threatened by shifts in local or regional balances—in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, or Africa—than by strategic nuclear attack. Thus, our forces that can be used for local defense deserve our particular attention and increased resources.

The issue is not the simplistic one of the size of the Soviet Army. There is nothing new about the size of the Soviet Army. During the entire postwar period, the Soviet standing army has always been larger than ours; at times it has been three times the size. The Soviet Union has a much greater landmass to defend and perceives major defense problems both in Eastern Europe and on its Asian front, where nearly half of the Soviet Army is now stationed. We, by contrast, enjoy the shields of friendly neighbors and wide oceans. And we are linked with close allies with substantial forces of their own.

The new and long-foreseen problem is that under conditions of nuclear balance our adversaries may be increasingly tempted to probe at the regional level. This temptation must be discouraged. If leaders around the world come to assume that the United States lacks either the forces or the will to resist while others intervene to impose solutions, they will accommodate themselves to what they will regard as the dominant trend. And an unopposed superpower may draw dangerous conclusions when the next opportunity for intervention beckons. Over time, the global balance of power and influence will inevitably shift to the advantage of those who care nothing about America's values or well-being.

Thus our strong capability for local and regional defense is essential for us; and together with our allies, we must build up these forces. In a crisis, the President must have other choices than capitulation or resort to strategic nuclear weapons.

## The Strength and Will of America

If America's defense is to match the na-

tion's needs, it must meet three basic requirements:

- Our strategic forces must be sufficient to deter attack and credibly maintain the nuclear balance.

- Our forces for regional defense, together with those of our allies, must be clearly capable of resisting threat and pressure.

- And at home we must once again unite behind the proposition that aggression unresisted is aggression encouraged. We must be prepared to recognize genuine threats to the global balance, whether they emerge as direct challenges to us or as regional encroachment at a greater distance. And we must be prepared to do something about them.

These are the real issues our leaders now face and will surely face in the future. They require answers to some hard questions, such as the following: Where can our defense dollars be most productively spent? What programs are needed that are not already underway? What would be the costs of these programs and over what period of time? What, if anything, would we have to give up? What are the premises of our defense policy—against what threats and with what diplomacy?

Administration and critics alike must answer these questions if we are to have an effective national policy. And in this spirit, I have spoken today about the relationship between defense and foreign policy.

Ladies and gentlemen, military strength is crucial to America's security and well-being. But we must take care not to become so obsessed with power alone that we become a "Fortress America" and neglect our ultimate political and moral responsibilities.

We have gone through a difficult decade not because we were weak, but because we were divided. None of our setbacks has been caused by lack of American power, or even lack of relevant power. The fundamental challenge to America therefore is to generate the wisdom, the creativity, and the will to dedicate ourselves to the peace and progress of humanity.

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HK repeated some of the same themes in more condensed terms in his speech in Phoenix before the Downtown Rotary Club on April 15, 1976 (#60). And also in the Alastair Buchan lecture in London on June 25, 1976 (#71), included above in the section on security cooperation among the democracies.

## The Geopolitical Balance: Angola

Some of the right-wing critics of detente who denounced SALT as a betrayal of Western civilization were nowhere to be found when the Ford Administration sought to prevent Soviet assaults on the geopolitical equilibrium. In this they joined liberals in their aversion to interventionism, indeed in a defacto isolationism.

HK attempted to make clear, in answer to those on both left and right, that our conception of US-Soviet relations presupposed geopolitical restraint on the part of the Soviet Union.

Thus, in the Pacem in Terris speech on October 8, 1973 (#5) in a general discussion of detente and human rights, HK warned the Soviet Union not to exploit the Middle East war which had just broken out:

* * *

Our policy with respect to détente is clear: We shall resist aggressive foreign policies. Détente cannot survive irresponsibility in any area, including the Middle East. As for the internal policies of closed systems, the United States will never forget that the antagonism between freedom and its enemies is part of the reality of the modern age. We are not neutral in that struggle. As long as we remain powerful, we will use our influence to promote freedom, as we always have. But in the nuclear age we are obliged to recognize that the issue of war and peace also involves human lives and that the attainment of peace is a profound moral concern.

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In the detente statement before the SFRC on September 19, 1974 (#16), HK explained our policy as one of providing both incentives for constructive Soviet behavior and penalties for irresponsible behavior. In this context we had signed documents with the Soviets on a code of conduct declaring super-power restraint to be an essential foundation of detente:

### III. The Evolution of Detente—The Balance of Risks and Incentives

The course of détente has not been smooth or even. As late as 1969, Soviet-American relations were ambiguous and uncertain. To be sure, negotiations on Berlin and SALT had begun. But the tendency toward confrontation appeared dominant.

We were challenged by Soviet conduct in the Middle East cease-fire of August 1970, during the Syrian invasion of Jordan in September 1970, on the question of a possible Soviet submarine base in Cuba, in actions around Berlin, and during the Indo-Pakistani war. Soviet policy seemed directed toward fashioning a détente in bilateral relations with our Western European allies, while challenging the United States.

We demonstrated then, and stand ready to do so again, that America will not yield to pressure or the threat of force. We made clear then, as we do today, that détente cannot be pursued selectively in one area or toward one group of countries only. For us détente is indivisible.

Finally, a breakthrough was made in 1971 on several fronts—in the Berlin settlement, in the SALT talks, in other arms control negotiations—that generated the process of détente. It consists of these elements: An elaboration of principles; political discussions to solve outstanding issues and to reach cooperative agreements; economic relations; and arms control negotiations, particularly those concerning strategic arms.

#### A. The Elaboration of Principles

Cooperative relations, in our view, must be more than a series of isolated agreements. They must reflect an acceptance of mutual obligations and of the need for accommodation and restraint.

To set forth principles of behavior in formal documents is hardly to guarantee their observance. But they are reference points against which to judge actions and set goals.

The first of the series of documents is the statement of principles signed in Moscow in 1972. It affirms: (1) the necessity of avoiding confrontation; (2) the imperative of mutual restraint; (3) the rejection of attempts to exploit tensions to gain unilateral advantages; (4) the renunciation of claims of special influence in the world; and (5) the willingness, on this new basis, to coexist peacefully and build a firm long-term relationship.

An Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War based on these principles was signed in 1978. It affirms that the objective of the policies of the United States and the U.S.S.R. is to remove the danger of nuclear conflict and the use of nuclear weapons. But it emphasizes that this objective presupposes the renunciation of any war or threat of war not only by the two nuclear super-powers against each other but also against allies or third countries. In other words, the principle of restraint is not confined to relations between the United States and the U.S.S.R.; it is explicitly extended to include all countries.

These statements of principles are not an American concession; indeed, we have been affirming them unilaterally for two decades. Nor are they a legal contract; rather, they are an aspiration and a yardstick by which we assess Soviet behavior. We have never intended to "rely" on Soviet compliance with every principle; we do seek to elaborate standards of conduct which the Soviet Union would violate only to its cost. And if over the long term the more durable relationship takes hold, the basic principles will give it definition, structure, and hope.

[Y]

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In a speech in St. Louis on May 12, 1975, before the St. Louis World Affairs Council (#27), HK pointed out that US-Soviet relations on the geopolitical plane were not proceeding as satisfactorily as in other areas such as arms control, economic relations, and political negotiations in Europe. Detente could not be "a formula for more selective exploitation of opportunities:"

These achievements of détente must be balanced against the record of the fourth level of U.S.-Soviet relations: the quest for stability in areas peripheral to the vital interests of the two so-called superpowers. Here the progress achieved in other fields of our relations has not been equaled. The expansion of Soviet military power and its extension around the world is a serious concern to us. The willingness of the Soviet Union to exploit strategic opportunities, even though some of these opportunities presented themselves more or less spontaneously and not as a result of Soviet action, constitutes a heavy mortgage on détente.

If détente turns into a formula for more selective exploitation of opportunities, the new trends in U.S.-Soviet relations will be in jeopardy. If our contention in peripheral areas persists, even more if it becomes exacerbated, the progress achieved in other areas of détente will ultimately be undermined. The United States is determined to maintain the hopeful new trends in U.S.-Soviet relations on the basis of realism and reciprocity. But it is equally determined to resist pressures or the exploitation of local conflict.

[y]

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HK addressed the Berlin Senat on May 21, 1975 (#29). He cited Berlin as an example of how resistance to challenges was one of the foundations of detente:

It is an honor to be in this city whose fortitude has preserved the peace and whose devotion has inspired all who love freedom. The people of West Berlin know better than anyone what freedom means. They know—and have proven—that peace requires security as well as conciliation, courage as well as hope. They have experienced that freedom can be preserved only by those who have faith in themselves and in the dignity of man.

I do not come to Berlin to lecture to you on the requirements of peace and freedom in the modern world. It is we who have learned, and you who have taught:

- You have endured and prevailed during the darkest days of confrontation between East and West.

- You have experienced in the cruel division of your own city the consequences of ideological hostility.

- You survived and prospered because the solidarity of the Western allies has buttressed your security and the security of Western Europe.

- And now, in a new era of eased confrontation in Europe, the fate of Berlin will determine the future of the efforts to insure security through negotiation and cooperation. As Berlin was the greatest symbol of the heroism of the immediate postwar period, it is also the acid test of the period we now hope to enter.

My visit does not come in the midst of

crisis; rather it takes place at a moment when this city is enjoying greater security than at any time in the last 30 years. But we shall not slacken our resolve or neglect our security, for we know that it has been our determination and our strength which have made the present opportunity for progress possible. By working to make restraint and negotiation the only realistic option, we have created conditions for a more rational, hopeful, and reliable relationship with the East.

In the thermonuclear age, there is no alternative to peace. In the general interest —most of all of those whose homes would be the focal point of crisis—we seek just and reasonable solutions to outstanding issues. But America will never seek peace by abandoning principles or sacrificing friends.

* * *

While these legal guarantees are not necessarily self-implementing, they represent a significant achievement. We shall never relax our efforts to insure the strict implementation of the Quadripartite Agreement. We shall deal with challenges with the same determination to resist pressures and with the same spirit of readiness to negotiate that produced the agreement. Thus only if Berlin flourishes will détente flourish; only if you are secure will Europe be secure. This has been America's attitude for 30 years; it has not changed. On behalf of President Ford and the American people, I reaffirm our historic relationship today.

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On June 23, 1975, in Atlanta (#34), HK listed the easing of tensions as an American objective. But we would not allow détente to be used as a device for "selective exploitation of strategic opportunities:"

## Easing of Tensions

However fundamental our alliances, we recognize that a peace that rests solely on a balance of forces and offsetting blocs is fragile and sterile. We are committed, therefore, to continue the effort to improve relations with the Communist powers. In the thermonuclear age, there is no alternative to a serious effort to ease tensions on a reliable and reciprocal basis.

Therefore in the past few years we have taken a number of practical steps to regularize our relations with the Soviet Union. The objective has been, in our own interest, to reduce the danger of war and to encourage new patterns of relations and international conduct.

This process proceeds on several levels. We have negotiated balanced and effective agreements to limit strategic weapons on both sides and in other areas of arms control.

In our bilateral relations, we have reached a number of agreements for economic and technical cooperation, agreements that provide benefits to both sides and give both sides a stake in the continuation of a positive relationship.

In resolving political conflicts in vital areas where we are both engaged directly, such as Europe, we have reached an agreement, in 1971, to make Berlin more secure. We are now engaged in comprehensive negotiations on mutual and balanced force reductions and on the broader questions of security and cooperation in Europe.

In other areas of the world, such as the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, the course of U.S.-Soviet relations has been uneven. There have been cases where tensions have, in our view, been exacerbated needlessly. Thus, while we have made significant progress in our relations with the

Soviet Union over the past six years, we have done so without illusion. The U.S.S.R. remains our ideological and political rival. Should it seek to use détente as a device for selective exploitation of strategic opportunities, the entire fabric of our evolving relationship will be brought into question.

At the same time, it is vital to maintain our perspective. We must never lose sight of the fact that war between nuclear superpowers risks the extinction of mankind. We are ideological opponents; technology drives our competition; political conflict around the world pulls us into rivalry. If humanity is not to live constantly at the edge of an abyss and eventually to be consumed by its technology, we must take care to nurture mutual restraint which has been so painfully built up, guarding against the tendency to use our improving relationship with the U.S.S.R. as the whipping boy for our frustrations.

Détente can never be a substitute for our own efforts; where our own efforts flag, we should not blame the resultant setbacks on our adversaries. International events in a turbulent world, and domestic conditions in many countries, are sufficient explanation for many problems. We should not exaggerate Soviet influence by blaming all difficulties on them.

The experience of Indochina should have taught us that it is easier to start confrontations than to sustain them. Tough rhetoric is not the same as sustained strong action. We will defend our vital interests and those of our allies uncompromisingly. But we can do so effectively over an extended period of time only if our people know that we have first pursued untiringly all conceivable alternatives to confrontation.

[Y]

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In Birmingham on August 14, 1975, before the Southern Commodity Producers Conference (#38), HK reminded his audience that the Nixon and Ford administrations had made geopolitical vigilance a central tenet of American foreign policy--in the face of criticism from some now claiming the Administration was too soft:

> On the basis of our strength and allied unity, this Administration has sought to place our relations with the Communist countries on a more stable and long-term basis. There must be no misunderstanding of what we are doing.

> We are trying to manage a fundamental conflict of moral purposes and interests in the shadow of nuclear holocaust. We are striving to preserve peace while defending our essential values and ideals.

> In a crisis situation, such as the Mayaguez incident, or the October 1973 Middle East alert, or the Jordanian crisis of 1970, or the Soviet attempt to build a naval base in Cuba in 1970, we have reacted firmly and decisively—and in the face of an outcry from some who now accuse us of being insufficiently vigilant. It is the firm policy of this Administration to resist encroachment and attempts to gain unilateral advantage.

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HK may have had Angola in mind when he spoke in Atlanta and Birmingham. By early 1976, Angola was a vivid example of the price America paid for abdicating its responsibility to maintain the geopolitical balance.

A good, brief philosophical statement of the importance of equilibrium -- and of the crucial role that containment played in our conception of detente -- came in HK's statement on Angola before the Subcommittee on African Affairs of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, January 29, 1976 (#48):

In recent years the United States has sought to help build a new international order less tied to the traditional patterns of power balances. It was the United States which took the initiative in seeking to resolve the most dangerous problems of our time by negotiation and cooperation rather than by force of arms. It was we who saw that the historical necessity of this period required a more stable relationship between the two nations that possess the capacity to destroy civilization.

We have sought—and with some successes— to build more constructive relations with the U.S.S.R. across a broad range: to contain strategic arms; to institutionalize cooperation in economic, scientific, and cultural fields; to reduce tensions in areas where our vital interests impinge on one another; and to avoid destabilizing confrontations in peripheral areas of the globe—such as Angola. The classical pattern of accumulating marginal advantages must be overcome and

mankind must build more constructive patterns if catastrophe is to be avoided. No one has been more dedicated than the President and I to working for these principles.

But our efforts have been founded upon one fundamental reality: peace requires a sense of security, and security depends upon some form of equilibrium between the great powers. And that equilibrium is impossible unless the United States remains both strong and determined to use its strength when required. This is our historic responsibility, for no other nation has the capacity to act in this way. While constantly seeking opportunities for conciliation, we need to demonstrate to potential adversaries that cooperation is the only rational alternative. Any other course will encourage the trends it seeks to accommodate; a challenge not met today will tempt far more dangerous crises tomorrow.

[Y]

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HK continued to pursue this theme. He spoke on February 3, 1976, in San Francisco on the topic of "the permanent challenge of peace: U. S. policy toward the Soviet Union" (#49). One topic was SALT, much abused by the right wing: the other topic was Angola, much ignored by the right wing. The massive Soviet intervention in Angola was unprecedented; we could not allow it to be repeated without ominous consequences for global stability. HK explained US policy in the Angolan affair and rebutted various arguments by liberal and conservative critics who were united in their opposition to any further US involvement of any kind:

## The Soviet Union and Angola

As the United States strives to shape a more hopeful world, it can never forget that global stability and security rest upon an equilibrium between the great powers. If the Soviet Union is permitted to exploit opportunities arising out of local conflicts by military means, the hopes we have for progress toward a more peaceful international order will ultimately be undermined.

This is why the Soviet Union's massive and unprecedented intervention in the internal affairs of Africa with nearly 200 million dollars' worth of military equipment, its advisers, and its transport of the large expeditionary force of 11,000 Cuban combat troops must be a matter of urgent concern.

Angola represents the first time that the Soviets have moved militarily at long distance to impose a regime of their choice. It is the first time that the United States has failed to respond to Soviet military moves outside the immediate Soviet orbit. And it is the first time that Congress has halted national action in the middle of a crisis.

When one great power tips the balance of forces decisively in a local conflict through its military intervention—and meets no resistance—an ominous precedent is set, of grave consequence even if the intervention occurs in a seemingly remote area. Such a precedent cannot be tolerated if a lasting easing of tensions is to be achieved. And if the pattern is not broken now, we will face harder choices and higher costs in the future.

The United States seeks no unilateral goals in Angola. We have proposed a ceasefire; withdrawal of all outside forces, Soviet, Cuban, and South African; cessation of foreign military involvement, including the supply of equipment; and negotiations among all three Angolan factions. This approach has the support of half the nations of Africa.

Last summer and fall, to halt a dangerously escalating situation, the United States provided financial support through African friends to those in Angola—the large majority—who sought to resist Soviet and Cuban domination. Using this as leverage, we undertook an active diplomacy to promote an African solution to an African problem. We acted quietly, to avoid provoking a major crisis and raising issues of prestige.

At first it was feared that the Soviet-backed faction, because of massive Soviet aid and Cuban mercenaries, would dominate totally by Independence Day, November 11. Our assistance prevented that. African determination to oppose Soviet and Cuban intervention became more and more evident. On December 9 the President warned Moscow of the consequences of continued meddling and offered to cooperate in encouraging a peaceful outcome that removed foreign influence. The Soviet Union appeared to have second thoughts. It halted its airlift from December 9 until December 24.

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[N]

At that point, the impact of our domestic debate overwhelmed the possibilities of diplomacy. It was demanded that we explain publicly why our effort was important—and then our effort was cut off. After the Senate vote to block further aid to Angola, Cuba more than doubled its forces and Soviet military aid was resumed on a large scale. The cooperativeness of Soviet diplomacy declined. Since then the situation has continued to deteriorate.

As our public discussion continues, certain facts must be understood. The analogy with Viet-Nam is totally false; this nation must have the maturity to make elementary distinctions. The President has pledged that no American troops or advisers would be sent to Angola, and we were prepared to accept legislative restrictions to that effect, in addition to the War Powers Act which already exists. What was involved was modest assistance to stabilize the local balance of forces and make possible a rapid political settlement in cooperation with African countries.

It is charged that the Administration acted covertly, without public acknowledgment. That is correct; for our purpose was to avoid an escalated confrontation that would make it more difficult for the Soviets to back down, as well as to give the greatest possible scope for an African solution. Angola was a case where diplomacy without leverage was likely to be impotent, yet direct military confrontation would involve needless risks. This is precisely one of those gray areas where unpublicized methods would enable us to influence events short of direct conflict.

And we complied totally with Congress' new standard of executive-legislative consultation on secret activities. Beginning in July, and through December, we discussed the Angolan situation and what we were doing about it with more than two dozen Senators, 150 Congressmen, and over 100 staff members of both Houses. Eight congressional committees were briefed on 24 separate occasions. We sought in these briefings to determine the wishes of Congress, and there was little sign of active opposition to our carefully limited operations.

It is said that the Russians will inevitably be eased out by the Africans themselves over a period of time. This may or may not prove true. But such an argument, when carried to its logical conclusion, implies that we can abandon the world to interventionist forces and hope for the best. And reliance on history is of little solace to those under attack, whose future is being decided now. The degree of Soviet and Cuban intervention is unprecedented; they will have effectively determined the outcome. There is no evidence to support the claim that they will be quickly removed or that other nations may not draw damaging conclusions dangerous to our long-term interests.

It is maintained that we should meet the Soviet threat in Angola through escalated methods of pressure such as altering our position on SALT or grain sales. But these arrangements benefit us as well as the Soviet Union and are part of the long-term strategy for dealing with the Soviet Union. History has proved time and again that expansion can be checked only when there is a local balance of forces; indirect means can succeed only if rapid local victories are foreclosed. As the President has pointed out, the Soviet Union has survived for nearly 60 years without American grain; it could do so now. Cutting off grain would still lose Angola. We would duplicate the experience of the Trade Act, which interrupted the trade relationship with the U.S.S.R. to insure emigration—and ended up with neither.

Let us not bemuse ourselves with facile slogans about not becoming the world's policeman. We have no desire to play such a role. But it can never be in our interest to let the Soviet Union act as the world's policeman. There are many crises in the world where the United States cannot and should not intervene. But here we face a blatant Soviet and Cuban challenge, which could have been overcome if we had been allowed to act prudently with limited means at the early stage. By forcing this out onto center stage, our divisions simultaneously escalated the significance of the crisis and guaranteed our impotence.

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To claim that Angola is not an important country, or that the United States has no important interests there, begs the principal question. If the United States is seen to waver in the face of massive Soviet and Cuban intervention, what will be the perception of leaders around the world as they make decisions concerning their future security? And what conclusions will an unopposed superpower draw when the next opportunity for intervention beckons?

Where are we now? The government has a duty to make clear to the Soviet Union and Cuba that Angola sets no precedent, that this type of action will not be tolerated again. It must reassure adjacent countries they will not be left exposed to attack or pressure from the new Soviet-Cuban foothold. Congress and the executive must come together on this proposition—in the national interest and in the interest of world peace.

The Administration will continue to make its case, however unpopular it may be temporarily. Let no nation believe that Americans will long remain indifferent to the dispatch of expeditionary forces and vast supplies of arms to impose minority governments—especially when that expeditionary force comes from a nation in the Western Hemisphere.

HK addressed the subject of Angola briefly and in general terms in his speech at the University of Wyoming at Laramie on February 4, 1976 (#50):

The broad implications and imminent dangers of regional conflicts such as those in Angola and the Middle East have compelled us to play an active part. But it would be wrong to conclude from this that the United States seeks to operate as the world's police-man. There are innumerable local conflicts around the globe in which we neither have nor seek any role. We do not seek to police the world—but neither will we accept it if the Soviet Union attempts to do so.

The Soviet and Cuban pattern of conduct in Africa, if continued in other areas, could unravel global security. The tensions of the

Middle East, if not overcome, could threaten global peace. With prudence and wisdom, we can prevent dangers to our wider interests by engaging ourselves now at far less cost than we will inevitably have to pay later if we abdicate responsibility. We cannot escape the fundamental reality that it is the United States, alone among the free nations of the world, that is capable of—and therefore responsible for—maintaining the global balance against those who would seek hegemony and shaping a new world of hope and progress.

[N]

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In Boston on March 11, 1976 (#54), HK repeated some of the points of the San Francisco speech. Detente could not survive any more Angolas. The critics of detente, too, had to face up to the real questions:

It goes without saying that this process requires reciprocity. It cannot survive a con-

In short we must—and we shall—pursue the two strands of our policy toward the Soviet Union: Firmness in the face of pressure and the vision to work for a better future. This is well within our capacities. We owe this to our people, to our future, to our allies, and to the rest of mankind.

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[Y]

HK discussed Angola again on March 22, 1976, in Dallas, in a speech devoted to the issue of defense policy (#56). After discussing the importance of regional, conventional defense in Europe, HK turned to the general question of maintaining the geopolitical balance outside of Europe. He said to right-wing critics: "It does no good to preach strategic superiority while practicing regional retreat." The United States would not accept further Cuban military interventions abroad. At the same time, the proposals that British Foreign Secretary James Callaghan was making the same day on majority rule in Southern Africa were a necessary political platform for our determination to resist outside intervention. (This foreshadowed HK's Southern Africa diplomacy of the following months.)

We are not the world's policeman—but we cannot permit the Soviet Union or its surrogates to become the world's policeman either, if we care anything about our security and the fate of freedom in the world. It does no good to preach strategic superiority while practicing regional retreat.

This was the issue in Angola. The United States had no significant stake in a purely Angolan civil war. The issue was—and remains—the unacceptable precedent of massive Soviet and Cuban military intervention in a conflict thousands of miles from their shores—with its broad implications for the rest of Africa and, indeed, many other regions of the world. The danger was, and is, that our inaction—our legislatively imposed failure even to send financial help to Africans who sought to resist—will lead to further Soviet and Cuban pressures on the mistaken assumption that America has lost the will to counter adventurism or even to help others do so.

It is time, therefore, to be clear that, as far as we are concerned, Angola has set no precedent. It is time that the world be reminded that America remains capable of forthright and decisive action. The American people know that the United States cannot remain aloof if basic principles of responsible international conduct are flouted and the geopolitical balance is threatened by a pattern of outside interventions in local conflicts.

The United States has made clear its strong support for majority rule and minority rights in southern Africa. We have no stake in, and we will give no encouragement to, illegal regimes there. The President and I have made clear that rapid change is required and that the opportunity for negotiated solutions must be seized. We will make major efforts to promote these objectives and to help all parties to return to the negotiating table. The proposals made today by

Foreign Secretary [of the United Kingdom James] Callaghan in the House of Commons seem to us a most constructive approach. We welcome them.

But let no one believe that American support can be extorted by the threat of Cuban troops or Soviet arms. Our cooperation is not available to those who rely on Cuban troops. The United States cannot acquiesce indefinitely in the presence of Cuban expeditionary forces in distant lands for the purpose of pressure and to determine the political evolution by force of arms.

We have issued these warnings before. I repeat them today. The United States will not accept further Cuban military interventions abroad.

We are certain that the American people understand and support these two equal principles of our policy—our support for majority rule in Africa and our firm opposition to military intervention.

Ladies and gentlemen, Angola reminds us that military capabilities by themselves cannot solve our foreign policy problems. No matter how massive our arsenals or how flexible our forces, they will carry little weight if we become so confused in our decisionmaking and so constrained in defining our interests that no one believes we will ever act when challenged.

The issue is not an open-ended commitment or a policy of indiscriminate American intervention. Decisions on whether and how to take action must always result from careful analysis and open discussion. It cannot be rammed down the throats of an unwilling Congress or public.

But neither can we avoid decisions when their time has clearly come. Global stability simply cannot survive the presumption that our natural choice will always be passivity; such a course would insure that the world will witness dangerous challenges and major changes highly inimical to our interests and our ideals.

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On his Southern African trip in April 1976, HK raised the problem of Angola again in a speech in Monrovia, Liberia, on April 30, 1976 (#62). The United States would not impose great-power conflict on Africa but would oppose those who sought to do so:

—First, the United States unambiguously supports Africa's struggle to perfect its independence. Africa did not fight its long battle for liberation from colonial rule only to surrender it again to external domination that may take decades more to overcome. The United States seeks no bloc to follow our lead, nor paramount influence in this continent. We believe that no other country should do so. Africans must determine their own destiny. The new Africa must be free of great-power rivalry.

African unity is therefore essential. Those who would divide Africa—either between governments or between factions—would diminish its promise, dissipate its energies in contention, and open the way for the return of external intervention. The end result is bound to be either domination by one outside power or division of the continent into competing blocs. It is deeply in our common interest that neither take place. The United States calls on all nations to affirm the principle of African unity. It will not impose great-power conflict upon Africa. It will oppose those who seek to do so.

—Second, the United States is prepared for friendly relations with all independent African nations. We, as any country, have our preferences among political, social and economic systems. But we are prepared for cooperative relations with any government of Africa which represents African principles and aspirations. Our concern arises only when an African movement is exploited by outside powers for their own ends.

In this context, let me mention Angola. The United States holds no enmity toward any African faction or government. Their ideology or social system is not of paramount concern to us; it is for each country to choose

for itself. We did not oppose the coming to power of FRELIMO [Mozambique Liberation Front], a Marxist movement, in Mozambique, because we considered it an essentially indigenous evolution. We recognized the Government of Mozambique immediately upon independence, and we bring no sense of acrimony to our bilateral dealings.

In the case of Angola, the United States accepted all three Angolan nationalist groups as legitimate African liberation movements. We regret that they were unable to resolve their differences peacefully and without outside military intervention. We could work with the MPLA [Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola] in Angola in the same spirit as with FRELIMO in Mozambique. What concerns us is the presence in Angola of large foreign forces from outside the continent. This is bound to raise questions about that government's acceptance of nonalignment and the principle of African self-determination. What can be the purpose of 15,000 troops of an external expeditionary force now that all other foreign forces have withdrawn from Angola? How can a government be considered African if it has stationed on its soil a large force from Cuba?

The United States has no interest in seeing Angola remain a focus of contention. We have no quarrel with that country. We can deal with it in a cooperative spirit. We are willing in principle to open discussions with the Angolan authorities with a view toward normalizing our relations and seeking means of cooperating—including on economic development. We wish Angola well as a unified and independent state. But before we can go far down that road, we want to know Angola's intention with respect to the presence of foreign forces on its soil.

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[Y]

HK discussed the geopolitical balance in philosophical terms in an address to the Chizuk Amuno Synagogue in Baltimore on May 9, 1976 (#65). The United States could not be strong in some areas (ie:, the Middle East) while being weak in other areas (e.g., Asia or Africa). We could not avoid our responsibility for maintaining global stability:

There can be no security without equilibrium and no safety without the restraint which a balance of power imposes. Only when the rights of nations are respected by necessity, when accommodation supplants force, can mankind's energies be devoted to the realization of its higher aspirations.

For 30 years the United States has occupied a central place in the global balance of stability. Our strength or our weakness, our effectiveness or ineffectiveness, affect decisively the calculations of nearly every nation in the world and determine our ability to shape events to our purposes. We cannot surrender one strategic part of the world to those who oppose us and remain secure and unchallenged in another. So those who want America strong in one part of the world have a special obligation to keep it strong in all strategically important areas. Nations, wherever they are located, that rely on us cannot fail to be affected whenever America abdicates responsibility—whether in Asia or in Africa.

The American people have never been comfortable with weakness. We have never

relished abdication. And when it is imposed on us by domestic divisions it has its inevitable reaction. It is reassuring to see the American people once again emphatically united on the necessity of a strong defense. This year's defense budget will allow us to continue to improve our military forces—to insure that no other nation can threaten us, our interests, or our friends.

As President Kennedy wrote, we did not ask to be "the watchmen on the walls of world freedom."² But circumstances have made us so. History taught us that our own tranquillity depends on global stability. From Waterloo to Sarajevo, America benefited from the stability of a world balance of power which maintained global security and prevented international war. That responsibility now rests, in large measure, with us. It is a responsibility we cannot skirt.

The United States will keep its friends and allies strong enough to defend themselves with our support—to insure that peace is seen clearly by their adversaries to be the only feasible course.

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[Y]

In the Alastair Buchan memorial lecture in London on June 25, 1976 (#71), HK discussed East-West relations and reminded his audience that detente depended on geopolitical restraint:

## East-West Relations

- We should require consistent patterns of behavior in different parts of the world. The West must make it clear that coexistence requires mutual restraint, not only in Europe and in the central strategic relationship but also in the Middle East, in Africa, in Asia—in fact, globally. The NATO Foreign Ministers, at their Oslo meeting last month, stressed the close link between stability and security in Europe and in the world as a whole. We must endorse this not only by our rhetoric but above all by our actions.

- We should make clear the tolerable definition of global ideological rivalry. We do not shrink from ideological competition. We have every reason for confidence in the indestructible power of man's yearning for freedom. But we cannot agree that ideology alone is involved when Soviet power is extended into areas such as southern Africa in the name of "national liberation" or when regional or local instabilities are generated or exploited in the name of "proletarian internationalism."

- We should not allow the Soviet Union to apply détente selectively within the alliance. Competition among us in our diplomatic or economic policies toward the East risks dissipating Western advantages and opening up Soviet opportunities. We must resist division and maintain the closest coordination.

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HK repeated the call for superpower restraint in his address to the UN General Assembly on September 30, 1976 (#76). He warned that superpower exploitation of regional conflicts would lead to a brutal competition that sooner or later would get out of control:

Throughout history, ideology and power have tempted nations to seek unilateral advantage. But the inescapable lesson of the nuclear age is that the politics of tests of strength has become incompatible with the survival of humanity. Traditional power politics becomes irrational when war can destroy civilized life and neither side can gain a decisive strategic advantage.

Accordingly, the great nuclear powers have particular responsibilities for restraint and vision. They are in a position to know the full extent of the catastrophe which could overwhelm mankind. They must take care not to fuel disputes if they conduct their rivalries by traditional methods. If they turn local conflicts into aspects of a global competition, sooner or later their competition will get out of control.

The United States believes that the future of mankind requires coexistence with the Soviet Union. Tired slogans cannot obscure the necessity for a more constructive relationship. We will insist that restraint be reciprocal not just in bilateral relations but around the globe. There can be no selective détente. We will maintain our de-

fenses and our vigilance. But we know that tough rhetoric is not strength, that we owe future generations more hopeful prospects than a delicate equilibrium of awesome forces.

* * *

But coexistence and negotiations on the control of arms do not take place in a vacuum. We have been disturbed by the continuing accumulation of armaments and by recent instances of military intervention to tip the scales in local conflicts on distant continents. We have noted crude attempts to distort the purposes of diplomacy and to impede hopeful progress toward peaceful solutions to complex issues. These efforts only foster tensions; they cannot be reconciled with the policy of improving relations.

And they will inevitably be resisted. For coexistence to be something better than an uneasy armistice, both sides must recognize that ideology and power politics today confront the realities of the nuclear age and that a striving for unilateral advantage will not be accepted.

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## East-West Trade

Aspects of East-West trade were treated above in the discussion of the Jackson Amendment and the moral dimension of US-Soviet relations. The premise of US policy toward East-West trade in the first place was that economic relations should be linked to responsible Soviet international behavior. This was cited, for example, in HK's testimony before the Senate Finance Committee on the Trade Bill on March 7, 1974 (#12). Since Soviet behavior in 1971-72 had been consistent with American objectives, the United States had made certain commitments with respect to MFN and credits. European governments were using credits to promote their exports to the East; American companies were entitled to similar support--subject to our security, political, and economic criteria:

Since détente is rooted in a recognition of differences and based on the prevention of disaster, there are sharp limits to what we can insist upon as part of this relationship. We have a right to demand responsible international behavior from the U.S.S.R.; we did not hesitate to make this clear during the Middle East crisis. We also have a right to demand that agreements we sign are ob-

served in good faith.

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Title IV will give the President authority to extend most-favored-nation (MFN) treatment; that is, nondiscriminatory tariff treatment, to countries not now enjoying that status. This is not a privilege; it is the removal of a discriminatory aspect of our policy without which we cannot claim to be moving toward more normal trading relations with these countries. The extension of nondiscriminatory tariff treatment would, for some time to come, have only a modest impact on Soviet exports to the United States, which are largely raw materials not now subject to substantial tariffs.

Thus, the major impact of the continued denial of MFN status to the Soviet Union would be political, not economic. MFN was withdrawn in 1951, largely as a political act. Our unwillingness to remove this discrimination now would call into question our intent to move toward an improved relationship. It would jeopardize a moderate evolution in all areas, including the Middle East. It would prevent the implementation of the U.S.-Soviet Trade Agreement, as well as the lend-lease accord—involving repayment of over $700 million to the United States.

The Export-Import Bank now extends credits to U.S. businesses exporting to the Soviet Union and some Eastern European countries. These credits are granted under terms and conditions equally applicable to all countries. The amendment to title IV relating to emigration would effectively preclude further credits to the Soviet Union and most Eastern European countries.

These credits are primarily for the benefit of the United States. Other industrialized

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Western countries have been engaged in aggressively selling machinery and equipment to the Soviet Union for some years. They are able, through the support of their governments, to offer attractive credit terms as part of their sales effort. American business must have similar support from us if it is to capture a growing portion of this expanding market.

Concern has been expressed that Export-Import loans will be uncritically extended in massive amounts to the Soviet Union. This is not true. Each Soviet loan application is examined on its merits and receives the same detailed scrutiny as all other loans. Each must be judged to serve the purpose of promoting, in a legitimate way, American exports and to satisfy the assurances of repayment which the Bank requires. Credits approved by the Eximbank to date total some $450 million. Most of these are relatively modest in size, with the exception of the $154

million in loans for the Kama River truck plant. We understand the legitimate concerns Congress would have about any lending program of a magnitude significantly larger than is customary for the Eximbank. We would therefore carefully examine projects of this size and give due attention to the security, political, and economic factors involved.

We are aware, of course, that the intended purpose of this amendment is not to prevent the extension of nondiscriminatory status or to prohibit all credits to the U.S.S.R., but to assist those whose wish to emigrate from the Soviet Union has been frustrated. Yet, in practical terms, I believe the amendment would prevent the extension of nondiscriminatory tariff treatment to the Soviet Union and several other countries. For these reasons, we are opposed to this amendment and to title IV as it has emerged from the House.

The detente statement to the SFRC, September 19, 1974 (#16) made the same points in a systematic way, tracing the history and premises of US policy toward East-West economic relations. The United States always linked economic relations to political conduct; it did not presume that economic relations by themselves were a major restraint on Soviet behavior or a substitute for geopolitical vigilance:

### C. The Economic Component

During the period of the cold war, economic contact between ourselves and the U.S.S.R. was virtually nonexistent. Even then, many argued that improved economic relations might mitigate international tensions; in fact, there were several congres-

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sional resolutions to that effect. But recur-
rent crises prevented any sustained progress.

The period of confrontation should have
left little doubt, however, that economic boy-
cott would not transform the Soviet system
or impose upon it a conciliatory foreign pol-
icy. The U.S.S.R. was quite prepared to
maintain heavy military outlays and to con-
centrate on capital growth by using the re-
sources of the Communist world alone. More-
over, it proved impossible to mount an air-
tight boycott in practice since, over time,
most if not all the other major industrial
countries became involved in trade with the
East.

The question, then, became how trade and
economic contact—in which the Soviet Union
is obviously interested—could serve the pur-
poses of peace. On the one hand, economic
relations cannot be separated from the politi-
cal context. Clearly, we cannot be asked to
reward hostile conduct with economic bene-
fits, even if in the process we deny ourselves
some commercially profitable opportunities.
On the other hand, when political relations
begin to normalize, it is difficult to explain
why economic relations should not be nor-
malized as well.

We have approached the question of eco-
nomic relations with deliberation and cir-
cumspection and as an act of policy, not
primarily of commercial opportunity. As
political relations have improved on a broad
basis, economic issues have been dealt with
on a comparably broad front. A series of
interlocking economic agreements with the
U.S.S.R. has been negotiated side by side
with the political progress already noted.
The 25-year-old lend-lease debt was settled;
the reciprocal extension of most-favored-
nation (MFN) treatment was negotiated,
together with safeguards against the possible
disruption of our markets and a series of
practical arrangements to facilitate the con-
duct of business in the U.S.S.R. by American
firms; our government credit facilities were
made available for trade with the U.S.S.R.;
and a maritime agreement regulating the
carriage of goods has been signed.

These were all primarily regulatory agree-

ments conferring no immediate benefits on
the Soviet Union but serving as blueprints
for an expanded economic relationship if the
political improvement continued.

This approach commanded widespread dom-
mestic approval. It was considered a natural
outgrowth of political progress. At no time
were issues regarding Soviet domestic politi-
cal practices raised. Indeed, not until *after*
the 1972 agreements was the Soviet domestic
order invoked as a reason for arresting or
reversing the progress so painstakingly
achieved. This sudden ex post facto form
of linkage raises serious questions:

- For the Soviet Union, it casts doubt on
our reliability as a negotiating partner.

- The significance of trade, originally en-
visaged as only one ingredient of a complex
and evolving relationship, is inflated out of
all proportion.

- The hoped-for results of policy become
transformed into preconditions for any pol-
icy at all.

We recognize the depth and validity of
the moral concerns expressed by those who
oppose, or put conditions on, expanded trade
with the U.S.S.R. But a sense of proportion
must be maintained about the leverage our
economic relations give us with the U.S.S.R.:

- Denial of economic relations cannot by
itself achieve what it failed to do when it
was part of a determined policy of political
and military confrontation.

- The economic bargaining ability of most-
favored-nation status is marginal. MFN
grants no special privilege to the U.S.S.R.;
in fact it is a misnomer, since we have such
agreements with over 100 countries. To en-
act it would be to remove a discriminatory
holdover of the days of the cold war. To
continue to deny it is more a political than
an economic act.

- Trade benefits are not a one-way street;
the laws of mutual advantage operate, or
there will be no trade.

- The technology that flows to the U.S.S.R.
as a result of expanded U.S.-Soviet trade
may have a few indirect uses for military

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production. But with our continuing restric-
tions on strategic exports, we can maintain
adequate controls—and we intend to do so.
Moreover, the same technology has been
available to the U.S.S.R. and will be in-
creasingly so from other non-Communist
sources. Boycott denies us a means of in-
fluence and possible commercial gain; it does
not deprive the U.S.S.R. of technology.

—The actual and potential flow of credits
from the United States represents a tiny
fraction of the capital available to the
U.S.S.R. domestically and elsewhere, includ-
ing Western Europe and Japan. But it does
allow us to exercise some influence through
our ability to control the scope of trade
relationships.

—Over time, trade and investment may
leaven the autarkic tendencies of the Soviet
system, invite gradual association of the
Soviet economy with the world economy, and
foster a degree of interdependence that
adds an element of stability to the political
equation.

In an address in St. Louis on May 12, 1975, before the St. Louis World Affairs Council (#27), HK pointed out that economic relations with the Soviet Union were bound to confer some benefits on it or else it would not engage in them. At the same time it provided some incentives for restraint, and our failure to proceed only opened the door to our allies who went about it without political criteria—as the recent failure of the Trade Bill confirmed:

Direct communication and consultation
between the United States and the Soviet
Union and institutionalized cooperation in
economic, scientific, and cultural fields con-
stitute the second level of our relationship.
The extent of these links is now unprece-
dented.

Naturally there are benefits for the Soviet
Union, or else the Soviet Union would not
participate in them. But they also serve
our interest, or we would not conclude them.
These agreements serve the additional pur-
pose of engaging the Soviet Union at many
levels in contacts with the outside world so
as to provide incentives for restraint. And
they occur in an environment where failure
to proceed on our part only opens the door
to other industrialized countries perhaps less
able than we to withstand the political use
of economic relationships—as happened
after the failure of our trade agreement
with the Soviet Union.

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By 1976, it was clear that the Europeans were trading extensively with Eastern Europe and the USSR in order to maintain their standard of living in a period of economic distress resulting from the oil shocks of 1973-74. At the OECD Ministerial Council meeting in Paris on June 21, 1976, (#70), HK called for a systematic study and coordinated effort by the industrial democracies to impose some geo-political restraint on the growth of East-West trade:

## East-West Economic Relations

Our relations with the nations of the East turn primarily upon political and security issues. In the past, trade and economic relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have not been among our central concerns. But a new dimension of economic interaction between East and West has begun to take shape. It is time to act cooperatively so that this new economic factor becomes an increasingly positive element in the world economy.

The Soviet Union has the second largest economy in the world. Together with all COMECON [Council of Mutual Economic Assistance] countries, it accounts for about 20 percent of world output. But despite the size of its economy, the Soviet Union is not a major factor in the world economic system. Its trade is relatively small; it has made little contribution to economic development.

In recent years, however, the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe have moved toward greater economic contact with the West. The basic reason is plain. These countries have come to realize that they cannot provide for growing consumer demand or meet the technological imperatives of the more sophisticated economy they seek solely from their own economic resources. Further, many of the countries of Eastern Europe wish to diversify trading patterns that were established in the aftermath of World War II.

As a result, in the last four years, trade between the COMECON countries and the OECD countries has increased nearly four-

fold. Most East European countries now depend on and prefer Western machinery, technology, and material imports for the dynamic element of their economic growth. And in matters of finance, the sudden increase in the external debt of the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe has been striking. Their net debt to private Western banks doubled in 1975 to $15 billion, and their total hard currency debt has reached nearly twice that amount.

The most familiar example of the impact of Communist countries on the international economy has been Soviet shortfalls in the production of grain, which has become the single most volatile element in the world food picture. In addition the Socialist countries can become an important element in the global energy balance. And in an era where adequate supplies of many other industrial raw materials can no longer be taken for granted, the extensive mineral reserves of the East can expand resource availability worldwide. It is therefore clear that in our multilateral efforts to build a strengthened international economic system, we will have to take account of the potential needs and contributions of the centrally planned economies.

For us, the industrial democracies in the OECD, the growing economic interaction between East and West and the Eastern influence on the global economy are realities that if arranged wisely can be positive developments, stabilizing relationships and broadening contacts. At the same time, man-

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aging relations between free economies and state trading systems has inevitable complications. Dealing with a centrally planned economy under strict political direction can never be treated simply as a commercial enterprise alone.

Certain principles stand out:

- All our nations have been engaged in this process.

- State trading countries must not be permitted to use their centrally directed systems for unfair advantage, nor should they be permitted to play off the industrial democracies against each other through selective political pressure.

- Growing East-West trade also presents hopeful prospects, both economic and political, if approached with understanding, skill, and foresight.

- In short, it is up to the industrial democracies to consult closely and to manage this process cooperatively.

Therefore the United States proposes that the OECD nations adopt a systematic work program for developing objectives and approaches for our economic relations with the Communist countries. To this end, some progress has already been made; for example, in aligning national export credit policies among the industrial countries. If we are to face this issue in an intelligent and harmonious fashion, many additional areas should be examined. Specifically, our nations should seek answers to the following questions:

- How can we insure effective reciprocity

in trade between market and nonmarket countries?

- How do we deal with the problem of dumping and other unfair trade practices by countries in which prices need not bear a relation to costs or market forces?

- What are the implications of the growing external debt of the Communist countries?

- How can the industrial democracies deal with possible efforts to misuse economic relations for political purposes inimical to their interests?

- What should be the relationship between the nations of the East and the multi-lateral bodies dealing with economic affairs?

- How do we take account of the diversity of interests and needs that has already appeared among Eastern countries?

- And finally, is it possible to bring the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries into the process of responsibly assisting development in the Third World?

The United States will elaborate its views on these issues at the next meeting of the Executive Committee in Special Session. The results of our examinations of these questions could be embodied in a report to the next ministerial meeting of this organization.

Growing East-West trade presents problems together with great opportunities. It is up to the countries assembled here to understand the process and its complexities and to manage it cooperatively. In that case, it can contribute to the vitality of our economies and to the stability of the international order.

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[Y]

## Eastern Europe

The Nixon Administration, since President Nixon's visits to Romania in 1969, Yugoslavia in 1970, and Poland in 1972, had treated Eastern European nations as nations in their own right, encouraging their aspirations to independence. President Ford continued the policy, visiting all three on his trip to Europe in mid-1975 in connection with the Helsinki Conference. Thus the claim by American critics that the United States had consigned Eastern Europe to the Soviet sphere of influence--the fabricated "Sonnenfeldt doctrine"--was a canard, particularly unfair against an administration that had so explicitly done the opposite.

After Helsinki, HK made a point of mentioning American ties to Eastern Europe in his speech to the UN General Assembly on September 22, 1975 (#42):

> We have likewise pursued more constructive and beneficial relationships with the countries of Eastern Europe. The United States has many traditional and deep-rooted bonds of friendship with the proud peoples of that region. We see widening possibilities for practical cooperation as the barriers between East and West in Europe diminish.

And more fully in the Alastair Buchan memorial lecture on June 25, 1976 (#71):

- We are determined to deal with Eastern Europe on the basis of the sovereignty and independence of each of its countries. We recognize no spheres of influence and no pretensions to hegemony. Two American Presidents and several Cabinet officials have visited Romania and Poland as well as non-aligned Yugoslavia, to demonstrate our stake

- For the same reason, we will persist in our efforts to improve our contacts and develop our concrete bilateral relations in economic and other fields with the countries of Eastern Europe.

- The United States supports the efforts of West European nations to strengthen their bilateral and regional ties with the countries of Eastern Europe. We hope that this process will help heal the divisions of Europe which have persisted since World War II.

- And we will continue to pursue measures to improve the lives of the people in