Commentary

## Appeasement & Détente

### Theodore Draper

APPEASEMENT became a dirty word in the 1930's. It had been, for centuries, a perfectly clean, even a virtuous term. How could a word that had meant peace and conciliation turn into its opposite? The transformation came when it began to be used in connection with the concessions to and deals made with the fascist dictatorships in the 1930's. The turning point was probably the speeches by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in the House of Commons on October 3 and 6, 1938. Just back from Munich, where he had agreed to tear off a vital part of Czechoslovakia and hand it over to Hitler's Germany, he spoke exultantly about "our policy of appeasement," of which the Munich agreement was to be only the first step. He looked forward to "the collaboration of all nations, not excluding the totalitarian states, in building up a lasting peace for Europe." The "real triumph," he said, was the execution of "a difficult and delicate operation by discussion instead of by force of arms."

A year later, force of arms instead of discussion made it almost impossible to say the word "appeasement" without shame and loathing. The word, of course, was not to blame. But why had it been misused? Why did it turn into such a ghastly mockery? Clearly—though this is not the whole story—because appeasement could not appease the unappeasable. In those circumstances it was betrayal and capitulation on the installment plan. The stench of the Munich agreement might not have been so sickening if it had been recognized for what it was. What made it so unbearable was its glorification, such as this memorable tribute in the *London Times*: "No conqueror returning from a victory on the battlefield has come home with nobler laurels than Mr. Chamberlain from Munich yesterday."

Détente is another one of those perfectly good words that, misapplied, gets a bad name. It appears to be a relatively recent importation from the French. The first citation in the Oxford English Dictionary is dated 1908. The word is usually

defined as a "relaxation of tension," which may mean much or little depending on what kind of tension is being relaxed by how much. At the 1974 hearings on détente of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, speaker after speaker complained that the word was hard to pin down. Former Ambassador George F. Kennan said that he had "never fully understood the use of the word 'détente' in connection with" Soviet-American relations. In response, former Senator J. W. Fulbright remarked that "détente is a difficult word to have inherited in this connection, but I think we are stuck with it." Former Senator Eugene McCarthy commented that "the meaning has changed every time it is applied." Professor Marshall Shulman referred to "the ambiguities of the word 'détente,'" and Professor Herbert Dinerstein pointed out that "everyone has a different notion about what détente is." Former Secretary of State Dean Rusk said it was a "process," not a "condition." Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger agreed that "it is a continuing process, not a final condition."¹* An academic definition has made it into "a logical spectrum of relations along which conflict either increases or decreases."²

Not only is it difficult even for experts to define détente but, whatever it is, it would seem to be fluctuating and ambiguous. In theory, it has been situated somewhere between cold war and rapprochement or even entente. Since détente moves uneasily between these two poles, it occupies a purely relative position, without a definite profile of its own. This conception of détente is always moving away or moving toward something else.³ No wonder, then, that détente according to this theory has been so hard to pin down; it is by its very nature transitory and volatile.

In practice, however, the current Soviet-American détente should have a much more positive and recognizable character. The materialization of détente was supposed to be the main achievement of the summit meeting in Moscow in May 1972 at which the new phase of Soviet-American relations was formally inaugurated. It consisted of three agreements—military, commercial, and political. The military agreement took the form of SALT I,

THEODORE DRAPER is the author of *Israel and World Politics, Abuse of Power, The Dominican Revolt*, and other works on international affairs. His many articles in COMMENTARY include "The United States & Israel" (April 1975), "Détente" (June 1974), and "From 1967 to 1973: The Arab-Israeli Wars" (December 1973).

¹* Numbered notes are to be found at the conclusion of this article, on page 38.

27

28/COMMENTARY FEBRUARY 1976

providing in principle for quantitative parity in
antiballistic missiles. The commercial agreement
set up a U.S.-USSR commission to promote trade
and development of economic resources. The po-
litical agreement was embodied in the "Basic Prin-
ciples of Relations Between the United States of
America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Repub-
lics." These three agreements gave this détente
some substance and delineation. Détente could
not be all that vague and ambiguous if it had
"Basic Principles," no matter what they might be
or whether or not they were lived up to.

Most of the debate on détente has made it ap-
pear that the only alternatives are détente and
cold war. Any criticism of the current version of
détente is sure to bring forth in tones of incredul-
ity the horrified challenge: "Do you mean to say
that you want to go back to the cold war?" That
the cold war may not be the only alternative to
détente seems to have escaped notice. It might also
be asked, with equal incredulity and horror: "Do
you want to go back to 'appeasement'?" In fact, an
even more incredible question to some might be:
"Do you realize that appeasement was built into
détente?"

Let us see.

II

DÉTENTE has been so confusing not because there is a lack of definitions and interpretations but because there have been too many. There is not only an American version but different American versions. There is not only a Soviet version but different Soviet versions.

The original American theory of détente was
developed, largely by Henry Kissinger, in 1972.
The main concept behind it was the "linkage" of
the military, the economic, and the political. The
idea, as he explained it, was "to move forward on
a very broad front on many issues" in order to
create many "vested interests" on both sides.

After the Moscow "linkage," Kissinger was eu-
phoric. He extolled SALT I as an "agreement
without precedent in all relevant modern history."
The summit meeting had been so successful, he re-
ported, that the American side had achieved all
that it had planned and had expected to achieve,
"give or take 10 per cent"4—an extraordinary rec-
ord for any diplomatic conference. For Prime
Minister Chamberlain, Munich had brought
"peace in our time." For President Nixon, Mos-
cow had made possible "a new structure of peace
in the world."

The second thoughts were not so ecstatic. It be-
came increasingly clear that SALT I had been lit-
tle more than a promissory note. In 1974, Secre-
tary Kissinger himself said that, if a more far-
reaching follow-up nuclear agreement were not
reached "well before 1977, then I believe you will
see an explosion of technology and an explosion
of numbers" of fearsome proportions.⁵ In that
same year, Professor George B. Kistiakowsky, one

of the most eminent and experienced experts in
the field, testified: "The SALT I agreements do
not inhibit or limit the strategic-arms race. They
merely channel it into such directions as each side
perceives to be militarily most advantageous to it."
He characterized the antiballistic-missile treaty as
"to a large degree another agreement not to do
something that neither party wants to do
anyway."⁶ Despite the onrush of 1977, SALT II
shows no signs of coming through in time to stop
the technology-and-numbers explosion.

SALT I may have been oversold, and, to that extent, may have made the "linkage" with the commercial agreement even more expensive than it needed to be. But even if SALT I had been all that Kissinger had hoped for it, its linkage with the commercial agreement would still have been based on a theory that built appeasement into détente. It is this aspect of détente that should be more clearly understood.

On the American side, it was always recognized
that the Soviets were mainly interested in détente
for economic reasons.⁷ The basic Soviet reason
flowed from a declining rate of growth and pro-
ductivity. According to official Soviet data, this rate
fell from 10.9 per cent in 1950-58 to 7.2 per cent
in 1958-67 to 6.4 per cent in 1967-73; Western re-
calculations of the Soviet figures show the actual
decline to be from 6.4 per cent in 1950-58 to 5.3
per cent in 1958-67 to 3.7 per cent in 1967-73.⁸ By
1966, the problem was already so troublesome that
Prime Minister Aleksei Kosygin had called for
abandonment of economic isolationism to prevent
the Soviet economy from falling too far behind. A
key reason for the Soviet dilemma was the failure
to keep up with the advanced technology of the
West. At first the Brezhnev regime had tried to
overcome this weakness through earlier détentes
with France and Germany. But by 1972, the Amer-
ican-Soviet détente made the United States the
main source of scientific-technological transfer.

There was, however, a hitch. The Soviets were
unable to pay for what they wanted. They de-
manded large-scale, long-term U.S. government
credits at abnormally low interest rates. They
sought most-favored-nation status without being
able to reciprocate. They wanted the delivery of
entire factories and plants on terms which meant
that the Soviet Union would do all the owning
and the Western donors would take all the risks.
If anything went wrong, the Soviet Union and a
few favored capitalists could not—and only the
American taxpayer would—lose.*

* Hedrick Smith, the former New York Times correspondent in Moscow, has told of a "joke" that circulated within the Soviet establishment on the eve of Brezhnev's visit to the United States in June 1973: "Brezhnev... asked his advisers what he should seek in America. 'Ask them to sell us cars,' suggested one. 'Ask them to build us computer factories,' said a second. 'Ask them to build atomic-power stations,' said a third. 'No,' replied Brezhnev thoughtfully. 'I'll just ask them to build us Communism'" (Atlantic Monthly, December 1974).

APPEASEMENT & DÉTENTE/29

This situation was made to order for one of Kissinger's beguiling theories—at least, enough people were beguiled to put it across. It was the theory of "incentives." According to Secretary Kissinger, the Soviets were advised in 1970 and 1971, in advance of the agreement on détente, that they could get paid off in credits and most-favored-nation treatment "if they engaged in what we considered responsible international behavior."⁹ A Kissingerian formulation of the incentive-payment theory went as follows:

> We see it [economic relations] as a tool to bring about or to reinforce a more moderate orientation of foreign policy and to provide incentives for responsible international behavior and, therefore, it has to be seen in this context.¹⁰

An academic exponent of détente explained for popular consumption that trade, technology, and investment "would serve to offer a continuing incentive to Soviet leaders to accept the constraints of a low-tension policy." These incentives could be "regulated," he assured his readers, so that "our resources are not used to strengthen Soviet military capabilities"—as if it were possible to draw a line between the civilian and military uses of natural gas, petrochemicals, computers, and truck factories—and so that "the political competition is conducted with restraint"—as if restraint were not as much in the Soviet as in the American interest without incentive payments.¹¹

The most important American incentive payments to the Soviets have been economic. This relationship has been inherently unequal. If all went well, Americans could benefit through profits and jobs. So far, many deals have failed and a few have succeeded, so that the profits from increased Soviet-American trade have gone to a few favored or fortunate entrepreneurs. The Soviets, however, have an altogether larger stake in the relationship. They want to get out of it a structural change in their economy and a bail-out mechanism for their agriculture. This economic exchange is not an ordinary one; the Western contribution to the Soviet economy is heavy with political and military significance.

The most recent study by Professor Marshall I. Goldman of how the economic détente has worked is not reassuring. Professor Goldman is not an enemy of détente or of Soviet-American trade—quite the contrary. Yet his cautionary analysis of what has been going on in the name of détente is most disturbing:

> The types of goods and the types of negotiating tactics the Russians tend to use in purchasing goods from the United States make it possible for the Russians to obtain high technology products for bargain prices that no other buyers could cajole. Moreover, much of the technology and sometimes the products themselves have been heavily subsidized by the American taxpayer. The initial subsidy for de-

> velopment and production, the bargain prices, and the subsidized interest rate of the Export-Import Bank means that the Russians are often able to obtain a triple subsidy on their American purchases.

These advantages, Professor Goldman adds, have an important political component built into them.¹¹a One does not have to believe that the Soviets obtain all the benefits to see that the incentive theory works mainly in the Soviets' favor.

Curiously, the Soviets never bothered to develop a similar theory or practice vis-à-vis the United States. In fact, the Soviets have pursued a contrary course, at times most inconvenient for the United States. For example, until March 1974, months after the Arab-Israeli war was over, the Soviets urged the Arab oil producers to continue their embargo against the Western states and Japan.¹² This Soviet exhortation was not a mere peccadillo; it was a potentially deadly attack on the economic lifeline of the Western powers and Japan. The incentive theory seemed to work only one way.

KISSINGER had another theory which should have made incentive payments unnecessary. It was the theory of "marginal advantages." He first produced it during the 1972 summit meeting in Moscow and kept repeating it until events proved it to be a conceptual breakdown instead of a conceptual breakthrough. In one of his clearest formulations of this embarrassing memory, he maintained that "to the extent that balance of power means constant jockeying for marginal advantages over an opponent, it no longer applies." He explained why:

> The reason is that the determination of national power has changed fundamentally in the nuclear age. Throughout history, the primary concern of most national leaders has been to accumulate geopolitical and military power. It would have seemed inconceivable even a generation ago that such power once gained could not be translated directly into advantage over one's opponent. But now both we and the Soviet Union have begun to find that each increment of power does not necessarily represent an increment of usable political strength.¹³

This theory made the whole Kissingerian system of détente seem absurdly easy to operate. It was, in fact, a "self-regulating mechanism"—the diplomatic equivalent of perpetual motion. It ruled out "marginal advantages" and "increments of usable political strength" in the nuclear age by making them inherently "unrealistic" and catastrophically "dangerous."¹⁴ Unfortunately, the Soviet leaders again failed to respond with a similar theory. Only a year later, their policy and actions in the Middle East were clearly based on an altogether different theory of what the nuclear age permitted in the way of struggling for "marginal advantages." Kissinger himself must have recognized

30/COMMENTARY FEBRUARY 1976

that his theory, not "marginal advantages," was unrealistic and dangerous or he would not have bothered to respond to Soviet actions in the Middle East or Angola. After all, he should have reasoned, the Soviets were going after unusable and intangible "increments of power."

As if all this were not troublesome enough, Kissinger produced another, contradictory theory. In his testimony at the Senate hearings on his confirmation as Secretary of State, he delivered himself of this rule:

> But assuming the present balance holds, and granting the strategic significance of what we had both agreed upon, the increasing difficulty of conceiving a rational objective for general nuclear war makes it, therefore, less risky to engage in local adventures.¹⁵

One theory said that the nuclear age made "marginal advantages" unnecessary to worry about and, therefore, local adventures for such advantages less likely. Another theory said that the same nuclear age made local adventures "less risky" and, therefore, more likely.

What it all came down to in the end was an understanding of the political implications of the nuclear age. But before we get to this point, let us see what the Soviet view of détente has been.

### III

IN THE "Basic Principles" of Soviet-American relations of May 29, 1972, the Soviets seemingly committed themselves to an interpretation of détente which fitted in with Kissinger's theory of "marginal advantages." These principles contained the following mutual restraints on engaging in "local adventures":

- Prevention of the development of situations capable of causing a dangerous exacerbation of Soviet-American relations.

- Doing the utmost to avoid military confrontations.

- Recognition that efforts to obtain unilateral advantage at the expense of the other, directly or indirectly, are inconsistent with these objectives.

- Special responsibility to do everything in their power so that conflicts or situations will not arise which would serve to increase international tensions.

These principles implied that there were two sides to détente—political and nuclear. The former was designed to prevent situations from developing which might bring on the danger of nuclear war. On ceremonial occasions, such as his speech at the Helsinki conference at the end of July 1975, Brezhnev has paid lip service to the combination of military and political détente.¹⁶

The "Basic Principles" also signified that détente applied not only to relations between the

United States and the Soviet Union but also to the relations of each with the rest of the world. Kissinger has assured us that "we consider Soviet restraint in the Middle East an integral part of détente policy"¹⁷ and "the principle of restraint is not confined to relations between the U.S. and the USSR, it is explicitly extended to include all countries."¹⁸

There seemed to be agreement, then, on two constituent elements of a true détente—it must apply to the political as well as to the nuclear realm, and it must apply to the relations of the United States and the Soviet Union with the rest of the world as well as to the relations between themselves.

However, there are Soviet theories underlying détente which, like the American, must be taken into account to find out what it really means. For example, a basic Soviet theory is that of the "new relationship of forces." It was expressed by Brezhnev not long ago in the following formula: "International détente has become possible because a new relationship of forces now exists on the world scene."¹⁹

What is this "new relationship of forces"? The short answer, spelled out in all Communist propaganda, is that the "new relationship of forces" now favors the "socialist world" led by the Soviet Union. The point here is not whether the theory is right or wrong. The point is that, for the Soviet Union and its followers, détente is not an abstract, ahistorical condition; it is the product of a concrete, historical "relationship of forces" which determines not merely what détente is but—far more important—what it does.

A second Soviet theory in this connection is that of the "two spheres." An authoritative exposition of this theory was recently given by Professor Georgi Arbatov, a high-level Soviet spokesman and present head of the Institute of the USA of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR:

> What is involved here [the policy of détente] is essentially different spheres of political life in our time (though they may influence one another in various ways). One of them is the sphere of social development, which steadily makes headway in any international conditions—whether détente, "cold" war, or even "hot" war. . . . The other is the sphere of inter-state relations, in which other extremely important questions are resolved—questions of war and peace, methods of resolving controversial foreign-policy questions, and possibilities for mutually advantageous international cooperation.

The drawing of a clear line between these two spheres is one of the basic premises of the Leninist foreign policy of the peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems. . . .²⁰

In the pro-Soviet Communist movement, the theory of "peaceful coexistence" has been promulgated somewhat more clearly and starkly. It is now said that peaceful coexistence

APPEASEMENT & DÉTENTE/31

refers exclusively to the domain of inter-state relations between socialist and capitalist countries. It rules out just one form of struggle between socialism and capitalism—the form of direct military collision.²¹

Formerly, as we have seen, détente was supposed to cover anything of a political or military nature which could exacerbate Soviet-American relations, give one side unilateral advantage at the expense of the other, or serve to increase international tension. The theory of the "two spheres" eliminates a huge political area—under the trade name of "social development"—from the domain of détente. By reducing détente to the avoidance of "direct military collision" between the United States and the Soviet Union, it leaves everything else wide open.

This tendency to shunt détente out of the political sphere into a narrow military sphere has now come to a head with the need to rationalize large-scale Soviet military intervention in Angola and the use of Cuban troops as Soviet proxies. A writer in *Izvestia* of November 29, 1975 insisted that it was impossible to bring "the sphere of class and national-liberation struggle" within "peaceful coexistence."²² On November 30, an *Izvestia* correspondent reported that détente "gave a powerful impulse to the national-liberation movement of colonial and oppressed peoples."²³ On December 2, an *Izvestia* commentator held that "the process of détente does not mean and never meant the freezing of the social-political status quo in the world" or could prevent the Soviet Union from giving "sympathy, compassion, and support" to those whom it chose to represent as "fighters for national independence."²⁴ On December 6, a writer in *Pravda* boasted: "Détente created favorable conditions for the new successes of the cause of national liberation."²⁵ On December 8, a report in *Pravda* of an "international anti-fascist conference" brought these glad tidings: "The thought that runs all through the documents of the conference and the speeches of its participants is that the strengthening process of détente creates favorable conditions for the struggles of the popular masses against imperialism and neocolonialism, against all forms of fascism and internal reaction."²⁶

These thoughts were not entirely new. The Soviet Union has long claimed the right to support "national-liberation movements." In the heyday of détente, however, this motif was muted in favor of emphasis on avoiding international friction. Now almost any action which the Soviet Union chooses to take that could cause a dangerous exacerbation of Soviet-American relations, obtain direct or indirect unilateral advantage, or increase international tensions is being conveniently classified as "class and national-liberation struggle." That the Soviet political line should be turned around to provide

a propaganda smoke screen for military intervention on the west coast of Africa is something new and ominous. If this sort of intervention can be justified in the name of détente, almost anything short of direct conflict with the United States can be made to fit the "Basic Principles."

There are indications, too, of a general "left turn" in the line which the Soviet Union is pressing on the world Communist movement. One telltale sign was an article in *Pravda* of August 6, 1975, by K. Zaradov, editor-in-chief of the official pro-Soviet Communist organ, *Problems of Peace and Socialism (World Marxist Review)* in the English version). Zaradov's article was clearly aimed at the French and Italian Communist parties rather than at the Chinese. He called them "present-day conciliators" whose "logic is the same as that of the Mensheviks"—storm signals in Communist political meteorology. Why this sudden outburst? Because, according to Zaradov, the present-day conciliators and quasi-Mensheviks "would like to dissolve it [the proletarian party] in an ideologically amorphous organization, in any alliance created according to the formula 'unity for unity's sake.'"²⁷ The point was not lost on the Italian and French Communists who protested against this onslaught in the official organ of the Soviet Communist party. How high up the inspiration for Zaradov's article had come from was soon made clear by an item in *Izvestia* of September 19. This unusual social note reported that General Secretary Brezhnev had received Zaradov and had congratulated him for his fine work.

Another indication has come from the American Communist party, the most slavishly pro-Soviet of the Western Communist parties. At its recent national convention, its General Secretary discovered that "in the U.S. in the 1970's monopoly capital is preparing the climate in which fascism can come to power."²⁸ Various roles have already been assigned—Governor George C. Wallace as the "leading fascist demagogue"; William F. Buckley, Jr., as an "adroit exponent of 'intellectual' fascism"; a curiously promiscuous company—William B. Shockley, Arthur Jensen, Richard Herrnstein, H. J. Eysenck, Christopher Jencks, Edward C. Banfield, Robert W. Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman—as "leading exponents" of "Nazi-like poison."²⁹ Since everyone knows that monopoly capital rules the United States, and now we know what monopoly capital is preparing, it does not take too much foresight to see where the Communist propaganda line is heading. The Soviets may soon be saving the entire world from the menace of American fascism.

All these aspects of Soviet policy—military intervention, political theorizing, Communist propaganda—are intimately related to the changing Soviet view of détente. Fundamental to all of them is one simple rule—that what always counts most is the relationship of forces, not the arrangement of words.

32/COMMENTARY FEBRUARY 1976

IV

THE Arab-Israeli war of October 1973 proved to be the first real test of the Soviet-American détente. It provided so clear a violation of the "basic principles" by the Soviet Union that even Secretary Kissinger had to admit as much, albeit in the relative obscurity of a Senate committee hearing. The violation concerned the message sent by Brezhnev to Algerian President Boumédienne and apparently to other Arab leaders telling them that it was their Arab duty to get into the war against Israel. Pressed by Senator Harry F. Byrd, Jr., Secretary Kissinger agreed, "Yes, I would say this was a violation."30*

Nothing more was heard of this awkward admission. All concerned would have benefited if more attention had been paid to it. Kissinger himself had testified that Soviet "restraint" in the Middle East was "an integral part of the détente policy." If it did not hold there, it was unlikely to hold wherever American and Soviet interests seriously clashed. In that case the détente relationship was relegated to taking care of relatively minor matters, leaving the major ones to a nuclear alert or rival military interventions. It can now be seen that the Middle East crisis of October 1973 was a dress rehearsal for the Angola crisis of 1975-76.

After the Middle East crisis, however, the American line on détente underwent some changes. The concept of détente is like an accordion; it can be stretched out or pulled in. It can be as broad as it seemed after the summit meeting of May 1972 or it can be as narrow as it became after October 1973. To take care of all possible contingencies, Kissinger began to stress the schizoid character of détente. It was, he explained in March 1974, "composed of both competition and cooperation" with "profound ambiguities at every stage of this relationship."31 Later, he spoke of détente as if it were merely an improved method of communications, "a means by which a competition which is inevitable—in the nature of present circumstances—is regulated while reducing the danger of nuclear war."32 It had become a means to an end which was contradictory and ambiguous, a regulatory system without an agency to do the regulating.

Above all, détente was now largely reduced to limiting "the risks of nuclear war," as Kissinger put it.33 Former Senator J. William Fulbright could think of nothing better than: "Détente, in its essence, is an agreement not to let these differences [between the two superpowers] explode into nuclear war."34 Professor Marshall Shulman instructed us that the main business of détente was "to reduce the danger of nuclear war."35 The case for détente after October 1973 came essentially to rest on its relationship with nuclear war and on little else that was unambiguous and uncontradictory.

WE have now come to the heart of matter. It is right here—the relationship between détente and nuclear war.

Was there a meaningful "linkage" between nuclear war, economic-incentive payments, and political restraint? The American—or Kissingerian—theory and practice of détente was fundamentally dependent on a positive answer to this question. If the answer was negative, the entire American policy rested on a dubious foundation.

For the past thirty years, during hot wars, cold wars, and détentes, nuclear weapons have not been used. They were not used by the United States when it had a nuclear monopoly, even when its forces were decimated by Chinese Communist troops in Korea, even when the United States suffered defeat in the longest and most humiliating war in its history in Vietnam. There is obviously something about nuclear warfare that has set it apart from all other forms of warfare in which we still engage. There is something about nuclear weapons which cannot be fitted into hot wars, cold wars, or détentes. The nuclear war, as much as any type of war can be, must as yet be regarded as *sui generis*. We still have no experience with it; we cannot fathom its bottomless depths of pure nihilism; we cannot imagine a rational use for it.

With the nuclear weapon we reached the reduc-
tio ad absurdum of all warfare—a weapon that
was too destructive. This was already the lesson
when the United States still had a monopoly of it.
As soon as the Soviet Union became an atomic
and then a nuclear power, we achieved a higher
stage of military “absurdity”—a weapon that was
too mutually destructive. This second stage was
reached by the mid-1950’s, so that we have been
in it for about two decades.36 The third stage
came in the late 1960’s when the United States
realized that the Soviet Union would achieve
rough nuclear parity. The “absurdity” had now
arrived at its final destination—the power of
mutual annihilation.

In exasperation, Secretary Kissinger once dra-
matically exclaimed:

> And one of the questions which we have to ask
> ourselves as a country is what, in the name of
> God, is strategic superiority? What is the signifi-
> cance of it, politically, militarily, operationally,
> at these levels of numbers? What do you do
> with it?37

It was, as the saying goes, a good question. It
implied that on the level of mutual annihilation it

* The exchange just before this one is worth pondering:

Senator Byrd: On the question of harassment, which is one of the key points of the Jackson amendment, is not the entire system of government in Russia based on harassment and terror, as a practical matter?

Secretary Kissinger: Well, I think the government is more obtrusive than in our country (p. 88).

Obtrusive!

APPEASEMENT & DETENTE/33

mattered little how much more annihilating a nuclear power could or would become. It also implied that there was no political "significance" to be attached to those incomprehensibly high levels of destructiveness. Nuclear warfare cannot be weighed in political scales or translated into political terms. Politics, so to speak, is sub-nuclear. Thus Kissinger himself inferentially cut the ground from under the nuclear-political linkage.

The control of nuclear warfare, then, is of an order so different from the control of "conventional" warfare, let alone the control of political and ideological rivalries, that the former must be dealt with as something apart. Just as nuclear warfare has resisted every calculus of political or economic usefulness, so, too, it is not amenable to political blandishments or economic payoffs. The enormity of the nuclear problem defies all past human experience. This is not to say that the human race need or should resign itself to the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation; it means that the threat must be faced on its own terms, without pretending that it can be got around through "linkages" of an altogether different order of magnitude. Economic incentives and political phrase-mongering—the tools of détente—are not in the same league as nuclear arms.

The promoters of détente sought to save it by reducing it to a hard core of avoidance of nuclear warfare. They were in fact exposing its essential hollowness. They were giving it the self-same function that the cold war of unblessed memory used to have—as an alternative to hot war. They were giving détente undeserved credit for an impasse that had been brought about by the mutual destructiveness of nuclear warfare. The linkage of détente with nuclear war betrayed a misunderstanding of both.

The trouble with the narrow nuclear interpretation of détente is that it puts all the rest of the world's troubles and all the other possible forms of conflict outside détente. If détente is as schizoid as both the latest American and Soviet versions make it out to be, one must constantly ask what belongs and what does not belong to the sphere of détente. If, as the Soviet spokesman Arbatov has told us, détente belongs exclusively to the sphere of "inter-state relations" and not at all to the sphere of "social development," the question arises whether the war in the Middle East or in Angola belong to the former or the latter. In the Soviet view, the latter is decidedly the case, which tells us how broad the category of "social development" is and how narrowly détente has been confined. If, as Secretary Kissinger has told us, détente is composed of both "competition and cooperation," the question arises: What pertains to competition and what to cooperation? An even more awkward question must be asked: If cooperation is the real essence of détente, what is the nature of the competition? Isn't it the bad old "cold war"? Kissinger has also begun to talk of "moderating competi-

tion," a formula combining "accommodation and resistance."38 Does this mean that when we get "accommodation" we have détente, and when we get "resistance" we have cold war? If we can have "accommodation and resistance" together, why not détente and cold war together? These semantic games are hopelessly muddling and contaminating all discourse on world affairs today.

How far one can go to equate détente with the avoidance of a Soviet-American nuclear war was shown by Professor Herbert Dinerstein at the 1974 Senate hearings on détente. He set out to demonstrate that "détente makes for a unique stability in the ultimate issues of war and peace, but permits, nay, encourages movement and change in all issues of lesser moment." Next, he explained that this unique stability of détente was based on the conviction that "nuclear war would be an act of mutual destruction." This line of reasoning led him to his grand climax: "Détente means that the two countries will not make war on each other."39

If that is all détente means, it is accomplishing exactly what the fear of "mutual destruction" was able to accomplish with or without détente. One would like to be as sure as Professor Dinerstein is that détente in this sense possesses a "unique stability." If it does, it is only because the mutual destructiveness of nuclear war possesses that same "unique stability." In any case, we have gone very far from the détente of 1972 which, according to Kissinger, had moved "on a very broad front on many issues." Those who have tried to save détente by moving it on to a very narrow front on the single issue of nuclear warfare have unwittingly been administering the last rites to it.

V

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?40

Such was the angry challenge that Secretary Kissinger hurled at critics of détente last July. He seemed to think that the answers to his questions were crushingly obvious. I, too, think that the answers were so obvious that it was a mistake to ask the questions.

1) What is the alternative that they propose? One alternative would be to cease and desist from the unconscionable exploitation of the word "détente," or at least to stop waving it as a banner. It has now become an obstacle to thought. It is of little or no use in relation to nuclear war. It is a mockery in relation to such wars as we have,

34/COMMENTARY FEBRUARY 1976

as in the Middle East and Angola. It admittedly
does not apply to ideological conflict. It has been
defined and redefined virtually out of existence. If
it continues to serve as a political shibboleth, it
must surely suffer the same fate as "appeasement,"
if it has not done so already.

2) What precise policies do they want us to change? One policy that was misconceived from the outset and should be changed without delay is that of "incentive" payments to the Soviet Union. It is this policy more than any other which has opened the door to appeasement in the guise of détente. Arbatov and other Soviet spokesmen have stormed against the idea that the Soviets are expected to make any "payments" to the West.⁴¹ The theory and practice of American incentive premiums are especially ruinous in connection with nuclear-weapons negotiations. If the threat of mutual annihilation is not persuasive enough to bring one or the other side to its senses, and here I do not point an accusing finger only at the Soviet Union, immeasurably lesser incentives are at best superfluous and at worst irrelevant. Advance payments to the Soviet Union for services in the common interest that may or may not be rendered have never worked and even make matters worse. They merely serve to convince the masters of the Soviet Union that the famous "relationship of forces" has so changed in their favor that payments must be made for nothing more than a piece of paper.

3) Are they prepared for a prolonged situation of dramatically increased danger? Let us recall that this question was flung out with much unequd and indignation only a half-year ago. Since then the level of tension and danger has increased dramatically. The question was plainly addressed to the wrong parties. The Angola crisis is hardly the work of the critics of détente. Some of them may even have seen such dramatically increased danger coming since the last Arab-Israeli war. The real question is whether the leaders and fellow-travelers of détente were prepared for a prolonged situation of dramatically increased danger.

4) Do they wish to return to the constant crises and high arms budgets of the cold war? To answer this question, it is useful to recall Secretary Kissinger's answer to another question put to him at the end of 1974:

Senator Byrd: Is it not correct that since 1972, in a period of so-called détente, there has been a methodical improvement and expansion of nuclear and conventional power in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe?

Secretary Kissinger: Yes, that is correct.⁴²

At least we have it from Secretary Kissinger that détente, in its heyday, did nothing to discourage the Soviets from improving and expanding their military power. Whether the same can be said of the United States seems more doubtful, but let us assume that both sides have improved and ex-

panded their nuclear and conventional power in the détente years between 1972 and 1974. It may be argued that the situation would have been worse without détente. Perhaps—but it certainly did not get better, and it is most unlikely that more intercontinental missiles and more megatonnage would have significantly changed the nature of the problem. The obvious answer, then, to this question about crises and arms budgets is: No. But what does it have to do with détente? Has détente saved us from constant crises and high arms budgets? Could Secretary Kissinger tell Senator Byrd that détente had prevailed on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe not to improve and expand their nuclear and conventional power? More to the point, the answer, unfortunately, again is: No.

5) Does détente encourage repression—or is it détente that has generated ferment and the demands for openness that we are now witnessing? This is the most incredible question of all. It reveals how much Kissinger's understanding of the Soviet system has changed since he took up residence in Washington. In one of his major works, *The Necessity for Choice*, published in 1961, he discussed this very question at some length. He frowned on those who thought that "Western diplomacy should seek to influence Soviet internal developments." He scoffed at "the tendency to base policy toward the USSR on an assumed change in Soviet society." He reproached those who saw "in every change of tone a change of heart." He decried "the persistence with which it has been claimed that the economic needs of the Soviet Union would impose a more conciliatory policy on it." He severely disapproved of the fact that, "whatever aspect of the Soviet system they have considered, many in the West have sought to solve our policy dilemma by making the most favorable assumptions about Soviet trends." He instructed us sagely: "The tendency to justify negotiations by changes in Soviet attitude makes us vulnerable to largely formal Soviet moves." And this: "The possibility of evolution of Soviet policy in a more conciliatory direction may be jeopardized by the eagerness with which it is predicted."⁴³

NOTHING could illustrate more aptly the timeliness of these warnings than the connection between détente and Soviet repression. By the time Kissinger asked the question, "Does détente encourage repression?," in July 1975, repression was already in full swing. The most open period in recent Soviet history came in 1967-71, before the American-Soviet détente. The official crackdown on the underground *samizdat* movement took place in 1972, the very first year of that détente. The orchestrated vilification of Andrei Sakharov, the recent Nobel Peace Prize winner, started in August 1973. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was arrested and deported in Feb-

APPEASEMENT & DETENTE/35

February 1974, Hedrick Smith of the New York Times has by chance answered Kissinger's question in his new book, *The Russians*, an account of his experiences in the Soviet Union in 1971-74, dealing with precisely the years of détente, and an ideal corrective to much of what correspondents in Moscow have to send out while they are still there:

> The technology of Soviet repression had become more sophisticated and more effective as détente proceeded. The unexpected irony was that détente, instead of spawning more general ferment among the Soviet intelligentsia, as the West had hoped and the Kremlin had feared, became a reason for tighter controls and sometimes provided new techniques for quieting disaffected intellectuals.⁴⁴

This reflex on the part of the Soviet leadership is not new. The precedent had been set by Lenin in 1920-21. At the same time that he introduced the New Economic Policy or NEP, liberalizing the Soviet economy, and as he began to make deals with Western powers, he liquidated every vestige of dissidence in both the country and the party. The two went hand in hand in order to prevent present and potential dissidents from taking advantage of "decreased tension." Stalin combined the Popular Front outside Russia with the Great Purge inside Russia. Yet Kissinger has assured us: "Changes in Soviet society have already occurred, 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."⁴⁵ The trouble with this line of reasoning is that the Soviet leadership has known what to do about it for the past fifty years. Whenever there is danger that decreasing international tensions will foster changes in Soviet society unwanted by the party, repression is increased. That is why détente has been accompanied by more rather than less repression. There may be other reasons for pursuing a policy of détente, but discouraging repression is not one of them.

One wonders why Secretary Kissinger thought that his questions were so crushing and the answers to them so self-evident. Had he forgotten so much?

## VI

SECRETARY Kissinger, former Senator Fulbright, and others have insisted that the only alternative to détente is cold war. Since they seem to think that a return to cold war is unthinkable, or at least unbearable, that would leave us only with détente. The reality is far more confused and disagreeable. Détente, cold war, and appeasement have all been mixed up together, with appeasement given the least consideration.

One of the ways appeasement was built into détente has already been noted. The whole theory and practice of giving "incentives" to the Soviet

Union to do what it should do in its own interest or not at all was the entering wedge of appeasement. We tried to buy with gratuitous and unreciprocated favors what is not for sale, especially not in the one field that is supposed to matter most in détente—nuclear warfare.

But a humiliating climate of appeasement had also been created. It was symbolized by the presidential refusal to receive Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn because the gesture might displease Leonid Brezhnev. Had Brezhnev ever refused to meet with an anti-U.S. personage in order not to displease Richard Nixon or Gerald Ford? This type of appeasement is not new and not limited to the United States. West Germany, whose détente with the Soviet Union goes back to 1970, has practiced the same kind of appeasement at the expense of one of its own foremost writers. The German incident shows that present-day appeasement takes certain characteristic forms in more than one country.

In the summer of 1973, the eminent German writer Günter Grass was invited to give a private reading from his works at the home of Ulrich Sahm, the German ambassador in Moscow. Grass made indirect contact with Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn in preparation for his visit, and Solzhenitsyn intended to give him a manuscript to take back. Meanwhile, both Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn issued statements warning against the risks of détente. This situation so frightened Ambassador Sahm that he sent a private letter to Grass withdrawing the invitation. Grass refused to let the matter remain private; he published the letter and discussed its implications on television and in the press. A former upholder of *Ostpolitik*, he now renounced it on the ground that its restrictions meant the betrayal of culture in general and Russian writers in particular. Grass was thereupon publicly and offensively rebuked by a spokesman of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.⁴⁶

The Solzhenitsyn and Grass incidents were symptomatic of a moral flaccidity that always goes along with appeasement. The Soviets consider culture and ideology to be outside the boundaries of détente, but they seem to be the only ones to think so or to act on this premise. Indeed, cultural appeasement was also built into détente by virtue of how the different political systems work.

A well-known American specialist in Soviet studies has told how the systems work in the case of the scholarly-exchange program. The Soviet scholar who comes to the United States can see anything he asks for in American universities and libraries. He goes back and writes about America's most painful contemporary problems—ethnic conflicts, student riots, unemployment, crime, black nationalism, and the like. The American scholar has had to accept a different set of rules:

> Indeed, and the best illustration of that is the simple fact that for American scholars the most interesting subject of study in the Soviet Union

36/COMMENTARY FEBRUARY 1976

is Soviet political history—for example Stalin and Trotsky, the history of the party, the relationship between party and government, the purges of the 1930's, Soviet foreign policy, Soviet economic policy, and so forth. We have never been able to send a single American scholar to the Soviet Union to look at any of these problems.

When the exchange visits first started there were applications on our side for the study of these areas, but the Russians resolutely refused to allow for applicants into their country. Then, realizing how applications in these fields of study would be treated by the Russians, our young scholars shifted their applications to the study of less sensitive questions, such as local government which hardly exists in the Soviet Union or 19th-century political history and problems of that kind. In others words, the Russians turned us away from the issues which are most central to us, and we are now doing their job for them, because our professors tell their young students not to bother with subjects that would prejudice their chances of being allowed into the Soviet Union....

Soviet control over opportunities for study in the USSR has so influenced some of our more timid colleagues interested in going or returning to Russia, that they will not join other intellectuals in protests against the Soviet treatment of dissidents, minorities, etc. and will even refuse to participate in conferences that may be distasteful to the Soviet government. The Soviet government has in fact acquired some influence both over the direction of Western scholarship and over Western political attitudes.⁴⁷

In effect, appeasement was built into détente whenever we adapted ourselves to them but they did not adapt themselves to us. In these circumstances, appeasement worked silently, automatically, almost unthinkingly. It was the most insidious kind of appeasement because the cards were stacked in the Soviets' favor without any overt effort on their part.

Such have been the acrid fruits of détente. They did not burst forth because there was anything wrong with the 'ideal of détente. They flourished because too much appeasement was built into détente. Appeasement did not work in the 1930's; it has not worked in the 1970's and for the same reason—appeasement cannot appease the unappeaseable. We now have it from Secretary Kissinger that this is precisely the position we are approaching today.

The latest Kissingerian theory was foreshadowed by Helmut Sonnenfeldt, Counselor for the State Department, in an address on "The Meaning of 'Détente'" at the Naval War College in the late spring of 1975. Sonnenfeldt described the Soviet Union in terms which had not been heard previously in the era of détente:

> Its power continues to grow and its interests to expand. Indeed, it can be said that in the

> broad sweep of history, Soviet Russia is only just beginning its truly "imperial" phase: its military forces have acquired intercontinental reach only fairly recently; its capacity to influence events in remote areas is of relatively recent standing; and it is only just acquiring the habit of defining its interests on a global rather than a solely continental basis. For us, therefore, the problem is that of building viable relationships with an emerging world power.

One reads these lines with astonishment. "Only just beginning"? "Only fairly recently"? "Of relatively recent standing"? Unfortunately, Sonnenfeldt did not give any clue to how recent his "recently" was. The unwary reader might imagine that all this had happened during the past three years of détente. Let us take just one of these astounding statements—that the Soviet Union "is only just acquiring the habit of defining its interests on a global rather than a solely continental basis." A quarter of a century ago, North Korea could not have carried on its war if the Soviet Union had not trained and equipped its army. Continental or global? The major supplier of North Vietnam was the Soviet Union. Continental or global? In one way or another, as Communists, the Soviet leaders have defined their interests on a global basis for almost six decades. They have had much more experience in this respect than the Americans have had. This patronizing view of the Soviet Union as a global power tells more about the Counselor's historical awareness than it does about the Soviet Union.

In any case, if this is where the broad sweep of history has taken us, it should have had some bearing on the state of détente. But Sonnenfeldt was not yet ready to go that far. Instead, he gave the fact that the Soviet Union "continues to grow in power, weight, and reach" as a reason "why we must persist in the basic policies we have been pursuing over the past several years"—incentives and all.⁴⁸

Secretary Kissinger himself went public with the new theory in an interview with Flora Lewis which appeared in the New York Times of December 21, 1975. He explained that the Soviet Union had become an imperial superpower in an expansionist phase that must run its course. The Soviets, he warned, will exploit every opportunity to enlarge their dominion, unless the risks are made too great for them. The Soviet move into Angola demonstrates how far afield this expansionist momentum had carried them. Unless the United States answered in kind in Angola, the next stage of Soviet expansionism would be even more dangerous and costly.

By this time the official line had clearly gone beyond the Sonnenfeldt version of early 1975. It went even further at Secretary Kissinger's news conference on December 23. It also began with a strange history lesson:

> The basic problem in our relation with the

APPEASEMENT & DETENTE/37

Soviet Union is the emergence of the Soviet Union into true superpower status. That fact has become evident only in the 1970's. As late as the Cuban missile crisis, the disparity in strategic power between the United States and the Soviet Union was overwhelmingly in our favor.

In this broad sweep of history, we jump from the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 to the 1970's. This leap makes it appear as if we had to wait until December 1975 to discover what was going on. The missile crisis convinced the Soviet leadership that it was necessary to catch up with and overtake the United States in strategic arms. The Soviets caught up much more quickly than the Americans had counted on; in fact, back in 1965, the top American leaders did not think that the Soviets had any intention of catching up. By the time the SALT I talks were started in late 1969, the Soviets had made such progress that the Americans were ready to settle for freezing both sides at a level of rough strategic parity. Despite SALT I, if we may trust Paul H. Nitze, who deserves to be heard respectfully as a SALT negotiator from 1969 to 1974, the Soviets have not been satisfied with parity and have been aiming at strategic superiority, a position which Nitze thinks they began to achieve in 1973.⁴⁹

One cannot, therefore, jump historically all the way from 1962 to the 1970's. Something was happening within two or three years of the Cuban missile crisis that brought us to the present balance in strategic power. The shift has been going on for about a decade, and its implications have been apparent throughout the course of détente. It is rather late in the game to discover that the Soviet Union possesses "true superpower status."

And what, in the name of God, is "true super-power status"? At least as long ago as 1964, Henry Kissinger referred to the Soviet Union as a "superpower."⁵⁰ In 1968, Kissinger noted that the Soviet Union was one of the two powers which possessed "the full panoply of military might."⁵¹ Does the new status mean that the Soviet Union in 1964 was an "untrue" super-power? Or does "true superpower" mean a "super-superpower"? How much more of the full panoply of military might, circa 1968, was it necessary for the Soviet Union to possess to be promoted to the rank of "true superpower"? If the United States is also a "true superpower," why the special emphasis on this new classification?

This broad sweep of history is more a political than a historical operation. The new status of the Soviet Union has been discovered just in time to explain a crisis in American détente policy, as if the crisis were a result of immanent historical forces instead of a misconceived policy. That the crisis for détente may be a mortal one was made plain by Secretary Kissinger in his December 23 news conference. These were fighting words:

We do not confuse the relaxation of tension with permitting the Soviet Union to expand its sphere by military means and that is the issue, for example, in Angola. ...

If the Soviet Union continues action such as Angola, we will without any question resist....

Unless the Soviet Union shows restraint in its foreign-policy actions, the situation in our relationship is bound to become more tense, and there is no question that the United States will not accept Soviet military expansion of any kind.

Thus Kissinger has now been forced to give up in fact, if not in name, one of the underlying myths of détente—the theory that the Soviet Union had become a status-quo power. This notion was actually the implied premise of the "Basic Principles" of May 1972. It has been a costly myth, made all the worse because it was implicitly fostered by official U.S. policy.

This is not the place to discuss at length what the U.S. should do in Angola, a large and difficult subject by itself. I wish to restrict myself to the implications of the Angolan crisis for détente. The first thing that needs to be said, in my view, is that the Angolan situation represents two problems—one immediate and tactical, the other long-range and strategic. It is necessary to differentiate between them, for what may be good in the long run need not be good in the short run. Angola may not be the best place for the United States to face the issue tactically; it is the right place to understand the issue strategically. On the tactical level, the United States need not permit the Soviet Union to decide the time and place of every confrontation of this kind.

As I write, it is too early to tell what the full story of Angola is. Whatever the truth may be about the various foreign interventions, the Soviets clearly outbid all the others by bringing in thousands of Cuban proxies, the nearest thing to using their own troops, and by arming their side with far more, far more costly, and far more advanced weapons. In terms of the political significance of the Angolan situation for détente, however, it matters less what each side has done than that such a far-away Soviet-American contest should have taken place at all. For if, as Secretary Kissinger has maintained, the United States must react as strongly as he has urged it to react in Angola in order to discourage the Soviet Union "from taking advantage" of favorable opportunities, we are faced with the paradox that it is necessary to wage cold and not-so-cold war in dangerous situations in order to save détente for non-dangerous situations—in short, that détente works when and where it is needed the least. If détente is so restricted, fluctuating, ambiguous, and paradoxical, it can hardly be taken as seriously as we had been led to believe.

Tactics aside, Kissinger is finally right on the

38/COMMENTARY FEBRUARY 1976

strategic problem: the Soviet Union is in an impo-
rial, expansionist phase. We are faced strategically
with a long-term Soviet imperial pressure, now
gathering momentum and based, as Soviet spokes-
men like to say, on a "new relationship of forces."
If the Soviets can get the world to accept their ver-
sion of this "new relationship of forces," the con-
sequences will be cumulatively disastrous.

This renewed Soviet pressure was building up
while the United States was beguiled by détente.
It is imprudent and implausible to conduct a
foreign policy based on holding back the new
Soviet expansionism while still officially enmeshed
in the doctrine of détente. The new and the old
theories and policies cannot coexist peacefully.
One of them must go.

Notes

¹ *Détente*: Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, August-September 1974, pp. 61, 67, 102, 147, 208, 239, 301.

² Walter C. Clemens, Jr., "The Impact of Détente on Chinese and Soviet Communism," *Journal of International Affairs*, Vol. 28, No. 2, 1974, p. 134.

³ "If tensions mount, the parties may move toward cold and then hot war. If tensions diminish, the parties move toward détente (whether short- or long-lived); from détente they could move further toward rapprochement or even entente" (ibid.).

⁴ May 29, 1972.

⁵ July 3, 1974.

⁶ *Détente*: Hearings, pp. 161-62.

⁷ Robert Ellsworth, *Department of State Bulletin*, November 23, 1970, pp. 642-43. Also: "The condition of the Soviet economy is clearly the primary determinant of present Soviet foreign policy" (Marshall Shulman, *Foreign Affairs*, October 1973, p. 43).

⁸ *Détente*: Hearings, p. 32.

⁹ *Emigration Amendment to the Trade Reform Act of 1974:* Hearings before the Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate, December 3, 1974, p. 106.

¹⁰ *Ibid.*, pp. 96-97.

¹¹ Marshall Shulman, *New York Times*, March 10, 1974.

¹² Marshall I. Goldman, *Détente and Dollars* (Basic Books, 1975), pp. 275-76.

¹³ Marshall I. Goldman, *Daedalus*, Fall 1975, p. 137, and Note 35, p. 143.

¹⁴ June 15, 1972.

¹⁵ *U.S. Foreign Policy for the 1970's: A New Strategy for Peace*, A Report to the Congress by Richard Nixon, President of the United States, February 18, 1970, p. 232.

¹⁶ Nomination of Henry A. Kissinger: Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, September 11, 1973, Part I, p. 101.

¹⁷ *Pravda*, August 1, 1975, p. 1 (in *The Current Digest* of the Soviet Press, Vol. XXVII, No. 31, p. 13).

¹⁸ *Emigration Amendment to the Trade Reform Act of 1974*, p. 77.

¹⁹ September 19, 1974.

²⁰ *Information Bulletin*, issued by the *World Marxist Review*, Vol. 13 (1975), Nos. 12-13, p. 14.

²¹ *Izvestia*, September 4, 1975 (in *The Current Digest of the Soviet Press*, Vol. XXVII, No. 36, p. 3).

²² *World Marxist Review*, September 1975, p. 59.

²³ N. Polyanov, *Izvestia*, November 29, 1975, p. 4.

²³ V. Kobyshev, *Izvestia*, November 30, 1975, p. 2.

²⁴ V. Matveyev, *Izvestia*, December 2, 1975, p. 4.

²⁵ Oleg Skalkin, *Pravda*, December 6, 1975, p. 5.

²⁶ O. Kitsenko, I. Shchedrov, A. Arkhipov, *Pravda*, December 8, 1975, p. 3.

²⁷ K. Zaradov, *Pravda*, August 6, 1975 (in *The Current Digest of the Soviet Press*, Vol. XXVII, No. 31, pp. 15, 17).

²⁸ Gus Hall, *The Crisis of U.S. Capitalism and the Fight Back* (International Publishers, 1975), p. 44.

²⁹ *Political Affairs*, November 1975, pp. 3, 6, 16.

³⁰ *Emigration Amendment to the Trade Reform Act of 1974*, p. 89.

³¹ March 28, 1974.

³² Henry A. Kissinger, interview with William F. Buckley, September 13, 1975.

³³ November 12, 1973 (interview in Peking).

³⁴ *Congressional Record*, Senate, November 9, 1973, p. S-20136.

³⁵ New York Times, March 10, 1974.

³⁶ Samuel P. Huntington, *The Common Defense* (Columbia University Press, 1961), p. 88. In 1950, U.S. policymakers had expected the second stage to be reached in 1954 (p. 60). But even if Huntington is right, and it did not come about for another two years or so, the difference is hardly significant now.

³⁷ July 3, 1974.

³⁸ Flora Lewis, *New York Times*, December 21, 1975.

³⁹ *Détente*: Hearings, pp. 301-302.

⁴⁰ July 15, 1975.

⁴¹ Arbatov and Polyanov, op. cit.

⁴² *Emigration Amendment to the Trade Reform Act of 1974*, p. 76.

⁴³ Henry A. Kissinger, *The Necessity for Choice* (Harper & Row, 1961), pp. 195-201.

⁴⁴ Hedrick Smith, *The Russians* (Quadrangle, 1976), p. 439.

⁴⁵ September 19, 1974.

⁴⁶ The story is told by François Bondy, *Survey*, Spring-Summer 1974, p. 43.

⁴⁷ Robert F. Byrnes, Distinguished Professor of History and Director of the Russian and East European Institute, Indiana State University, *Survey*, Autumn 1974, pp. 52-53.

⁴⁸ *Naval War College Review*, Summer 1975, pp. 3-8.

⁴⁹ *Foreign Affairs*, January 1976, p. 226.

⁵⁰ *Ibid.*, July 1964, p. 539.

⁵¹ *Agenda for the Nation* (Brookings Institution, 1968), p. 587.

# U. S. Weighs SALT Proposals

## One approach being studied is separate fields for MIRVed and single warhead missiles; Geneva talks resume this week

By Clarence A. Robinson, Jr.

Washington—U. S. officials are weighing new proposals aimed at achieving a missile limit verification compromise with the Soviet Union that could lead to an offensive strategic arms limitation treaty at the upcoming U. S.-Soviet summit here in late fall based on the Ford-Brezhnev Vladivostok accord.

One proposal now being studied is that the USSR would segregate its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with multiple independently-targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) into separate missile fields distinct from the ICBMs with single reentry vehicles.

The scheme to segregate MIRV missiles is being referred to by U. S. officials as the "anonymous proposal." The proposal came from the U. S. after the Soviets suggested that we propose it to them.

Negotiations on the segregated fields are continuing between the U. S. and the Soviets, and some officials believe that, because MIRVed warheads are just beginning to be operationally deployed, the Soviets may concede this point to enhance verification.

U. S. strategic arms limitation delegation will return to Geneva this week to focus on possible areas of compromise aimed at achieving a breakthrough in negotiations with the Soviets.

A number of thorny issues already have caused a delay in the planned visit of Soviet Party Chief Leonid I. Brezhnev to the U. S. for a summit meeting with President Ford. The meeting was initially scheduled for July, delayed until September and now has been further delayed until more progress is attained in Geneva.

When and if Brezhnev visits Washington

probably will be determined not only by SALT advances in Geneva but by Soviet progress in concluding an agreement on the Conference of Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). The USSR is anxious to achieve a CSCE agreement for ideological reasons, and the U. S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization nations are now blocking such an agreement.

The European security negotiations, with 34 nations—NATO, Warsaw Pact, as well as so-called neutrals—participating, are being delayed by U. S. insistence that the free movement of people, information and ideas be included. "The Soviets are unwilling to give an inch in this area," a U. S. official said, "and they appear to be holding up a SALT summit meeting until they achieve their CSCE goals as well as concessions at the SALT bargaining table."

The CSCE agreement would recognize the inviolability of European borders and has become increasingly important to the Warsaw Pact nations and the Soviets.

Senior Administration officials said Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger is

looking for a compromise that will be acceptable to the Soviets and Congress. The Soviets have been adamant in their position that ICBMs tested with MIRV systems should not all be counted within the 1,320 MIRV ceiling when deployed, because some of the missiles would also be deployed with single reentry vehicles.

The verification stalemate has centered on the Soviet SS-18, replacement for the "heavy" SS-9 ICBM. The SS-18 has been tested with both single and MIRV warheads, and the Soviets are now beginning to deploy it in both configurations, according to U. S. officials. The MIRVed SS-18 has up to eight warheads. For this reason, the Soviets will not agree to count all deployed SS-18s within the MIRV ceiling set at Vladivostok (AW&ST Dec. 9, 1974, p. 12).

The U. S. verification panel met to discuss a list of possible compromises in order to reach an agreement with the Soviets on whether the methods would provide absolute proof that the Russians are complying with treaty provisions.

The U. S. intelligence community earlier believed that it was possible to discern a Soviet MIRV ICBM via satellite because of peculiar construction associated with a specific type MIRV system. However, later observation revealed the construction was interchangeable with other missiles in both MIRVed and single warhead configuration.

The only method now believed feasible is by detection of a distinctive transporter-erector used with the SS-18 missile system with MIRV warheads (AW&ST June 9, p. 19). Only a small number of intelligence samples are available for analysis, and a number of officials are concerned that "the edge is too thin to rely on for absolute proof. Another possibility is that transporter-erectors could be redesigned after an agreement is reached," an official said.

One major problem is that the Soviets are against verification methods that would prove more intrusive than those now being used by the U. S.

Most U. S. verification panel experts believe there must be some more distinctive signature for distinguishing MIRVed missiles than those yet offered. Without a better method, they believe the U. S. must fall back to its original position that once a certain type of ICBM has been tested with MIRVs five or six times, all such ICBMs would be counted within the 1,320 limit when the missiles are deployed.

Administration officials explaining the Vladivostok accord said earlier the agreement was based on a U. S. position that once a missile was successfully tested

## USAF Launches New Experimental Satellite

Experimental Lockheed Agena was launched by the U. S. Air Force from Cape Canaveral June 18 using a General Dynamics Atlas booster.

USAF would only say that the spacecraft carried an "experimental payload." The launch from Cape Canaveral indicates the satellite is intended for equatorial orbit and perhaps for geosynchronous orbit.

One possible mission for the satellite is to test a new type of infrared sensor, which will permit more precise mid-course trajectory tracking, for use in a next-generation early warning satellite.

Hughes Aircraft and Rockwell International are under contract to develop such sensors.

Another possibility, alluded to in congressional testimony, is that the experimental spacecraft is the prototype of a smaller, lower-cost version of the present 1,500-lb. early warning satellites built by TRW Systems.

Pentagon officials have disclosed plans to develop lower-cost versions to permit the deployment of numerous early warning satellites as a hedge against possible Soviet killer-satellites.

USAF also launched a Lockheed Big Bird photo-reconnaissance satellite on June 8 from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., using a Martin Marietta Titan-3D. The last Big Bird satellite, which decayed on Mar. 19, had been aloft for 141 days, setting a new record for longevity. Earlier Big Bird spacecraft remained aloft for approximately 90-120 days.

12

Aviation Week & Space Technology, June 22, 1975

Soviet surface-to-air missile research and development launch complex near Emba, 175 mi. northwest of the Aral Sea, is shown (center) in a NASA Landsat-1 photograph. Emba is the largest Soviet development area for surface-to-air missiles and the surrounding area is thick with launch complexes and runways for aircraft and target drone operations. U. S. officials have recently noted a new

hypersonic missile believed developed to intercept USAF Boeing AGM-69A SRAM short-range attack missiles (AW&ST Apr. 14, p. 9). The acceleration rates of the missile are comparable to the Martin Marietta Sprint 2, and some U. S. officials believe the technology could also be used for development of another anti-ballistic missile interceptor. (ERTS No. E-1583-06295-7.)

with a MIRV system, it must be counted within the ceiling when deployed. "The State Dept. is adamant that no compromise can be made and that the issue is central to final acceptance of a SALT-2 treaty," an official said then.

Now, in the face of stiffening Soviet opposition to this point of view, the Administration is searching for a compromise and alternative methods of verification.

U. S. negotiators believe the issue of whether or not the Soviet's Backfire bomber will be counted within the 2,400 limit of strategic weapons has already been decided in favor of the Russians and is "cast in concrete." Officials believe that, despite instructions for the SALT negotiators to press for inclusion of the Backfire during meetings with the Soviets resuming this week in Geneva, it is no longer an issue.

They believe that Kissinger and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko reached an understanding during negotiations leading to the Vladivostok accord that the Backfire would not be counted as long as forward basing of nuclear weapons was not included in the agreement, a position the Soviets were not willing to accept earlier.

At least one issue where the U. S. delegation appears to remain firm is in refus-

ing an agreement that would limit cruise missiles to a range of 600 km. (360 mi.). However, Kissinger is privately wavering and may yet give in on cruise missiles. The Soviets are pressing hard to include aircraft with cruise missiles of greater range within the 1,320 MIRV weapon limit in an agreement. Placing that restriction on cruise missiles—both air-launched and sea-based—would severely handicap the Rockwell International B-1 bomber in penetrating Soviet air de-

## SS-18 Tests

Washington—Soviet Union has concluded its latest series of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests in the Pacific impact area with the second launch of an SS-18 equipped with multiple warheads (AW&ST June 9, p. 19).

The Soviets fired the second SS-18 June 9 from a launch site at Tyuratam into an area about 600 mi. north of Midway Island, approximately 4,000 mi. down range.

In announcing the latest tests, the Soviets said they were expected to continue until June 30, but concluding tests early fits a Soviet pattern on ICBM launches.

U. S. officials said. Another official said the B-1's penetration is possible without a cruise missile. The B-1 is to get Boeing short-range attack missiles (SRAMs) into the USSR. The cruise missile extends the life of the Boeing B-52. Together, the cruise missile and the SRAM confront the Soviets with formidable air defense problems.

The cruise missile is not only an important weapon against Soviet air defenses for bombers, but equally important as an alternative quick reaction alert force for NATO to replace aircraft that are armed with nuclear weapons. Alert aircraft are more vulnerable to Soviet tactical nuclear attack in Europe than submarines armed with strategic cruise missiles, officials said.

The Administration is taking extreme measures to insure that results of the Standing Consultative Commission (SCC) meetings over alleged Soviet SALT and ABM violations are being viewed only at the highest levels in the Defense Dept.

Staff members are not permitted access to the information

Soviet improvement of anti-ballistic missile components in apparent violation of the treaty, particularly testing of a modified version of the SA-5 air defense missile radar improved for ABM oper-

Astronautics & Space Technology, June 22, 1975

13

ations, is one specific objection raised before the SCC.

The Soviets have agreed to discontinue tests of the SA-5 radar in the ABM mode at Sary Shagan (AW&ST Feb. 3, p. 12), but have stated they do not consider it a violation of the agreement. The Soviet cooperation came after the radar had been tested more than 60 times against reentry vehicles flying trajectories to simulate U. S. ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Officials believe that the Soviets agreed to halt the radar tests because they are complete rather than because they violate any agreement.

Testing anti-aircraft missile radars for use as an ABM system is referred to as the "SAM-upgrade problem." The U. S. appended to the ABM treaty a unilateral statement attempting to clarify testing components in "the ABM mode." This position, however, is not binding on the Soviets and they have rejected it.

One official pointed out that 60 tests of the SA-5 radar is a more comprehensive evaluation than the U. S. conducted with the Western Electric Nike-Zeus system. The SA-5 Gammon missile has the capability of intercepting targets at altitudes above 100,000 ft., and officials believe the missiles could be armed with nuclear warheads to put up a barrage of high energy neutrons to destroy U. S. ICBM nuclear warheads.

"It has been difficult to nail the Soviets on specific violations of the agreements because of the ambiguous language and the unilateral statements that do not bind them," and official explained. He added that the SA-5 radar was thought to be one area where a clear violation existed, but this has proved to be elusive. "Certainly they [USSR] are violating the spirit of the treaties if not the letter," he said.

The SA-5 radar tests lasted more than 18 months, and officials are deeply concerned that minor modifications to the SA-5 system could provide 11,000 SA-5 launchers with an ABM capability. Each launcher can be reloaded with missiles up to six times. U. S. officials are worried that, if the SA-5 phased-array radars are tied in a network, with the upgraded capability already tested, the system might seriously degrade the U. S. assured destruction capability.

The Soviets have not responded to charges before the SCC that they have been concealing missile launchers from national technical means of verification—high-resolution satellite photography—by placing canvas over them. Similar charges were presented over concealing submarine ballistic missile development.

The initial response from the Soviets, officials said, was to accuse the U. S. of concealing its Boeing Minuteman silos. USAF did place covers over the missile silos in order to permit an epoxy base in the concrete to harden. The covers remained no longer than 72 hr.

The Soviets have rejected as a unilateral statement not binding on them any objections to deployment of the SSX-16, a land-mobile missile capable of delivering MIRV warheads with its post-boost system. The U. S. unilaterally said: "While agreeing to defer the question of limitation of operational land-mobile ICBM launchers to subsequent negotiations on more complete limitations on strategic offensive arms, the U. S. would consider the deployment of operational land-mobile ICBM launchers during the interim agreement as inconsistent with the objectives of that agreement."

Jamming by the Soviets of U. S. electronic intelligence devices, earlier considered an overt violation by thwarting technical means of verification, has been explained away by SALT officials as use of digital processing equipment in lieu of earlier analog devices. Telemetry transmission in digital signals is proving effective against U. S. intelligence gathering during MIRV testing. Not explained, however, is what some officials describe as deliberate attempts by the Soviets to

jam telemetry reception by the U. S.

The Soviets also have explained away— apparently to the satisfaction of the State Dept.—additional silos constructed in the Soviet missile belts along the trans-Siberian railway (AW&ST Feb. 3, p. 12). USSR members of the SCC have told American delegates that the silos are command and control facilities. They appear to intelligence officials to have the same configuration as missile launching silos, including blow-away doors used in launching a missile.

The Soviets explain away the areas considered as violations by Defense Dept. officials as not being covered by the interim agreement or the ABM treaty. U. S. officials are increasingly aware that "ambiguities in the SALT accords permit Soviet developments in these key areas, and at the same time they have bound the U. S. to back away from significant developments we were pursuing prior to the agreement. The real concern is that any new SALT-2 treaty must be negotiated against such a backdrop."

# Foreign Arms Sales Spur Congressional Surveillance

By Katherine Johnsen

Washington—Sharp escalation of foreign military sales to a total of $8.2 billion in Fiscal 1974 has spurred congressional committees handling defense and foreign affairs into action to bring policies and transactions under closer surveillance and control by the legislative branch.

The increase was from $3.8 billion in Fiscal 1973 and from only $900 million five years ago in Fiscal 1970.

Congress controls the military foreign aid program, which dropped to $2.8 billion in Fiscal 1974, by authorizing and appropriating its funding. There is also control over credits and guarantees for military sales via the funding process.

But $6.6 billion of the Fiscal 1974 total was in cash sales over which Congress had no effective control. Of the $6.6 billion, $3.8 billion was to Iran and $600 million to Saudi Arabia.

## Payments Balance

Washington—Prepayments on purchases of military equipment by foreign nations mounted from $95 million in the fourth quarter of 1974 to $490 million in the first quarter of 1975 and were a significant factor in reducing the U. S. balance-of-payments deficit for the three-month period ending Mar. 31, 1975.

The deficit declined by $6 billion, from $6.5 billion in the fourth 1974 quarter to $475 million in the first 1975 quarter. Commerce Dept. said that most of the military sales prepayments were from Middle-East countries.

Last week a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee, headed by Sen. Hubert Humphrey (D.-Minn.), started hearings. Sen. Humphrey took a middle ground, stating that "we must realize that we live in a real world and there are going to be arms sales" in the interests of the U. S. "There is a demand that we legislate, but we want to do it responsibly," he said. Earlier, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D.-Mass.) called for a six-month moratorium on sales to the Persian Gulf nations while policies and objectives are being established.

Two actions, taken in connection with the Fiscal 1976 weapons system authorization bill, now pending before a House-Senate conference committee, might slow military sales from Defense Dept. inventories. They were:

* The Senate-passed version would require the Defense Dept. to report the impact any proposed sale over $25 million would have on the status of U. S. forces. Senate Armed Services Committee wrote the provision with concern "about the serious drain on the inventories of U. S. forces caused by the transfer of major equipments to other nations through the foreign military sales program, since

UNCLASSIFIED

10/27/76

SPloss

NOTE ON OCTOBER PLENUM

Having read Brezhnev's latest speech and building on the analysis I did last week, I would say that the advocates of moderation in Soviet foreign policy registered a victory at the October 1976 Plenum.

Kirilenko was depicted in that analysis as a supporter of Brezhnev's detente policy, as opposed to Suslov/Romanov, who were seen as detente skeptics and seekers of détente, with China.

In contrast to Suslov's Leningrad speech in mid-September, Brezhnev's at the plenum was a model of optimism insofar as US-Soviet relations are concerned. Their sharply divergent estimates of the all-important "danger of war" is the tell-tale sign: Suslov was an alarmist and Brezhnev tranquil. Brezhnev indeed felt strong enough to revert to his 1973 BASIC criticism of the critics of arms control diplomacy.

Just after Brezhnev spoke, the setback of militants led by Suslov/Romanov was signalled by Romanov's unusual slippage in the pecking order of speakers at the Plenum. It was evident too in Romanov's failure to enter the CC CPSU Secretariat—as might have been expected after the Moscow rumors of his imminent promotion and his curious appearance at the Kirilenko birthday award ceremony.

Kirilenko's price for helping Brezhnev against Suslov/Romanov seems to have been a high one: entry into the Party Secretariat of Kirilenko's ex-associate in Sverdlovsk, Ryabov, with the implication that Kirilenko will devote more time to running the CPSU machinery while his industrial management responsibilities are performed by Ryabov.

A sign of the persistence of underlying tensions was the Plenum's failure to release Defense Minister Ustinov from the Secretariat. Evidently, a man of great political weight is needed to keep a firm grip on the army leaders in a pre-succession period— and Brezhnev's speech reference to the Secretariat as a policy-making body suggests again that real power is now concentrated there.

But the real story of the October 1976 Plenum was the consolidation of Brezhnev's controversial foreign policy line on the basis of alliance with a relatively pragmatic group of party-heavy industrialists headed by Kirilenko.

TODAY'S NEWS OF ACDA INTEREST

Office of Public Affairs

MONDAY
VOL. VIII DATE: November 10, 1975

NO. 215

Monday, Nov. 10, 1975

'75 SALT Pact, Brezhnev Summit
Doubted

By Murrey Marder

Washington Post Staff Writer

President Ford virtually acknowledged yesterday that a nuclear arms accord and a summit meeting with Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev are beyond reach this year.

The President said on a televised interview program "Meet The Press" (NBC, WRC) that "the timetable doesn't look encouraging for 1975" to complete Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), at the long-delayed Washington summit meeting with Brezhnev.

Furthermore, the President said, "Under no circumstances do I feel under pressure to get an agreement by a date certain." He said the SALT negotiations are continuing.

A recent Soviet rejection of a U.S. compromise proposal in the nuclear talks has left the negotiations at an impasse. administration sources concede privately. The question is whether an accord can be reached in the 1976 presidential election year. This problem cuts across domestic politics and foreign policy.

The Ford administration must decide whether it can afford the political risk of making any new compromises with the Soviet Union at a time when controversy over the pursuit of detente has been intensified by President Ford's cabinet shake-up.

Mr Ford's insistence yesterday that he will not be pushed into a deadline on SALT decisions appeared to underscore his sensitivity to

the domestic political dispute Donald Rumsfeld, the President's nominee to replace fired Defense Secretary James R Schlesinger, already is under challenge over his competency in strategic affairs.

Sen. Henry M. Jackson (D-Wash.) is challenging Rumsfeld's qualifications, especially in dealing with the complex SALT negotiations.

Senate confirmation hearings for Rumsfeld will coincide with attempts by the Ford administration to resolve differences between the State and Defense departments on the next step toward a SALT accord.

Rumsfeld, at the same time, will face differences within the Pentagon itself over how to proceed, administration sources point out.

Administration officials acknowledged belatedly last week that the United States received a Soviet rejection of latest U.S. proposals in the SALT negotiations before President Ford overturned the U.S. security command. These sources said that so far as they were aware, the Soviet action and the President's decision to oust Schlesinger were unrelated.

However, disagreement between Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and Schlesinger over detente strategy was an acknowledged issue in Schlesinger's removal.

The controversy over SALT strategy is now rebounding in several directions. The House

intelligence committee has charged that attempts were made in the Ford administration to distort official American estimates of Soviet nuclear weapons strength.

And on the Senate side, Jackson is still pursuing his charges that Kissinger gave away too much to the Soviet Union in the 1972 nuclear arms accords and was too tolerant of alleged Soviet "cheating" on those agreements.

Kissinger denies both sets of accusations.

Although the Soviet Union is known to be pleased by Schlesinger's departure, the debate over his firing could make it more politically hazardous than ever for the Ford administration to agree to compromises on SALT in an election year.

The proposal rejected by the Soviet Union was submitted by Kissinger on Sept. 21 to Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko in the negotiations based on an agreement reached last November by President Ford and Soviet leader Brezhnev at Vladivostok.

The outstanding obstacles include an American demand for counting a Soviet bomber known as Backfire in the Vladivostok ceiling figures of 21400 intercontinental missiles and bombers on each side.

This is offset by a Soviet demand for counting American long-range cruise missiles in the force levels. The cruise missiles, similar to low-flying pilotless planes, are the most complex issue.

The U.S. compromise proposal suggested adding a further category of several hundred Backfire bombers and cruise missiles above the 2,400 ceiling to resolve the dispute. This is what the Soviet Union spurned.

The Russians insisted the Backfire is not an intercontinental weapon and that all cruise missiles with a range beyond 375 miles must be counted as strategic weapons in the 2,400 ceiling, administration officials said.

American officials had not been optimistic that the U.S. proposal would be accepted. They had hoped, however, that the Soviet response would open up an area for compromise. Instead, one source said yesterday, "The Russians have submitted no ideas that we can hang our hat on."

The United States, it was said, remains "in contact with the Russians," with some sources now convinced that it would take a Kissinger-Brezhnev meeting to try to break the impasse. But first, competing forces inside the Ford administration would have to agree among themselves on what course to follow.

THE NEW YORK TIMES, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1915

3

Ford Is Expected to Keep
Arms Data From Congress

By JOHN M. CREWDSON

Special to The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7—High Administration officials expressed doubt today that the White House would agree to honor a subpoena from the House Intelligence Committee for documents concerning the conduct of the arms limitation talks with the Soviet Union.

The subpoena, voted yesterday and delivered to the White House this morning, calls for documents produced over the last three years by Federal intelligence agencies responsible for monitoring Soviet compliance with the 1972 arms limitation accord and for preparing projections of the Soviet Union's future production capacity.

One White House aide, after noting that some of the subpoenaed materials concerned meetings that are still going on between American and Soviet arms experts in Geneva, said he thought that the House panel had gone "into a field where they ought not to range."

The aide said he believed under the circumstances that it was "very doubtful that we would be willing to disclose" to a Congressional committee information on current treaty negotiations being conducted by the Administration.

'Separation of Powers'

"You just cannot break the separation of powers to that degree," he added. But he pointed out that the White House had not yet had time to examine the subpoena in detail and to decide on a formal response.

The deadline set by the committee yesterday to approve the subpoena, A. Searle Field, its staff director, testified that he had received "substantial information that would indicate that there may be an attempt to distort figures" on the size of forces called for by the 1972 agreement.

Such distortions, he said, may have been originated either with "those who are in favor of détente and seeing a second SALT provision, or by those who oppose that." He used the acronym for the strategic arms limitation treaty.

Mr. Field alluded to the possibility that what he termed "double bookkeeping" had taken place on some of the estimates of arms strength and that differences might exist "as

to figures going to top levels" within the Administration.

Administration officials familiar with the arms limitation negotiations were puzzled today at accounts of Mr. Field's testimony, and one insisted that there were "no two sets of books" being kept within the Government containing estimates of Soviet nuclear strength or any other relevant figures.

The source conceded that there sometimes were valid differences among analysts over the Soviet Union's intentions as to future production and deployment of nuclear weapons, but he maintained that such disagreements were always underscored in proposals sent to top policy-makers.

The Ford Administration has resisted two previous subpoenas issued by the House panel in recent weeks for classified intelligence and diplomatic information, and in both cases the committee compromised by reducing its demands to a level that Mr. Ford and his aides found acceptable.

But the subpoena for information on the arms limitation talks is the first demand that directly concerns current foreign affairs and treaty-making, a province the White House seems prepared to defend as exclusively the President's.

Neither Representative Otis G. Pike, the House Intelligence Committee's chairman, or his aides would say today just what lay behind the committee's decision to subpoena the sensitive arms information.

But other sources suggested that the committee's interest may have been attracted to the dispute between Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and others within the Administration over the correct approach toward reaching a second-stage arms agreement with Moscow.

The dispute, according to one of Mr. Kissinger's critics, concerns in part the accuracy of American projections of future Soviet nuclear strength as well as, this country's estimates of some aspects of current Soviet strength that figured in the 1972 agreement on limitation of strategic arms.

Mr. Field lent some support to this interpretation yesterday, when he told the 13-member

committee that the information it sought related "to a recent crisis that has taken place in the Executive branch."

He apparently referred to Mr. Ford's dismissal earlier this week of James R. Schlesinger as Secretary of Defense and William E. Colby as Director of Central Intelligence.

Mr. Schlesinger reportedly has opposed Mr. Kissinger in some of his efforts to achieve a broader détente with Moscow especially in arms limitation, and his dismissal is said to have stemmed in part from that opposition.

Peking:
U.S.Shifts
Aid Soviet

By H. D. S. Greenway

Washington Post Foreign Service

HONG KONG, Nov. 8—Peking reported President Ford's recent governmental shake-up in the People's Daily on Saturday without official comment. But by quoting selections from the Western press, the article left no doubt that China views the dismissal of Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger as a Soviet victory.

The Chinese have been very vocal recently about the dangers of U.S. détente with the Soviet Union. Schlesinger was believed by the Chinese to share similar views.

The article, which first appeared Friday on the wires of the official New China News Agency, was entitled "U.S. President's announcement of personnel changes causes strong repercussions at home and abroad."

After giving a straightforward account of President Ford's press conference, NCNA quoted Sen. Henry Jackson (D-Wash.) as saying that Schlesinger's dismissal showed that the Ford administration could not tolerate differing views and honest advice on issues of national security. NCNA quoted Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.) as saying, "The Soviets will look on this as quite a victory."

But neither the NCNA article nor previous reaction in the left-wing Hong Kong press have made a connection between the dismissals and Mr. Ford's scheduled trip to China. It is believed here that the Chinese want President

Ford to visit China no matter what doubts they may have about the present drift of U.S. policy.

A Chinese source usually familiar with Peking's views recently expressed concern over the visit, however. He said that the number of days President Ford spent in China, or the number of stopovers the President made on the way home were less important to Peking than Washington's motives. If it were perceived that Washington wished to downgrade the importance of Mr. Ford's visit to China, then Peking would quite naturally be unhappy, he said.

The Soviet press was quoted by NCNA as welcoming Schlesinger's dismissal. The Washington Post was quoted as saying that "nowhere else in the world is the departure of James Schlesinger ... likely to be as closely watched — or as warmly received — as in the Kremlin. To the Soviets, Schlesinger was a powerful and persuasive opponent of détente."

West German Defense Minister Georg Leber was "stunned" at the U.S. personnel changes, NCNA quoted The Washington Post as reporting, and London's Daily Telegraph was quoted as saying that Schlesinger's removal "could be bad news for the NATO alliance." Two French newspaper articles and a Washington Post dispatch quoting NATO officials in a similar vein were also mentioned by NCNA.

The only positive reaction quoted by NCNA was a remark attributed to Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), saying that if the changes in the U.S. government increased the chances of an effective SALT agreement with the Soviets, then "the nation will be well served."

The thrust of the article was on détente and little mention was made of the other changes except in quoting Mr. Ford's announcement. In the long run, however, the unspoken doubts about the Ford administration's competence and authority may prove to be more worrying to the Chinese than Schlesinger's dismissal and the policy of détente. The image of wide-scale dismissals and the split between Mr. Ford and Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller may indicate to the Chinese an inherent political instability in America about which they have been worrying since Watergate began.

Richard Burt

THE WASHINGTON POST, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1975

5

# Arms Control and the Cruise Missile: Reconciling a Difficult Equation

Debates in the United States over new strategic weapon programs have fallen into a wearisome routine. When the Pentagon approaches Congress for funds for the Air Force's B-1 bomber or the Navy's Trident submarine, dedicated arms controllers swarm over Capitol Hill and warn of the dangers of "destabilizing" the U.S.-Soviet strategic balance by "fueling the arms race." The defense community, for its part, talks in similar knee-jerk fashion of "maintaining the technological initiative" and acquiring "bargaining chips" for arms control negotiations.

It is particularly noteworthy, then, when a new piece of hardware fails to elicit such sure-fire responses and leaves both groups uncertain and somewhat baffled over its impact on the strategic balance and its long-term implications for arms control. This is precisely the state of affairs with the strategic cruise missile program.

Now under joint development by the Air Force and the Navy, the cruise missiles are pilotless, low-altitude rockets that by the early 1980s will reportedly be able to deliver nuclear warheads over ranges exceeding 2,000 miles with extreme accuracy. Less than 15 feet in length and incredibly versatile, they could be launched from the wings of bombers, out of submarine torpedo tubes, from the decks of ships or from launchers on the ground.

Because of the adaptability of cruise missiles, observers have been quick to point out

*The writer is assistant director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.*

that they pose serious monitoring problems to U.S.-Soviet efforts to place mutual ceilings on weaponry at the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). Indeed, the question of whether to include cruise missiles in a SALT arrangement (and how to count them if they are included) is one of the last unresolved issues that stands in the way of a new agreement, a question that appears to have been at the heart of the dispute that ultimately led to James Schlesinger's dismissal last week. But what many analysts appear to have failed to recognize is that the central problem is not what SALT will do to the cruise missile, but what weaponry

like the cruise missile will ultimately do to SALT.

The cruise missile is not simply another dubious addition to the American stable of nuclear arms, but the most visible forerunner of a new generation of weapons technology that promises to alter fundamentally how we think about deterrence and defense in the nuclear age.

Negotiators must grapple with the fact that cruise missiles can be fired from a variety of launchers, but a greater problem is that these weapons can be fired at so many different targets by so many different nations. Unlike Intercontinental-range ballistic missiles, whose deployment is now regulated by SALT, cruise missiles will be able to perform both strategic and shorter-range tactical missions with equal efficiency. Armed with conventional warheads, they could have the accuracy to undertake numerous missions. For instance, as anti-ship missiles, they might replace far-more-expensive carrier aircraft. Yet these same missiles could be quickly adapted to deliver nuclear weapons, and deployed aboard ships in the North Atlantic or on mobile launchers in Central Europe. They could carry out

strategic strikes on the Soviet Union. A tactical weapon one minute would essentially become a strategic weapon the next.

But an even more profound development is perhaps on the horizon. With missile accuracy approaching fantastic limits, there is the possibility that conventionally-armed cruise missiles might be able to engage in strategic strikes against the Soviet Union. Precision guidance and improved conventional munitions would thus introduce a new era of "strategic conventional" warfare — the destruction of strategic targets in the Soviet Union (or the United States) without crossing the nuclear threshold.

In attempting to come to grips with the significance of this development, it is important to emphasize how strategic warfare became synonymous with nuclear warfare in the postwar era. Deterrence of strategic attack rested on the mutual fear of using nuclear weapons. But with the advent of strategic conventional weaponry, this simple equation is undermined.

For arms control the implications appear ominous. In many ways, the ground rules for discussion at SALT reflect the technological and political realities of a

vanishing period, when strategic arms could be more easily distinguished from other categories of weaponry and when they were only possessed in great numbers by the two superpowers.

But now criteria for distinguishing between strategic and tactical weaponry are rapidly disappearing. And as strategic conventional war becomes feasible, there is little reason to believe that other nations, especially the NATO allies in Europe, will resist the temptation of arming themselves with weapons that can strike the Soviet homeland but do not bear the onus of triggering a nuclear holocaust.

How should we approach the task of salvaging arms control in the face of new weapons technology like the cruise missile? Initially, a more thorough appreciation of the problems and prospects raised by the blurring of nuclear and conventional weapons is required. A major premium in arms control thinking has been placed on "raising the nuclear threshold." Now there is a possibility that the United States could engage in non-nuclear strikes against the Soviet Union, following a large-scale attack on Europe.

But how would this capability affect prospects for escalation? The caution bred from fear that characterizes the existing superpower military relationship could be dissipated by a new set of strategic conventional options. While perhaps raising the nuclear threshold, weapons like the cruise missile could lower the overall inhibition to use force.

Until more complete answers are available, it will not be possible to fashion a more coherent strategy for arms control. But it does seem clear that continuing along the road paved by SALT won't work. While strategic and tactical roles can be differentiated it may soon be no longer possible to identify weapons that perform these separate missions. Moreover, as distinctions between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons become fuzzier, so will political distinctions between nuclear and non-nuclear powers.

If the Soviet Union and the United States are finally successful in ironing out the details of a new 10-year agreement at SALT, there will be strong tendency to argue that strategic problems have been relegated to the back-burner of superpower relations. This must be resisted, for the real challenges lie ahead.

6

THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1973

# ISRAEL IS SEEKING FIRST-STRIKE ARMS

## Pre-emptive Attack: Ability Considered Vital to Avert Another Arab Assault

By DREW MIDDLETON

Israel is reportedly pressing the United States for weapons — missiles or aircraft — that would give it the means of launching a pre-emptive first strike with conventional weapons against Arab states in the event of a crisis comparable with that of October 1973.

United States and Israeli sources emphasized that Israel was not thinking in terms of a pre-emptive strike with nuclear weapons. To deploy such weapons, senior Israeli officers believe, would prompt the Soviet Union to supply nuclear weapons to Syria and other Arab countries.

However, Prof. Robert W. Tucker, writing in the magazine Commentary suggests that "a new and hard look at the role of nuclear weapons in future Israeli military strategy is very likely." He argues that Israel may want to limit dependence on the United States for arms and hold down defense spending.

"If so," writes Mr. Tucker, who is professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University, "the change from the present policy of maintaining a 'nuclear option' to a policy based on a known nuclear deterrent will inevitably have to be given the most serious consideration."

### Capability Held Essential

Maj. Gen. Binyamin Peled, commander of the Israeli Air Force, and Lieut. Gen. David Elazar, Chief of Staff at the outbreak of the October war,

speaking at a symposium in Jerusalem last month, voiced the belief that a first-strike capability was essential for Israeli security.

They, like other senior Israeli officers, know that the air force was ready to launch a pre-emptive strike against Egypt and Syria on Oct. 5, 1973, but was prevented from doing so by a Cabinet decision. Moshe Dayan, then Defense Minister, convinced the Cabinet that the operation would turn world opinion, particularly in the United States, against Israel, which would be considered the aggressor.

The Commentary article appeared shortly after Maj. Gen. Shlomo Gazit, head of Israeli military intelligence, told the symposium that Arab nations were making intensive efforts to attain nuclear capability. There is no immediate threat, he added, but Israel must be concerned about the future.

Although the Israelis have never acknowledged possessing nuclear weapons, Western intelligence analysts believe they can produce at least one every 12 months.

Given the accuracy of new precision-guided weapons, popularly known as smart bombs, a pre-emptive strike with conventional weapons would have a paralyzing effect on an enemy. American analysts said, The Israeli Air Force has received such weapons from the United States for use against ground targets.

However, the Pershing battlefield-support missiles promised to the Israeli Government by Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger are unlikely to be delivered because of strong Pentagon objections. Defense Department sources, noting that any sent would have to be withdrawn from the Army in West Germany, believe that Israel enjoys superiority in the air and does not need Pershings.

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

Monday, November 10.1975

The Monitor's view

Delivering on detente

Diplomatic problems have a way of resolv-
ing themselves even while the immediate
picture is an unsettled one. But, in the wake of
the Ford shake-up, the United States policy of
detente — especially arms control — appears
to face more uncertainties than ever. Most
disturbingly, President Ford is not ar-
ticulating the issues so that Americans under-
stand them.

Even before the reshuffle, detente was in a
state of flux as American political attitudes
shifted toward a more conservative and
harder line. Now there is a period of floundering
as everyone awaits the consequences of
the shake-up. Has Henry Kissinger's position
improved or deteriorated? No one knows until
the new procedures at the National Security
Council are tried. What kind of line will new
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld take on
strategic arms control? No one knows until he
has time to do his homework.

As many questions are being asked in
Moscow and Peking, where "Washingtonolo-
gists" are probably as baffled by the Cabinet
changes as are Americans. Not surprisingly,
the Chinese have unequivocally signaled their
displeasure over the firing of defense chief
James Schlesinger, suggesting this was a
gesture of conciliation to the Russians — a
public stance that may be dictated as much by

internal as foreign policy considerations. The
Russians, for their part, ostensibly are
pleased with Mr. Schlesinger's removal.

Amid the confusion, one assumes the per-
sonnel shifts will not affect Mr. Ford's long-
range policy. The President is firmly com-
mitted to detente and an arms control agree-
ment. But the net effect of the shake-up may
be to mobilize the right-wing opposition to
detente and make it a sharp political issue in
1976.

There is even speculation that Mr. Ford is
resigned to not getting a SALT agreement in
an election year because of the political
difficulties involved. This would be a serious
setback for detente, for it would postpone
arms negotiations another two years perhaps,
spur both sides to develop and deploy new
weapons systems, and thereby make it all the
more difficult ever to achieve arms control.

Mindful of the political pitfalls that confront
President Ford, therefore, we urge him to
pursue this aspect of his foreign policy with
renewed vigor and attention. The SALT
negotiations ought not to become the victim of
presidential politics. This is not to say that
there must not be a tough agreement that
reflects Soviet as well as American com-
promises. But the national interest demands
that there be progress on arms control.

In order to sell his objectives, however, Mr.
Ford must do more than concentrate on
outflanking his conservative right. He ought to
take the issues before the American public,
clarify what he perceives to be the nation's
security interests, and woo popular support
for his policies.

Unfortunately, the impression the Presi-
dent conveys of late is that he is more
concerned about "re-election" than the na-
tion's substantive business, more interested in
Ronald Reagan than the American public. Yet
it is on the perceptions of the latter that the
success or failure of his policies will rest.

Sunday, Nov. 9, 1975

THE WASHINGTON POST

# Egypt to Get Western Arms

By Bernard D. Nossiter
Washington Post Foreign Service

LONDON, Nov. 8 —
President Anwar Sadat
disclosed Saturday that he has
ended Egypt's reliance on the
Soviet Union for arms.

At a wide-ranging press
conference here, Sadat said he
is "completely satisfied" with
his three-day shopping trip for
weapons in London.

British officials confirmed
that Foreign Minister James
Callaghan had all but told the
Egyptian leader that Britain
has dropped its embargo on
lighter-bombers for Cairo.
Sadat reportedly sought 200
Jaguars, the supersonic
Anglo-French plane.

Sadat declined to tell
reporters how many Jaguars
he succeeded in buying here.

But aides to the president said
his trip had achieved its
mission of "diversifying" the
sources of Egyptian weapons
supply. Since Sadat's break
with the Soviet Union, this has
become a grave matter for
Egypt.

The cost of Sadat's order is
also not known, but the
Guardian newspaper
Saturday morning estimated
the Jaguar purchase alone at
$1.2 billion. In addition, it was
learned, Sadat has bought
electronic equipment, in-
cluding radar.

Sadat will have no trouble in
paying for the hundreds of
millions of dollars worth of
weapons he has begun pur-
chasing here. His Arab allies
will pick up the tab with their
revenues from the oil that the

West burns.

The Egyptian leader was
very much in command of the
crowded press conference at
Claridge's Hotel where he and
his entourage stayed.

In his visit here, Sadat spoke
with Prime Minister Harold
Wilson, other British political
leaders and with British
businessmen. He is eager to
spur investment in Egypt and
said he would be able to an-
nounce some projects "in the
near future."

Sadat was asked why his
arms-buying trip had been
more successful in London
than in Washington, where he
had been earlier this week.

The president replied that
he had begun his weapons-
diversification program with
Britain and France last year
and so could negotiate
specifics now in both coun-
tries. During his visit to the
United States, he said, he
could only sketch in the
"broad outlines" of his
military needs.

Sadat brushed off his dif-
ferences with Syria and the
Palestine Liberation
Organization as "tactical,"
rather than "strategic" but
the whole "Arab family," he
said, was united on the ob-
jective of refusing to
surrender an "inch of our
land" and restoring their
"rights" to the Palestinians.

Syria and the PLO have
criticized Sadat for signing an
interim agreement with Israel
that provides for an Israeli

withdrawal from the Sinai oil
fields and the strategic Sinai
mountain passes.

Sadat, who wants the PLO to
attend a reconvened Geneva
peace conference as a full-
fledged member, said that the
next meeting of this body
should aim at a "global
solution" and not a step-by-
step approach. Aides,
however, later explained that
this does not mean Sadat has
abandoned his belief in the
need for an interim Israeli-
Syrian agreement before the
Geneva meeting takes place.

Sadat repeated his stand
that he could not meet while
Israel sits on Egyptian land.
But he added a hint that any
such meeting might be futile
anyway because Israelis
haggle so much. U.S.
Secretary of State Henry A.
Kissinger, Sadat said, had
shuttled back and forth bet-
ween the two Middle East
capitals just for "a word here,
a comma there."

"So how could I meet with
the Israeli prime minister?"
Sadat asked.

Sadat repeated his image of
the United States "holding
most of the cards" in the
Middle East diplomatic game
but insisted that his hosts,
Britain and Wilson, had a role
to play. He suggested Wilson's
closeness to former Israeli
Prime Minister Golda Meir
and the governing Labor
Party's historic sympathy for
Israel could be turned to
advantage. This was a gentle
reference to a famous photo of
Wilson kissing Mrs. Meir, a
picture that produced
economic pressure on Britain
from all over the Arab world.

11-9

# Ask Later, Sadat Told on Plea for Arms Aid

By Jeremiah O'Leary
Washington Star Staff Writer

Egypt's President Anwar
Sadat was told by high-
ranking U.S. officials dur-
ing his state visit that the
United States did not feel it
could now engage in de-
tailed discussions about ac-
quisition of American arms,
but the subject could be re-
opened later.

Secretary of State Henry
A. Kissinger acknowledged
this yesterday in testimony
before the House Interna-
tional Relations Committee.
It was the first official veri-
fication that Sadat and U.S.
officials had discussed the
question of establishing a
military assistance rela-
tionship during his 10-day
visit.

Kissinger said, "We lis-
tened to Sadat. Sadat talked
about arms in very general
terms." Kissinger said the

administration has made no
decision on whether to re-
quest arms for Egypt.
"When a request is re-
ceived, we will discuss it
with Congress."

Sadat repeatedly said
during his state visit to
America that he did not
come here with a shopping
list, and Kissinger's testi-
mony tended to corroborate
this. But there has been lit-
tle doubt in Washington
that Sadat wants access to
U.S. arms and that he rais-
ed the subject with Kissing-
er, President Ford and
outgoing Secretary of De-
fense James R. Schlesing-
er.

INFORMED sources
here say the administration
wanted to give Sadat maxi-
mum public and congres-
sional exposure to pave the
way for an eventual arms
program for the Egyptians.

Egypt is now clearly enjoy-
ing a warm relationship
with the United States and
has lost the Soviet Union as
her arms source. It seems
obvious now that Kissing-
er's plan is to present an
arms program for Egypt to
Congress when he feels the
time is right, but not be-
fore.

On other security sub-
jects, Kissinger said:

* No decision has been
made on the question of
giving Pershing missiles to
Israel and no decision is
imminent.

* No point is seen in talking
to the Palestine Liberation
Organization until the PLO
gives up its dedication to
the destruction of Israel.

THE WASHINGTON POST Monday, Nov. 10, 1975

Joseph Kraft

Kissinger's Role

How does Henry Kissinger emerge from
last week's shuffle of national security
advisers?

One theory is that he achieved a big
personal victory which opened the way to
an early arms control agreement with the
Soviet Union. My own sense is the op-
posite.

I think Dr. Kissinger has lost ground at
the White House and the Pentagon. He will
have to scramble to retain his
preeminence and to keep alive prospects
for an arms control accord.

At the White House, as head of the
National Security Council under President
Nixon, Dr. Kissinger dominated the
foreign affairs community through a
network of NSC committees, panels and
working groups that nobody else even
understood. Under President Ford, the
Secretary of State has relied on the per-
sonal connection and allowed the NSC
machinery to become virtually defunct.

Now another system is evolving that will
bring a new Secretary of Defense, Donald
Rumsfeld, and a new CIA director, George
Bush, into the policy deliberations at the
highest level. President Ford is working
out his own system—his equivalent of
President Johnson's Tuesday lunches.

Dr. Kissinger is at least as weighty in
argument as Messrs. Rumsfeld and Bush.
He is scurrying to rebuild the NSC
machinery. The new NSC staff head is a
loyal lieutenant, Gen. Brent Scowcroft.
Another Kissinger loyalist, William
Hylands, has just been sent from State to
be Gen. Scowcroft's deputy, which in-
dicates that Dr. Kissinger, not entirely
sure where he stands, is already hard at
work shoring up his White House position.

As to the Pentagon, Dr. Kissinger had a
rocky marriage of extreme convenience
with outgoing Defense Secretary James
Schlesinger. Though constantly bickering,
they were also constantly compromising.
And when they agreed, those two heavies
could ram their views past the President
and the military and congressional
hawks—which made it that much easier
to sell to the Russians.

The proof of that thesis lies in the
Vladivostok agreement negotiation bet-
ween President Ford and Soviet leader
Leonid Brezhnev last year. The chief
feature of that agreement was the "equal
aggregate principle" whereby the United
States and Russia each agreed to have the
same total of nuclear weapons and the
same total of multi-headed, or MIRVed,
nuclear weapons.

Dr. Schlesinger was the chief proponent
of the equal aggregate principle. Dr.
Kissinger at first thought the Russians
would never accept it because it did not
compensate them for the nuclear
problems presented to them by China,
France and Britain.

But when the two men got together on
equal aggregates, they sold it easily to Mr.
Ford. Mr. Ford, with State and Defense
united, won the agreement of Mr.
Brezhnev. Moreover, the weight of the
Kissinger-Schlesinger alliance virtually
crushed criticisms from the military and
congressional hawks.

The same kind of pattern was shaping up
on the chief issues remaining after
Vladivostok—Russia's Backfire bomber
and this country's cruise missile. Dr.
Kissinger thought they would complicate
an agreement and wanted them out

altogether. Mr. Schlesinger felt the United
States should get a price for accepting
Russia's terms on the Backfire and wanted
explicit acceptance of this country's cruise
missiles.

After a bruising battle the two worked
out a compromise position that Mr. Ford
approved and Dr. Kissinger submitted to
the Russians. Had the Russians accepted,
Kissinger and Schlesinger would have
been together pushing the accord easily
past the military and the Congress.

With Mr. Rumsfeld at the Pentagon this
scenario goes out the window. He is chiefly
a political man, and he may feel, given the
challenge of Ronald Reagan and the right,
that a new arms agreement is not that
important at this stage.

Even if he shares Secretary Kissinger's
passion for an arms deal, his support
would count little with the military and
congressional hawks who would write him
off as a mere political opportunist. The
more so if Mr. Schlesinger, as an outsider,
opposed the agreement.

Dr. Kissinger and Mr. Rumsfeld do have
one possible way to beat down hawkish
opposition to an arms accord. By threats of
budgetary stringency and the loss of
favorite weapons systems, they may be
able to win over the service chiefs.

But that is a long shot—certainly not a
cause for rejoicing among the opponents of
detente and arms control. On the contrary,
just as conservatives need to learn that
Schlesinger's departure does not mean
that Kissinger gives the crown jewels to
the Kremlin, so liberals need to realize
that the obstacle to an agreement has been
not so much Mr. Schlesinger as the
Russians.

Sunday, Nov. 9, 1975

THE WASHINGTON POST

11

# Different View on Defense

By George C. Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writer

Donald H. Rumsfeld long has argued that Congress should have more authority over the nation's military policy — a philosophy strikingly different from that of James R. Schlesinger, the Secretary of Defense he has been named to replace.

Rumsfeld, his record indicates, will be more of a political negotiator in the fashion of Melvin R. Laird as Secretary of Defense. Rumsfeld is not likely to follow Schlesinger's lead and blast Congress. On Oct. 20, Schlesinger accused the House Appropriations Committee of making "savage" cuts in the Pentagon budget for "political considerations."

Rumsfeld's record in the field of national security portrays him as a man who proceeds cautiously and often makes his points by asking questions rather than politically vulnerable flat statements. He is expected to be an implementer of White House policy, not an innovator of policy as former secretaries of defense Schlesinger and Robert S. McNamara were.

Even if Rumsfeld chose to be an innovator, he could not make major changes in the near future. The main elements of the fiscal 1977 Pentagon budget to be presented next year already have been decided. Contracts for the biggest weapons already have been signed. The changes in national nuclear policy made by Schlesinger were approved by President Ford and are being put into effect by the military services.

In that sense, Rumsfeld will be selling Congress a budget next year that he will have bought but not designed. This does not mean, however, that he will not be an effective advocate. As a former member of congress from Illinois, Rumsfeld will be much more comfortable with the politicians on Capitol Hill than was Schlesinger, a thoughtful military strategist who did not suffer fools gladly.

Vietnam prompted Rumsfeld in 1965 to ask his fellow House members to face up to

the questions raised by such undefined wars:

> "... The United States has pursued military actions which by any definition constitute warfare. These actions were at the direction of the President and without any official declaration of war by the Congress ... Undoubtedly, the Congress was given the power to declare war for a reason.

> "Does the concept of declaring of war need updating?" Rumsfeld asked. "What is Congress' proper role today in these areas of foreign policy and undeclared war in view of the advent of nuclear weaponry and the modern technology of warfare and the need for centralized control and decision-making?

> ... Is Congress effectively exercising its power of appropriation? Is the congressional check on executive action in the increasingly important area of intelligence, counterinsurgency and covert military operations adequate?"

The congressman from Illinois' 13th district trod less gingerly on that issue in his testimony before the Joint Committee on the Organization of the Congress. He pleaded with Congress to clarify its responsibilities for foreign and military policy.

> "Congress," Rumsfeld warned, "should not continue to run the risk of being held accountable by future generations as bearing the principal responsibility for the inevitable alteration or, to be specific, diminution, of its role—and thereby the people's role—in world affairs and for the revision and violation of our system of checked and balanced power."

Such stands will make it

easy for members of Congress to throw Rumsfeld's words back at him if, as Secretary of Defense, he resists letting lawmakers in on the takeoff of military programs as well as any landings.

In the same context, Rumsfeld in 1965 lambasted the Army for failing to make public the names of officers responsible for massive waste in buying faulty electronic equipment through its Electronics Command at Fort Monmouth, N.J. He called for full disclosure.

Rumsfeld served in Congress from January, 1963, until April, 1969 when he started up the executive branch ladder by becoming director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. His house voting record provides evidence that he believes spending more on military programs does not necessarily mean buying more national security.

For example, in 1963 he tried to delete from a Pentagon money bill the funds for two B-70 bombers that Defense Secretary McNamara did not believe were worth building.

Failing to eliminate the bomber money, Rumsfeld voted on the next roll-call to recommit the whole Pentagon procurement bill so it could be cut by $636.4 million. That effort failed as well.

Rather than vote for the whole procurement bill after those attempts to cut it had failed, Rumsfeld was one of only 33 representatives to vote against the entire $15.8 billion measure. It was $497.7 million higher than the amount President Kennedy had requested.

On the whole, however, Rumsfeld went along with most money requests for the Pentagon. The one-time Navy pilot did not serve on any of the military committees in Congress but on the Joint Economic Committee and on the House space and Government Operations committees.

In one vote that may give arms control leaders pause, Rumsfeld opposed the White House position and voted on Nov. 20, 1963 against authorizing $20 million for continuing the work of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency for two more years.

His speeches on military issued during his years as congressman identify Rumsfeld as an early backer of the volunteer army and a staunch advocate of arming Israel.

> "It would seem imprudent for the United States to pursue a policy which intentionally or unintentionally results in pressure on Israel by denying her the needed capability to deter further Arab aggression." Rumsfeld said in the House on Sept. 21, 1967, in assailing the Johnson administration's delay in delivering A-4 Skyhawk fighter-bombers to Israel.

> "Stability in the Middle East will not be achieved if an imbalance of military power exists," he argued.

Those remarks, while revealing of his philosophical approach to arming the Middle East, came before such major diplomatic changes as the Arab oil embargo of 1973 and the breakthrough in U. S.-Egyptian relations.

Like Schlesinger, Rumsfeld has argued strongly for keeping a high intelligence capability—perhaps good news for the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Said Rumsfeld on March 9: "... The world is not a perfectly peaceful place; it is important that we be vigilant; that we have an intelligence-gathering capability during this point in history."

TARENTUM, PA.
VALLEY NEWS-DISPATCH

12

# SALT II negotiations must be completed

THE U.S. POLICY of detente with the Soviet Union, a policy designed to avoid confrontation and to promote cooperation in those areas where such is possible, is under attack from some quarters. The attacks come from domestic and foreign sources.

The home problem arises from the continued development of new weapons, especially the cruise missile of the United States, and the new Soviet swing-winged jet bomber known as "Backfire."

The cruise missile is a small subsonic pilotless bomber which can be launched from aircraft and the submerged torpedo tubes of any submarine. It is designed to fly 2,000 miles and land within 30 feet of its target, thanks to on-board computers providing both long-range and terminal guidance.

The Soviets naturally are worried.

Moscow insists its new bomber is a medium rather than a strategic bomber and therefore not a threat to the United States.

The development of these new and more sophisticated weapons threatens the negotiations for the proposed decade-long Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II), placing in doubt Leonid Brezhnev's often-postponed trip to the United States and, indeed, detente, as well.

IT'S CLEAR that meaningful progress must be made soon toward the signing of SALT II before it becomes enmeshed in next year's presidential campaign as an emotional issue for which there could be no resolution.

Neither is Brezhnev without his critics at home. He had been counting on his second Washington visit, centering around the signing of SALT II, and the resulting favorable economic consequences as the main theme of the crucial

Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in February.

One way to head off the threatened renewal of the arms race which so endangers detente would be for the Soviet Union to deny via a public commitment a strategic role for its new bomber and to restrain the rate of deployment for its big MIRV-tipped ICBMs. The United States at the same time could suspend flight-testing of its long-range cruise missiles.

THE ARMS RACE must be curbed. No less than our survival is at stake, although we have lived for so long under the threat of total war that such a reality is sometimes difficult to accept.

The foreign opposition to U.S.-Soviet detente was apparent in Peking this week in the cool exchanges between U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and his Chinese counterpart, Foreign Minister Chiao Kuan-hua. Kissinger said, "We will nurture our relationships by respecting each other's views regarding our national interest. We are satisfied with our visit." Cool words. In his reply the Chinese foreign minister used no other words than "useful" to describe his talks with Kissinger. Equally cool words.

Earlier during the Kissinger visit the vice premier, Teng Hsiao-ping, likened America's detente approach to the Soviet Union with pre-

World War II appeasement of Nazi Germany. Downright harsh words.

Diplomats say the Chinese declarations underline Peking's opposition to the U.S. policy of detente with Russia, China's arch enemy, and the Ford Administration's determination to stick to that policy.

Foreign relations thus remains a dangerous game.

Political and diplomatic courage at the very top in both Washington and Moscow must be exhibited to overrule those, especially in the military establishments of both countries, who would scuttle detente, and to complete SALT II now before both the opportunity and detente are lost. □

TUESDAY

VOL. VIII DATE: November 11, 1975

NO. 216

THE WASHINGTON POST Tuesday, Nov. 11, 1975

# Kissinger Says
# Soviet Must End
# SALT Deadlock

## Rejection
## Of U.S.
## Plan Cited

By Marilyn Berger

Washington Post Staff Writer

Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger said yesterday that it is up to the Soviet Union to put forward a compromise proposal that will break the deadlock on the strategic arms limitation talks.

Speaking to reporters a
week after Moscow rejected
an American proposal without
putting forward any sub-
stantive plan of its own,
Kissinger said:

"We don't believe that the
mere fact that the Soviet
Union has rejected an
American proposal requires
us to come forward with
another . . . We cannot
establish the principle that all
the other side has to do is to
reject an American proposal

in order to elicit another
proposal."

Said Kissinger: "We are
still expecting some reasoned
response."

His theme at yesterday's
press conference—that it is up
to the Soviet Union to make
the next move—reflected the
mood in the administration
that President Ford sought to
convey on Sunday when he
said "I feel under no pressure
to get an agreement by a date
certain."

Soviet Communist Party
chief Leonid I. Brezhnev
reportedly had hoped to get a
SALT agreement and a Soviet-
American summit before the
Feb. 25 Soviet Communist
Party meeting.

Kissinger, in his press
conference at the State
Department, said, "We do not
conceive right now of a
summit without a SALT
agreement, certainly not a
visit by Mr. Brezhnev to the
United States without a SALT
agreement." But he did not
entirely foreclose a Brezhnev-
Ford meeting, saying:

"If a meeting . . . would
appear desirable we are not
going to make an issue of
principle out of this . . . It has

not been discussed and . . . no
such plan exists at the
moment but I don't want to
exclude it for all time." U.S.
officials said this left more of
an opening than Kissinger had
ever left before for such a
meeting.

Kissinger reiterated that 90
per cent of the SALT
agreement is substantially
complete. The remaining 10
per cent, he said, is "of con-
siderable significance" but
not "unbridgeable."

He acknowledged that a
formula still needs to be found
for the Soviet Backfire
bomber and for the U.S. cruise
missile—a weapon similar to a
pilotless aircraft that can be
launched from bombers or
submarines. The U.S.
proposal that was given to the
Soviet Union on Sept. 21 and
which Moscow has now
rejected would have included
them in a new category added
to the limitations agreed upon
at Vladivostok.

Kissinger said the problem
that exists now is how to deal
with "hybrid systems that are
designed for one mission but
are also capable of carrying
out another mission." The
Soviet Union contends that the
Backfire is not an in-
tercontinental aircraft, but
Kissinger said it is capable of

flying one-way missions from
the Soviet Union to the United
States.

Kissinger, who was
reputed—some say
mistakenly—to have taken a
softer line toward the
Russians than did departing
Secretary of Defense James
R. Schlesinger, sounded tough
yesterday. "If the Soviet
Union threatens our national
interests or the national in-
terests of any of our allies,"
Kissinger said, "the United
States will resist."

He added: "The United
States will not hold still for
any hegemonial aspirations."
The Chinese have used the
word as part of their
sloganeering critical of the
Soviet Union. Thus his remark
looked like a signal to the
Chinese that the United States
was not letting down its guard
against the Soviet Union."

Kissinger said President
Ford's trip to China is "on
schedule and the appropriate
announcements will be made
in due time." An advance
party delayed its departure,
giving rise to speculation that
there had been some hitch.

In his press conference,
Kissinger made these other
points:

- That Soviet and Cuban
intervention in Angola is "a
serious matter" and so far as
the Soviet Union is concerned,
"not compatible with the
spirit of relaxation of ten-
sions."

- That the Central
Intelligence Agency, during
his time in Washington, was
always under presidential
control. He denied that he had
ever authorized any covert
operations himself.

In an apparent reference to
the decision to arm the Kurds,
Kissinger said that the CIA
had opposed the plan not on
substantive grounds but
because it believed the
operations could not be kept
secret. "President Nixon,"
he said, "decided that he was
prepared to run that risk."

1=a

UP-123

(ABM)

WASHINGTON (UPI) -- THE SENATE TODAY RATIFIED A TREATY NEGOTIATED BY PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON IN MOSCOW IN 1974 -- IMMEDIATELY BEFORE HIS RESIGNATION -- LIMITING THE UNITED STATES AND SOVIET UNION TO A SINGLE ANTI-BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE SITE.

THE SENATE APPROVED THE ACCORD BY A VOTE OF 65-15, EASILY OBTAINING THE REQUIRED TWO-THIRDS MAJORITY OF THOSE PRESENT AND VOTING.

UNDER THE AGREEMENT, THE UNITED STATES WILL BE LIMITED TO A SINGLE ABM FIELD AT GRAND FORKS AFB, N.D., WHILE THE SOVIET UNION WILL MAINTAIN SIMILAR ANTI-MISSILE DEFENSES AROUND MOSCOW.

BOTH SIDES CAN GIVE NOTICE TO THE OTHER IN 1977-1978 THAT THEY WOULD LIKE TO SWITCH THE ARRANGEMENTS, WITH THE UNITED STATES CONSTRUCTING A SINGLE ABM DEFENSE AROUND WASHINGTON AND THE SOVIET UNION BUILDING A SIMILAR DEFENSE AROUND ONE OF ITS STRATEGIC MISSILE FIELDS.

THE TREATY APPROVED TODAY BY THE SENATE IS A "PROTOCOL" OR AN ADDITION TO THE 1972 U.S.-SOVIET ANTI-BALLISTIC MISSILE TREATY. THIS WAS ONE OF THE KEY ACCORDS OF NIXON'S FIRST SUMMIT CONFERENCE IN MOSCOW AND PERMITTED BOTH SIDES TO MAINTAIN TWO ABM SITES.

BOTH SUPERPOWERS FOUND THE COST OF ERECTING THESE ANTI-MISSILE MISSILE DEFENSES SO HIGH THEY DECIDED AGAINST BUILDING THE OPTIONAL SECOND SITE.

NIXON'S FINAL SUMMIT CONFERENCE IN MOSCOW IN 1974 ALSO PRODUCED A SECOND TREATY, WHICH CRITICS CALLED "COSMETIC", LIMITING UNDERGROUND TESTS TO NUCLEAR WEAPONS WHOSE YIELD IS 150 KILOTONS OR LESS.

THE MAXIMUM BLAST WOULD BE ABOUT SEVEN TIMES THE FORCE OF THE R-BOMB WHICH DEVASTED HIROSHIMA IN 1945.

THE ARMS CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT AGENCY SAID THIS ACCORD HAS NOT BEEN FORWARDED TO THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE PENDING THE COMPLETION OF A COMPANION AGREEMENT WITH THE SOVIET UNION CONTROLLING NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS FOR PEACEFUL USES.

-UPI 11-10 04:46 PES

THE SUN, Tuesday,

Case for a SALT II Delay

SALT II negotiations with the Soviet Union have become so deeply enmeshed in presidential politics that it may be wise to delay the conclusion of a treaty until after the 1976 elections. This may be an embarrassment for Soviet party chief Brezhnev, who evidently wanted a new strategic arms limitation agreement for his party conference in February. It may be a setback for President Ford, who saw how Mr. Nixon used the SALT I treaty as a political asset during the 1972 campaign. And it may be a disappointment to those who worry about the increasing overkill in superpower arsenals and the consequent spread of nuclear weapons. Yet for all this, the case for a SALT II delay has been strengthened by the President's firing of former Defense Secretary Schlesinger.

If it was Mr. Ford's intent to brighten prospects for an early treaty, he seems to have miscalculated. Rightwing Republicans plus some Democratic hawks suddenly have discovered qualities in Mr. Schlesinger that they never saw while he was in office. Reaganites, in particular, would like to parlay Mr. Schlesinger's hard-line on detente by attacking the administration's next defense budget and the Nixon-Ford-Kissinger record in strategic arms negotiations. This leaves the beleaguered President with the unhappy choice of hanging tough in an obvious

way, or of signing a SALT II treaty that is patently meaningless, or of letting talks sputter inconclusively until next November.

Of these three alternatives, the latter is preferable. It would permit the next President, whoever he is, to seek a real reversal of the nuclear arms race as one of his first major objectives. He would not be stuck with official positions taken in pursuit of Mr. Ford's political interests, or with a phony SALT II treaty that would hinder genuine arms reductions.

Every delay in American-Soviet arms cutbacks is something to be lamented. But it is well to remember that SALT I does not expire until May 26, 1977. It is also worth noting that the Vladivostok agreement signed a year ago by Mr. Brezhnev and Mr. Ford looks shakier than ever with the passage of time. Not only did these two leaders set ceilings at unconscionably high levels but they failed to deal with the Soviet Backfire bomber and American cruise missile systems—two issues now hindering SALT II. Perhaps Mr. Brezhnev will promptly accept U. S. proposals that both weapons systems be added atop the Vladivostok ceilings. But we doubt it; and we also doubt whether such an exercise would be in the interests of arms control. It might be the better part of wisdom to avoid decisive action until the elections are over.

TIME, NOVEMBER 17, 1975

EXCERPTS

Kissinger believes that it would have been easier to forge a SALT II pact with the Soviets if Schlesinger had remained Secretary of Defense. Though the two men differed fundamentally about détente (see page 20), Kissinger respected Schlesinger's intellect and feels they would have reached a compromise. In contrast, Kissinger has no great regard for Rumsfeld. The Soviets have rejected the latest U.S. position on SALT, and Kissinger fears he must wait until Rumsfeld is confirmed, probably early next year, before finishing work on a new negotiating proposal. Beyond that, the Administration may feel the need to take a tougher position to show conservatives that the firing of Schlesinger does not signal a new American softness. Schlesinger is expected to be called before Congress to testify on the SALT talks, and his opposition may well harden feelings against détente.

Rumsfeld is believed to hold Schlesinger's view that the U.S. should de-

mand more concessions from the Soviets. Last summer, while Ford was flying to Brussels to attend a NATO conference, Rumsfeld worked with him to toughen his language in a speech on détente. Among the statements they composed was a call for a "realistic agenda for détente, an agenda that serves our interests and not the interests of others who do not share our values... that anticipates and precludes the exploitation of our perceived weaknesses."

If Rumsfeld concludes that a SALT agreement will jeopardize Ford's election chances, he might recommend that it be delayed until 1977. Indeed, Ford said at his press conference that the U.S. was "under no time pressure" on SALT.

While Ford insisted that his personnel shake-up did not reflect "any weakness" on national defense, U.S. allies and adversaries were confused about what the changes would mean. Though the Soviets have often criticized Schlesinger as an ugly American, Moscow reacted cautiously to his ouster, because Rums-

feld is virtually unknown to them. In contrast, the Chinese officials feared that Schlesinger's firing could produce closer ties between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Now they may want to assess the impact of the Cabinet shuffle before confirming that Ford's China trip will take place as scheduled in early December.

South Koreans were shaken by the loss of Schlesinger, who had been extremely popular because of his recommendation that the U.S. use "nuclear weapons if necessary" to repel any attack from the North. Schlesinger's replacement by Rumsfeld dismayed many European defense officials, who are afraid that the new man will pay more attention to the winds of American politics than the needs of facing up to the Russians. NATO officials got a good look at Rumsfeld while he was the U.S. Ambassador to the alliance, and while they became used to his crisp style, they rank him far behind Schlesinger, who they feel is a brilliant strategist. One NATO official said that his colleagues welcomed having "a tough-minded guy like Schlesinger around who acts as an alternative opinion to Kissinger."

3

DIPLOMACY

Out of the Nuclear Closet

One of the worst-kept secrets in the Middle East is Israel's nuclear capability. For nearly a decade, Israel has had the materials and scientific talent needed to make atomic weapons, as well as some means of firing them on Arab targets. Jerusalem has consistently refused to acknowledge its nuclear muscle; yet since it is fooling practically no one, what is to be gained by ambiguity? Not much, argues Robert W. Tucker, professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University. In the November issue of *Commentary*, Tucker suggests that Israel should seriously consider making public the existence of an atomic arsenal and adopt a defense policy "based on a known nuclear deterrent."

Tucker, 51, is emerging as something of a superhawk on Middle Eastern affairs. Last January, in another much-debated *Commentary* article, he laid out a blueprint for a U.S. military takeover of Persian Gulf oil wells in the event of another Arab oil embargo. In an interview with *TIME* last week, he argued that the nuclear situation in the Middle East "is going to evolve anyway. The real question then is: What is the best way to have it evolve? My concept of an Israeli nuclear deterrent may create the context in which the Israelis will feel secure enough to move toward a permanent settlement."

As Tucker sees it, Israel's announcement of a nuclear capability would:

1) Give the Jewish state a means of competing with the Arabs' growing military strength without putting "the Israeli economy under serious strain," as would continued reliance on conventional weapons alone;

2) Provide a "substitute for territorial security," allowing Israel to give up occupied Arab territories "without the need to insist upon concessions the Arabs will almost surely not make";

3) Create an environment in which war becomes potentially so devastating that "the less responsible activists would be seen as posing enormous dangers to

all parties and the need to control them would soon be expressed in policy";

4) Reduce Jerusalem's dependence on the U.S., since "with a nuclear deterrent, Israel's destiny need no longer rest it. American hands."

Tucker concedes that his proposal, if adopted by Israel, would "provoke a uniformly adverse reaction abroad." He also recognizes some dangers in his suggestions, such as the start of an atomic arms race in the Middle East and disappointment by Washington that could result in "sharply reduced American arms support" for Israel. He insists, however, that the Arabs will probably acquire atomic weapons anyway. His reason: "[Their] wealth and power, as well as the ever-increasing availability of nuclear technology." In fact, last week Egypt and the U.S. initialed an agreement for the construction in Egypt of two nuclear power generators. Even so, Tucker argues, a "nuclear [weapons] environment" in the region would give the Arab states "a very great incentive and justification to move in the direction" of reaching an accommodation with Israel.

There are some flaws in this chilling proposal. Tucker claims that an Israeli nuclear deterrent would inhibit the Arab states from mounting a war of attrition. But what would prevent the Arabs from threatening nuclear retaliation? This would neutralize Jerusalem's nuclear deterrent and force the Israelis to counter an Arab attack using conventional forces. Jerusalem might then find itself bogged down in the kind of long, costly campaign that, according to Tucker, should have been averted by an open nuclear strategy. Tucker's proposals also leave little room for miscalculation. If a Middle East "nuclear balance" does not, in fact, have the "stabilizing effect" he predicts, a calculation by either side could trigger a war infinitely more catastrophic than any waged with conventional weapons.

It is unlikely that the Israeli government will soon follow Tucker's advice. The attitude of its leaders has not changed much since 1966, when Shimon Peres (now Defense Minister) told the Knesset: "I know that the Arabs sus-

TIME, NOVEMBER 17, 1975

Friday, November 7, 1975

4

## CBS Evening News: MANIPULATION OF INTELLIGENCE TO PROMOTE DETENTE?

**Cronkite:** While President Ford spoke about US military strength, the issue of what's been said about Soviet military strength is becoming a controversy, and possibly a scandal, in Washington. The question: whether US intelligence data on Soviet military power was altered for political purposes. Yesterday, the House Intelligence Committee voted to subpoena documents from the White House in order to investigate the matter.

**Schorr:** What the subpoena calls for is the most secret data on the Soviet arms buildup. The aim: to establish whether US intelligence was manipulated to promote detente. With backstage help from insiders and a report from ex-Defense Secretary Melvin Laird, the Committee is investigating these allegations:

- that "double bookkeeping" was maintained, with different kinds of projections of Soviet strength, using estimates higher than many expected to argue that an arms control treaty would hold back Soviet expansion.

- that pressure was put on the Intelligence Community to come up with more acceptable figures by sending back reports for further study.

- that evidence of Soviet violation of arms control agreements was suppressed or, as reported, "discouraged."

A source close to Secretary Kissinger denied any such bias, but said the documents, if turned over, may show the inherent ambiguities in using such intelligence. The source said Soviet cheating was often a matter of interpretation and legal judgement, and sometime no protest was made to avoid compromising secret sources.

Coincident with his firing of Secretary Schlesinger, a long-seething controversy within the Government appears about to explode over whether detente politics has been played with, strategic intelligence.

National Town Meeting

### Issue

"An Appraisal of Henry Kissinger"

### Panel

Rep. Michael Harrington (D.-Mass.)
-Int. Relations Comm.

Joseph Kraft-Syndicated Columnist
G. Warren Nutter -Former Asst. Def. Sec.

### Moderator

Leslie Gelb-New York Times

Wednesday, Nov. 12, 10:30 AM

John F. Kennedy Center-Concert Hall
Admission Free

RADIO
WETA-FM
90.9

Thursday
Nov. 13
6:30 PM

THE NEW YORK TIMES, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11

6

# U.S. and Soviet Examine Detente

By DAVID K. SHIPLER
Special to The New York Times

MOSCOW, Nov. 10 — The United States and the Soviet Union are entering a period in which their foreign policies, and especially the policy of détente, will undergo seri-

ous scrutiny at home — in the United States because of the Presidential campaign, in the Soviet Union

because of the twenty-fifth Communist Party congress.

The warm-ups for these events both of which take place in 1976, have begun. They underscore the degree to which caution, and even mutual suspicion, have remained corollaries to the main proposition that tension must be reduced and cooperative relations enhanced

Last Friday President Ford, speaking in Boston, and Defense Minister Andrei A. Grechko, speaking in Moscow, made strikingly similar remarks on the need for strong military capabilities even while pursuing improved Soviet-American relations.

In the face of "aggressive imperialist forces," Marshal Grechko declared, the Soviet Union will "make untiring efforts to strengthen the economic and defensive might of qar motherland."

"America's armed forces today are second to none," President Ford asserted, "and I will take whatever steps are necessary to see that they remain second to none."

## Both Urge Vigilance

Elsewhere in their speeches, both men used the word "vigilance," a reminder that détente is only one of the many currents and cross-currents that run through political life in Washington and Moscow these days.

Furthermore, it highlights the constant pressure to define and redefine, to adjust and recalibrate détente, a process now taking place on both sides within different political contexts.

Mr. Ford, approaching an election year, was clearly responding to the conservative forces of American politics, particularly those Republicans who objected to his dismissal of James R. Schlesinger, the Secretary of Defense.

But his remarks may have been meant also for the Krem-

lin, where Mr. Schlesinger—in his advocacy of a tougher bargaining position in arms limitation talks — was seen as an opponent of détente, and Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger as its champion.

Mr. Schlesinger had been routinely vilified by the Soviet press, his positions labeled as "concoctions," "inventions" and "crude criticism." Mr. Kissinger is almost never attacked.

Some concern had been reported from Washington that the Kremlin might see in the ouster of Mr. Schlesinger and the retention of Mr. Kissinger some signal that the United States was prepared to make further concessions in the arms negotiations, and might therefore harden its position.

However, while Soviet leaders may be privately pleased at Mr. Schlesinger's departure no hint of this has appeared publicly, and nothing has been expressed to indicate that they have read in the dismissal a significant loosening of American policy.

On the contrary, the official press has avoided direct comment, and has stressed in its reports the President's stated, commitment to a continuity of foreign policy. The government newspaper Izvestia concluded an article on the subject by saying that it would take some time to analyze the meaning of the Cabinet changes.

This restraint seems to testify to the view of some diplomats that the Russians have grown increasingly sophisticated over the last three or four years in their analyses of American politics and are not inclined to rush into sweeping judgments.

"They worry about Ford," an American official remarked. "They know his background. They know he'll probably have to go up against Reagan."

An expression of that worry was found in the report on the Ford speech in Boston carried by the Soviet press agency Tass; which contended that the President was "evidently paying tribute to the supporters of the preservation of tension."

## Definition Being Sharpened

Such evaluations have emerged as important ingredients of the Soviet definition of détente, a definition that some diplomats think Moscow is trying to sharpen in preparation for the party congress in February.

Sharpening the definition has

meant drawing the lines more clearly, shaping the limits more explicitly, and in this respect the Kremlin has made clear that it rejects the Western notion that relaxing international tensions should mean relaxing government control over the political behavior of Soviet citizens.

Those who attack the Soviet Union for its violations of human rights are placed by the Soviet press in roughly the same category as those who advocate a strong Western defense establishment.

These, Moscow declares, are the enemies of détente, and in recent months the Russians have hit back regularly on human rights issues, ridiculing American ideas of freedom, calling Western democracy illusory and asserting as a polit-buro member did last week:

"Human rights in our country are quite real and effective. They are guaranteed and insured by the socialist system, by the people's power, more fully and effectively than in any capitalist country."

## Ideological Struggle Goes On

The statement was made by Arvid Y. Pelshe at a ceremony opening celebrations of the 58th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. He asserted, as has Leonid I. Brezhnev, the party chief, that military and economic détente did not mean an end to the struggle between ideologies.

"Class peculiarities and differences inevitably presuppose the confrontation of world outlooks," Mr. Pelshe said, adding, "A profound crisis is developing now in the capitalist world and aggravating all its contradictions."

Mr. Pelshe's view of the crisis of capitalism is not shared universally by soviet ideologists, who have been locked in a relatively open debate on the subject for some months. Some believe that the economic difficulties in the West are profound and perhaps terminal; others insist that they are merely cyclical.

To what degree such analysis influences Soviet policy toward détente, or toward Communist parties in the West, or toward

the third world, is a matter of divergent opinion among professional Soviet-watchers. Some think it has no effect, but represents only the honing of ideology for internal political purposes.

Nor can the Soviet-watchers agree on a more fundamental matter: a description of the political forces at work within the Kremlin's highest ranks.

Curiously, the disagreements seem correlated with geography: many academic and diplomatic analysts in the United States tend to see Mr. Brezhnev's détente policy threatened by harder-line factions in the military and elsewhere; many of those in Moscow believe that the Politburo is virtually unanimous in support of détente and that the only differences are subtle and undramatic.

But it is détente as the Russians define it, the diplomats stress. It has both a military and an economic objective: to limit the arms race, relax tensions and avoid nuclear war, and to increase Western trade so that over the next decade, the Soviet Union can buy badly needed Western technology.

It does not necessarily mean less competition with the United States in Portugal, in the Middle East, in Africa. As one diplomat put it, the Soviet view of détente reads, "Relax tensions, but keep your gulf up."

TIME, NOVEMBER 17, 1975

7

Détente: H.K. v. J.S.

Henry Kissinger and James Schlesinger, the two most brilliant members of Gerald Ford's Cabinet, have disagreed sharply and frequently on the meaning and objectives of détente. What are their differences? Briefly put, Kissinger thinks any nuclear exchange between the superpowers would be disastrous, involving "colossal, indeed catastrophic damage." Schlesinger is just as appalled at the prospect of such an exchange, but he argues that a limited war with tactical nuclear weapons must be seriously considered and planned for. "What we need," he has said, "is a series of measured responses to aggression that bear some relation to the provocation [and] have prospects of terminating hostilities before general nuclear war breaks out."

Schlesinger watched Moscow's rising defense expenditures with concern, counting every new missile and tank and worrying that the military balance was gradually shifting in the Soviets' favor. He feared that the perception of military strength was as important as the strength itself. Accordingly, if the Russians believed themselves to be superior to the U.S., whether in fact they were or not, they would be tempted to test American resolve. In numerous speeches, he maintained that in constant dollars U.S. defense expenditures have dropped 20% since 1964, while Soviet expenditures have increased by about 40% during the same period.

Kissinger, by contrast, feels numbers alone do not tell the story. The U.S., he says, has the power to destroy the Soviet Union several times over—and vice versa; adding to the number of American missiles would be futile. An enemy can be killed only once, his reasoning goes. He believes the U.S. needs only a "sufficiency" of arms to deter the Soviets, not a superiority, and that sufficiency already exists.

The negotiations with the Russians over the second phase of the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT II) have sharpened the dispute. The talks have been at a standstill since July, when Kissinger made a series of new proposals to Moscow. The Russians did not reply until two weeks ago, and when they did, they simply passed over the new proposals.

In SALT I, signed in 1972, the U.S. allowed the Soviets numerical superiority in ballistic missile launchers (2,358 v. 1,710 for the U.S.). This advantage,

Washington reasoned, was balanced by three factors: the greater accuracy of the U.S. missiles; a big American lead in the development of MIRVs—clusters of missiles independently aimed from a big rocket as it nears target; and U.S. bombers and bases near the U.S.S.R. But, Schlesinger's Pentagon now complains, the Soviets perfected their MIRV technology sooner than anticipated, giving them an even greater potential superiority in numbers. The Russian missiles have greater throw-weights—that is, they can carry more and bigger warheads—the Pentagon also points out; thus even if the number of launchers was equal, the So-

miles). The Pentagon counters that air-to-air refueling could send it to the U.S. and back. The U.S.'s July proposal to the Soviets suggested a compromise that would limit both Backfires and cruise missiles. Reflecting his distrust of Moscow, Schlesinger argues, however, that the Soviets will eventually perfect cruise missiles of their own to match ours. Once they do, he says, they will unquestionably cheat in declaring how many of the easily concealed weapons are in their army. When the whole issue of arms negotiations was raised at a recent National Security Council meeting, Kissinger and Schlesinger engaged in what one on-the-scene observer described as the most heated exchange in the Security Council in memory.

> It is sometimes said that Schlesinger's profound distrust of détente stems from a fundamental pessimism about human nature, or at least about the American people. Schlesinger argues that the opposite is more nearly true. He is, he says, basically optimistic about the strength of the U.S. and the capacity of its people to respond to challenge despite a temporary lack of confidence in the wake of Watergate and Viet Nam. Thus it is unnecessary to make disadvantageous deals with the Soviet Union simply for the sake of buying time, since the U.S. will eventually snap out of its despondent mood anyway.

> It is Kissinger who is the pessimist, Schlesinger maintains, because the Secretary of State fears the West may generally be in decline and not just temporarily weakened by the events of the past decade. Indeed, Kissinger has argued that détente is necessary largely because Congress and the people will simply not stomach the effort and sacrifice necessary for confrontational policies and what Schlesinger would call a strong defense posture and a tougher bargaining stance.

In the main, Kissinger believes, détente has served the U.S. well. The U.S., he feels, has not given up anything vital to the Russians. Washington, his argument goes, has extracted from the Kremlin all that can reasonably be expected as a result of détente. More pressure might cause Moscow to reject détente entirely, just as it rejected a Soviet-American trade agreement earlier this year, when Congress insisted, as part of the package, that more Soviet Jews be allowed to emigrate. Indeed, Kissinger concludes, détente may have been oversold in the U.S. It is not a panacea for peace. It is instead a means by which two mutually hostile societies can compete, co-exist and occasionally resolve their differences.

DRAWING BY RICHTER; © 1974 THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE, INC.

"Détente"

viets would have a strategic edge. In response, the U.S. military is now promoting development of the "cruise missile," a long-range, jet-propelled, guided bomb that can be launched from either a bomber, a ship or a submarine. Capable of flying close to the earth and therefore below enemy radar, the missile has a range of 1,500 miles and is extraordinarily accurate. The Pentagon says that since the cruise missile flies through the atmosphere, it should not be counted with ICBMs, which travel through space, in the SALT II ceiling. The Russians insist that it should be included.

At the same time, the Russians argue that their new Backfire bomber should be excluded from SALT II because it has only a limited range (5,500 to 6,000

U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, Nov. 17, 1975

PENTAGON: A STRONG VOICE IS STILLED

8

The international reaction to the abrupt firing of James Schlesinger tells a lot about the ousted Secretary of Defense—and the significance of his removal from office.

The dismissal caused dismay in West Germany—but was welcomed in the Soviet Union.

The reaction is explained this way: Mr. Schlesinger is widely regarded as the strongest Defense Secretary ever to run the Pentagon—a fact that encouraged U.S. allies in Europe and disturbed the Russians.

During his 28 months at the Pentagon, he also stood out as the most knowledgeable voice in the Ford Administration questioning détente with the Soviet Union and challenging concessions to Moscow.

Mr. Schlesinger's tough stand on dealing with the Russians brought him into constant conflict with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

The running feud between these two Harvard-trained intellectuals revolved around three fundamental issues:

1. **Détente.** Mr. Schlesinger saw real dangers for long-term U.S. security in what he regarded as Mr. Kissinger's obsession with détente. In the view of the ousted Defense Secretary, Russia's aim remains unchanged: to achieve strategic superiority over the U.S., rather than to work out a live-and-let-live relationship. In the atmosphere of détente, he feared that U.S. military strength would be allowed to run down while the Soviets pushed ahead with what he called "the most massive deployment of strategic-missile systems that the world has yet seen."

The differences between the two powerful Cabinet personalities over relations with Communist Russia were dramatized last July by the Alexander Solzhenitsyn affair. The Secretary of State advised President Ford to snub the visiting Nobel Prize-winning Russian author rather than risk antagonizing Kremlin

leaders. The former Secretary of Defense, by contrast, appeared conspicuously at a banquet honoring the exiled novelist, who used the occasion for a savage denunciation of the whole policy of détente.

2. **Negotiating strategy.** Mr. Schlesinger believes that Mr. Kissinger's method of doing business with Russia has a built-in bias in favor of concessions to Moscow. The purged Defense Secretary has argued consistently that the U.S. can afford to hold out for concessions in any negotiations because Russia stands to gain more from agreement than America does.

In the current SALT II arms negotiations—now at a critical point—Mr. Schlesinger insisted on a firm U.S. stand, even if this led to a breakdown. The Secretary of State argued for a more conciliatory approach on the ground that failure of the negotiations could lead to an unraveling of détente.

3. **Arms balance.** Both men accept the need for strong U.S. defense forces. However, they disagree sharply on what this implies. The Secretary of State publicly has debunked the idea of strategic superiority in a nuclear age when the two superpowers can destroy each other several times over. He is unworried by the fact that Russia has vastly more powerful missiles than the U.S. Mr. Schlesinger, on the other hand, has warned repeatedly that it would be dangerous—politically and psychologically if not militarily—for Russia to be allowed to create the impression of strategic superiority. Other countries around the world, in his opinion, would lose confidence in the U.S. and move to an accommodation with the Soviet Union.

It was Mr. Schlesinger's passionate advocacy of his views against those of the Secretary of State and, more recently, those of an economy-minded Congress and of the White House, that led to his downfall.

JOSEPH C. HARSCH

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

9

# The Ford-Moscow-Peking triangle

Any reporter familiar with the world and knowing in advance what President Ford was going to do could have written, in advance the reactions of both Moscow and Peking.

James Schlesinger, U.S. Secretary of Defense, had become the symbol of American skepticism about "detente." Moscow was bound to be relieved to read the news that he had been dropped from the Ford "team." And Peking was bound to be distressed.

It has for some time been the main theme of Peking comment on world affairs that Mr. Schlesinger was the one person in Washington who truly understood the "Soviet threat" to the peace of the world. The Chinese have made it equally clear that in their opinion U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is "soft on Soviets," i.e., so eager to get his "detente" with them formalized in a SALT II treaty that he will do far too much for them even at the risk of the safety of China and of the general peace.

The actual reactions to the dropping of Mr. Schlesinger have been precisely what one would have expected. Moscow was pleased and relieved. Peking was so distressed that it promptly put a stop on planning for President Ford's impending visit. At this writing it seems possible it might be called off entirely.

In part both of these actions are superficial and unrealistic. The departure of Mr. Schlesinger from the Ford Cabinet will not put an end to skepticism in Washington about de-

tente. On the contrary those who are skeptical will become more vocal than ever because they will no longer hear their point of view being argued from inside the Cabinet. They will feel that they will have to compensate from outside. Thus the case against "detente" may be pressed even harder now than it was being pressed before. So the Soviets may be unduly relieved and the Chinese unduly distressed.

In one other respect the apparent Chinese inclination to call off the Ford visit as punishment for sacking Mr. Schlesinger makes a lot of common sense.

The Ford reshuffle of his Cabinet means above all that Mr. Ford was trying to free his desk as much as possible of the business of government in order to be able to spend more time on political campaigning. Disagreement within his Cabinet requires time and attention and difficult decisions. A Cabinet which can resolve or defer decisions without bothering the President frees his time for other things. It seems clear enough that Mr. Ford enjoys politics and wants all the time he can possibly get for it.

This means that Mr. Ford is going to put into his pending basket all the important government business he can, from now right through his own moment of political conclusion. That in turn means that Mr. Ford's foreign policy activities will consist more of dramatics than of substance from now until he is either

nominated or not nominated by the Republicans next summer and elected or not elected by the voters next November.

So, if the Chinese want to be realistic they can well ask themselves what good a Ford visit is likely to do them during this period which due to the demands of the American political system on an incumbent President running for re-election, must inevitably be something of an interregnum.

The trip, if it takes place, will be good for Mr. Ford's political image at home. If the Chinese were reasonably sure that he will be an elected President come next November it would be well worth their while to have him over and let him enjoy for a few days what most gourmets say is the finest food to be had anywhere in the world.

There is always something of a gamble in these decisions. The Poles and Romanians were hospitable to Richard Nixon when he visited them after his defeat in California and was presumed to have ended his political career. He was grateful after he reached the White House. Both Poles and Romanians were handsomely rewarded.

If the Chinese take a chance and show Mr. Ford the ancient glories and current culinary delights of Peking — they may be rewarded later. But they also might be wasting their time. It will be fascinating to see which way they decide to play this hand.

To Marxists

## COLLAPSE OF AMERICA IS "AN ACT OF FAITH"

U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, Nov. 17.

### MOSCOW

For the men who watch the world through the Kremlin's ornate windows, America's successes must seem puzzling and frustrating.

As good Marxists, they are genuinely convinced that American inflation, unemployment, bankruptcies, strikes and race upheavals signal capitalism's predicted crisis and collapse.

But as practical men, they see an America that can grow grain when Russia cannot, can get Arabs and Israelis to the bargaining table, and can shrug off the wreckage of Indo-China with scarcely a political ripple inside the U.S.

Soviet officials recognize, privately at least, that the U.S. currently is doing very well in the world. This does not particularly bother them. Communist Party chief Leonid Brezhnev and his top deputies have been around a long time. They have watched national fortunes for many nations ebb, peak and ebb again. They are certain American fortunes will fall again.

What does bother the Kremlin is how to deal with an America that seems disinterested in Moscow's ver-

sion of "genuine détente" and how— or whether—to give history a push by trying to exploit economic and political troubles that still plague the U.S. and other Western nations.

Russia, at least for now, needs and wants far more from the U.S. than the U.S. needs or wants from Russia.

The most obvious example of this is American grain. Russian failure to get U.S. grain would not mean fame in the Soviet Union, but it would set back for years Kremlin plans for improving the life of the Russian people.

**If arms are curbed—.** New limits on strategic nuclear weapons also are more important to Moscow than to Washington. Even a sweeping SALT II agreement would leave each of the two nations enough arms to destroy the other many times over. The real importance of an accord to Russia would be an opportunity to stave off fresh outlays of money and technology in a renewed arms race.

The Kremlin clearly resents recent American successes overseas. But analysts in Moscow see no danger that Russia will spark a confrontation to reassert Soviet status. Brinkmanship

fits neither the temper nor aims of Mr. Brezhnev.

Very likely, however, is a nibbling campaign against the West's weak points. Portugal and Spain are inviting targets. Moscow is urging Communist parties and the trade-unions in France, Italy and other Western European nations to be much more militant. Such a campaign could backfire against Moscow. But it also could disrupt European economic recovery and undermine the Atlantic Alliance. That would be bad news for Washington.

The Kremlin is encouraging Syria to shun an interim agreement with Israel on the Egyptian model. For the short run, tension between Turkey and Greece is a plus for Soviet policy. And wherever possible, Moscow will try to drive a wedge between the U.S. and "third world" nations, undermine America's military presence overseas and cast doubt on the worth of U.S. multinational corporations.

In Moscow, the final triumph of Russia—not America—is an act of faith. But the Soviets figure it does not hurt to give faith a nudge.

Election: Comment

C-9

Much of the criticism of Mr. Carter has been based on the
allegation that he avoids the issues. Much of the criticism of
Mr. Ford is similar, that you never know in advance what line he
is going to take on the next controversial issue that comes along.
Frequently, he changes his mind.

But is that quality the two men have of being unpredictable
such a bad thing? Isn't it really better to have in the White
House a man who keeps his thinking open on the issues which deeply
divide?

I would submit the thought that perhaps the voters understand
better than the pundits that the U.S. needs an open-minded pre-
siding officer at the head of its government rather than a partisan
and an ideologue. That is what the voters do seem to be going for.
-- (3/25/76)

Mr. Reagan Slides -- Uphill
 Inch, excerpted, Chicago Tribune)

Ronald Reagan's astonishing victory in North Carolina's
primary should remind us not to put too much faith in campaign
cliches. For example, the phrase "downhill slide." Mr. Reagan
seems to have gone into reverse and started sliding straight up.

A week before Tuesday's elections, he seemed to be virtually
finished as a serious presidential contender. Even in N.C., polls
indicated that he was well behind Mr. Ford. During that week,
however, Mr. Reagan mounted a strong drive for votes, emphasizing
TV appearances in which he attacked the administration's foreign
policy and virtually accused Mr. Ford and Secretary of State
Kissinger of sacrificing American interest on the alter of "dentente."

The approach was amazingly successful in attracting votes. We
do not think it did great credit to Mr. Reagan as a statesman. His
complaints seemed more an appeal to fear than to reason, and while
there is some merit to them, they tend to oversimplify complex is-
sues to the level of a cartoon. Yet the results clearly show that
foreign policy is a weak point for the Ford administration, and
that it had better concentrate on explaining -- and improving --
its position in that area.

The Reagan attack will perform a service for the nation if it
impels Mr. Ford to state clearly his views on U.S.-Soviet relations,
and to clear up some puzzling recent utterances by Dr. Kissinger.
Cliches and veiled warnings as to what the U.S. will not "acquiesce"
in are no longer satisfactory to great numbers of voters; that is
perhaps the clearest message from North Carolina. -- (3/25/76)

Election: News

N-14

"HEW (the Department of Health, Education and Welfare), for instance, has 400,000 people working for it," Wallace said. "I dare say that's 200,000 more people than they need." AP,UPI,NBC, CBS'Face the Nation -- (3/7/76)

Ford Rivals Make Crowd Roar by Going After Kissinger
(By Adam Clymer, excerpted, Baltimore Sun)

Henry A. Kissinger is the Ramsey Clark of the 1976 presi-
dential campaign. In 1968, crowds cheered when Richard M. Nixon
promised, unremarkably, to replace President Johnson's attorney
general, Mr. Clark. Now they shout approval when President
Ford's assorted rivals promise to sack his secretary of state.

The degree of personal criticism varies from candidate
to candidate. Some find good words for some of Mr. Kissinger's
accomplishments, some do not. But the attacks generally share
two elements, the charge that Mr. Kissinger is too secretive, too
distrustful of the American people, and the accusation that he
gets suckered by the Russians in the name of "detente."

The Kissinger-detente "issue" has obviously got to the
Ford campaign, but won't go away as quickly as the President
can make "detente" an unword by banishing it from the official
vocabulary.

Ronald Reagan offers few personal criticisms of Mr. Kissinger but obviously has him in mind when he complains of an "elite" in charge of foreign policy. He makes a point of saying that, as president, he will get his own secretary of state.

Senator Henry M. Jackson tells his audiences the way to better relations with the USSR is to be tough "because they respect toughness." He accuses Mr. Kissinger of trickery in dealing with the Senate on Jewish emigration from the USSR, and of having made bad arms deals. And he asks, "Wouldn't it be great if Pat Moynihan were secretary of state?"

Former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter accuses the administration of distrusting the American people, but he blames Mr. Kissinger directly. Mr. Carter also focuses in on detente, saying, "Every time we've negotiated with the Soviet Union in a tough trade, we've lost," from wheat to arms to Helsinki.

Gov. George C. Wallace of Alabama is virtually alone in
not offering very direct criticism. He insists the U.S. must
negotiate from military strength, but so does President Ford,
after all.

Election: News

N-15

Former Senator Fred R. Harris of Oklahoma blasts an "elitist, secretist group: that runs foreign policy, promises to put Mr. Kissinger "on unemployment compensation," and argues that when it comes to dealing with the Russians, the secretary is "helpful Henry" to the Kremlin.

Representative Morris K. Udall of Arizona probably dwells on detente and Mr. Kissinger less than any other Democratic candidate, but does assail the secretary as having misled the country about Chile, Cambodia, the bombing of Hanoi and his dealings with the Russians. -- (3/7/76)

Upset Flags Fly in Fla. Races

(By Jeffrey Antevil, excerpted, N.Y. Daily News)

President Ford appears headed for a decisive victory and George C. Wallace for a narrow win in Tuesday's Florida primary, but Jimmy Carter is breathing down Wallace's neck and could pull off an upset.

The predictions for the Democratic race, putting Sen. Henry Jackson in third place despite an intensive last-minute effort to capitalize on his Mass. primary victory, are based on a week of watching the three contenders for the party's moderate-to-conservative vote and on conversations with key party leaders throughout the state.

Political analysts predict that Ford will roll up 55% of the GOP vote with 45% going to Ronald Reagan. Such a dramatic reversal of Reagan's early lead in the state would be a crushing blow to the former California governor's candidacy.

The forecast is based on the fact that much of Florida's hard-core conservative vote has remained in the Democratic Party, where it will support Wallace this year, and on the success of Ford's campaign in recent weeks in putting together an effective organization and taking advantage of the power and aura of the presidency. -- (3/7/76)

Foreign Policy: Comment

C-3

Dump Detente? More Realism is Needed
(Editorial, excerpted, Charlotte Observer)

The politics of the Republican presidential campaign has resulted in President Ford's rejection of the word "detente." If Mr. Ford wants to stop saying "detente" we see no reason to quibble. Ronald Reagan has been attacking "detente," and if there is no "detente" he may have to find a new target.

Does the public really see American-Soviet efforts to reach some accords as "an across-the-board friendliness or absence of tension?" To the extent that people do view detente that way, no one is more at fault than Mr. Ford, his predecessor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. To be fair, these leaders have not been that simplistic in their descriptions of U.S.-Soviet relations. But they oversold the achievement known as detente.

We hope the 1976 political races will not result in an extreme reaction against detente that matches the previous overselling of it. There are grounds on which to meet the Soviets. We simply have to understand that they do not see detente as an end to their worldwide ambitions.

Forthcoming negotiations over arms reductions could be something of a test of how much the Soviets will apply the "spirit of detente" in fruitful efforts to reduce the potential horror of nuclear warfare. A big swing away from the idea of detente now could unnecessarily harden the American and Soviet positions in armaments negotiations.

We hope there will be no such big swing but that U.S.-Soviet relations will now be seen in a more realistic light than in the heady days when the magic word "detente" was constantly on the President's tongue. -- (3/3/76)

Iron Curtain Survives
(Editorial, excerpted, Grand Rapids Press)

President Ford vows he won't use the term detente again. Soviet Communist party boss Leonid Brezhnev sounds a warning to world Communists who are thinking about veering from Kremlin dictates. It all adds up to a deepening chill in relations between the Soviet Union and the United States and a shoring up of the Soviet monolith; in short, it means the "iron curtain" hasn't gone out of style.

The policy of detente, as molded in the U.S. by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, is to defuse critical disagreements between the major powers much like a series of small earth tremors can relieve the pressures which precede catastrophic earthquakes.

Foreign Policy: Comment

C-4

While the policy of detente no doubt will continue, talking about it has become a victim of the presidential election campaign. Even though the public may wrongly associate detente with events in Vietnam and Angola, President Ford apparently is unwilling to defend by name what has become a keystone in the Nixon-Ford foreign policy. -- (3/3/76)

U.S. Is Not Yet Second Rate Power
---
(Washington Week in Review)

"Ronald Reagan's charge that the U.S. has become a second rate power is not yet true," Charles Corddry said.

"However, if he were elected and today's trends continued he would be right before the end of his term," Corddry said.

"What Mr. Ford is trying to do is stop the present trend and start back up, and I think the fact of the matter is that Congress is being quite responsive to the kind of evidence it's hearing," Corddry commented.

"The dropping of the word 'detente' doesn't mean anything in terms of our policy," Corddry remarked, "but probably does mean a great deal in terms of the President's competition, Ronald Reagan."
-- (3/7/76)

The Soviet Fall Guy
---
(Editorial, excerpted, Chicago Tribune)

Chairman Leonid Brezhnev, 69, has survived the 25th Soviet Party Congress in spite of advancing age, reports of poor physical health, and neatly underplayed evidence of poor economic health. Two other oldsters, Premier Alexei Kosygin, 72, and President Nikolai V. Podgorny, 73, also were "reelected."

The only top official to stumble was Dmitry S. Polyansky, 58, the agriculture minister, who lost his seat in the Politburo but kept his ministership. Comrade Polyansky may prove to have been this year's fall guy in the Soviet leadership. The domestic economy is in a shambles, agricultural production is a disaster, and rioting is expected before long because of shortages.

Mr. Kosygin passed lightly over the disaster, remarking that agricultural disappointments were largely to be blamed on drought, with some blame also attaching to shortcomings in mechanization. The drought could be considered to be an act of whatever passes for God in the Soviet Union and therefore not the fault of the top two officials. As for the shortcomings in mechanization, the finger of blame has been directed at the unfortunate

CITIZENS FOR REAGAN

1835 K Street N.W. • Washington, D.C. 20006 • 202/452-7576

March 31, 1976

EMBARGO--RELEASE UPON DELIVERY 10:30 PM EST--WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 1976

CONTACT: Lyn Nofziger
Jan McCoy
(202) 452-7606

TEXT OF GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN'S NATIONWIDE TELEVISION ADDRESS

NBC NETWORK

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 1976

Good evening to all of you from California. Tonight, I'd like to talk to you about issues. Issues which I think are involved--or should be involved in this primary election season.

I'm a candidate for the Republican nomination for President. But I hope that you who are Independents and Democrats will let me talk to you also tonight because the problems facing our country are problems that just don't bear any party label.

In this election season the White House is telling us a solid economic recovery is taking place. It claims a slight drop in unemployment. It says that prices aren't going up as fast, but they are still going up, and that the stock market has shown some gains. But, in fact, things seem just about as they were back in the 1972 election year. Remember, we were also coming out of a recession then. Inflation has been running

Citizens for Reagan - Senator Paul Laxalt Chairman Henry M. Buchanan Treasurer
A copy of our report is filed with and available for purchase from the Federal Election Commission Washington D.C 20463

-2-

at around 6%. Unemployment about 7%. Remember, too, the upsurge
and the optimism lasted through the election year and into 1973.
Then, the roof fell in. Once again we had unemployment. Only
this time not 7%, more than 10%. And inflation--wasn't 6%, it
was 12%.

Now, in this election year 1976, we're told we're coming
out of this recession. Just because inflation and unemployment
rates have fallen, to what they were at the worst of the previous
recession. If history repeats itself will we be talking recovery
four years from now merely because we've reduced inflation from
25% to 12%?

The fact is, we'll never build a lasting economic recovery
by going deeper into debt at a faster rate than we ever had
before. It took this nation 166 years--until the middle of
World War II--to finally accumulate a debt of $95 billion. It
took this administration just the last 12 months to add $95
billion to the debt. And this administration has run up almost
one-fourth of our total national debt in just these short
nineteen months.

Inflation is the cause of recession and unemployment. And
we're not going to have real prosperity or recovery until we
stop fighting the symptoms and start fighting the disease.
There's only one cause for inflation--government spending more
than government takes in. The cure is a balanced budget. Ah,
but they tell us, 80% of the budget is uncontrollable. It's

-3-

fixed by laws passed by Congress. The laws passed by Congress
can be repealed by Congress. And, if Congress is unwilling to
do this, then isn't it time we elect a Congress that will?

Soon after he took office, Mr. Ford promised he would end
inflation. Indeed, he declared war on inflation. And, we all
donned those WIN buttons to "Whip Inflation Now." Unfortunately,
the war--if it ever really started--was soon over. Mr. Ford,
without WIN button, appeared on TV, and promised he absolutely
would not allow the Federal deficit to exceed $60 billion (which
incidentally was $5 billion more than the biggest previous
deficit we'd ever had). Later he told us it might be as much
as $70 billion. Now we learn it's $80 billion or more.

Then came a White House proposal for a $28 billion tax cut,
to be matched by a $28 billion cut in the proposed spending--not
in present spending, but in the proposed spending in the new
budget. Well, my question then and my question now is, if
there was $28 billion in the new budget that could be cut, what
was it doing there in the first place?

Unfortunately, Washington doesn't feel the same pain from
inflation that you and I do. As a matter of fact, government
makes a profit on inflation. For instance, last July Congress
vaccinated itself against that pain. It very quietly passed
legislation (which the President signed into law) which
automatically now gives a pay increase to every Congressman
every time the cost of living goes up.

-4-

It would have been nice if they'd thought of some arrangement
like that for the rest of us. They could, for example, correct
a great unfairness that now exists in our tax system. Today,
when you get a cost of living pay raise--one that just keeps you
even with purchasing power--it often moves you up into a higher
tax bracket. This means you pay a higher percentage in tax, but
you reduce your purchasing power. Last year, because of this
inequity, the government took in $7 billion in undeserved profit
in the income tax alone, and this year they'll do even better.
Now isn't it time Congress looked after your welfare as well
as its own?

Those whose spending policies cause inflation to begin
with should be made to feel the painful effect just as you and
I do. Repeal of Congress' automatic pay raise might leave it
with more incentive to do something to curb inflation.

Now, let's look at Social Security. Mr. Ford says he wants
to "preserve the integrity of Social Security." Well, I differ
with him on one word. I would like to _restore_ the integrity of
Social Security. Those who depend on it see a continual reduction
in their standard of living. Inflation strips the increase in
their benefits. The maximum benefit today buys 80 fewer loaves
of bread than it did when that maximum payment was only $85 a
month. In the meantime, the Social Security payroll tax has
become the most unfair tax any worker pays. Women are discriminated

-5-

against. Particularly, working wives. And, people who reach
Social Security age and want to continue working, should be
allowed to do so and without losing their benefits. I believe
a Presidential commission of experts should be appointed to
study and present a plan to strengthen and improve Social
Security while there's still time--so that no person who has
contributed to Social Security will ever lose a dime.

Before leaving this subject of our economic problems let's
talk about unemployment.

Ending inflation is the only long range and lasting answer
to the problem of unemployment. The Washington Establishment is
<u>not</u> the answer. It's the problem. Its tax policies, its
harassing regulations, its confiscation of investment capital to
pay for its deficits keeps business and industry from expanding
to meet your needs and to provide the jobs we all need.

No one who lived through the Great Depression can ever look
upon an unemployed person with anything but compassion. To me,
there is no greater tragedy than a breadwinner willing to work,
with a job skill but unable to find a market for that job skill.
Back in those dark depression days I saw my father on a Christmas
Eve open what he thought was a Christmas greeting from his boss.
Instead it was a blue slip telling him he no longer had a job.
The memory of him sitting there holding that slip of paper and
then saying in a half whisper "That's quite a Christmas present"--
it will stay with me as long as I live.

-6-

Other problems go unsolved. Take energy. Only a short time ago we were lined up at the gas station. We turned our thermostats down as Washington announced "Project Independence." We were going to become self-sufficient, able to provide for our own energy needs.

At the time we were only importing a small percentage of our oil. Yet, the Arab boycott caused half a million Americans to lose their jobs when plants closed down for lack of fuel. Today, it's almost three years later and "Project Independence" has become "Project Dependence." Congress has adopted an energy bill so bad we were led to believe Mr. Ford would veto it. Instead he signed it. And, almost instantly, drilling rigs all over our land started shutting down. Now, for the first time in our history, we are importing more oil than we produce. How many Americans will be laid off if there is another boycott? The energy bill is a disaster that never should have been signed.

An effort has been made in this campaign to suggest that there aren't any real differences between Mr. Ford and myself. I believe there are, and these differences are fundamental. One of them has to do with our approach to government. Before Richard Nixon appointed him Vice President, Mr. Ford was a Congressman for 25 years. His concern was the welfare of his congressional district. For most of his adult life he has been a part of the Washington Establishment.

-7-

Most of my adult life has been spent outside of government.
My experience in government was the eight years I served as
Governor of California. If it were a nation, California would
be the 7th ranking economic power in the world today.

When I became Governor, I inherited a state government that
was in almost the same situation as New York City. The state
payroll had been growing for a dozen years at a rate of from 5
to 7,000 new employees each year. State government was spending
from a million to a million-and-a-half dollars more each day
than it was taking in. The State's great water project was
unfinished and underfunded by a half a billion dollars. My
predecessor had spent the entire year's budget for Medicaid in
the first six months of the fiscal year. And, we learned that the
teachers' retirement fund was unfunded. A four billion dollar
liability hanging over every property owner in the state. I
didn't know whether I'd been elected Governor or appointed
receiver.

California was faced with insolvency and on the verge of
bankruptcy. We had to increase taxes. Well, this came very
hard for me because I felt taxes were already too great a
burden. I told the people the increase, in my mind, was temporary
and that, as soon as we could, we'd return their money to them.

I had never in my life though of seeking or holding public
office and I'm still not quite sure how it all happened. In
my own mind, I was a citizen representing my fellow citizens
against the institution of government.

-8-

I turned to the people, not to politicians for help. Instead of a committee to screen applicants for jobs, I had a citizens' recruiting committee, and I told this committee I wanted an administration made up of men and women who did not want government careers and who would be the first to tell me if their government job was unnecessary. And I had that happen. A young man from the aerospace industry dissolved his department in four months, handed me the key to this office and told me we'd never need the department. And to this day, I not only never missed it, I don't know where it was.

There was a reason for my seeking people who didn't want government careers. Dr. Parkinson summed it all up in his book on bureaucracy. He said, "Government hires a rat catcher and the first thing you know, he's become a rodent control officer."

In those entire eight years, most of us never lost the feeling that we were there representing the people against what Cicero once called the "arrogance of officialdom." We had a kind of watchword we used on each other. "When we begin thinking of government as we instead of they, we've been here too long." Well, I believe that attitude would be beneficial in Washington.

We didn't stop with just getting our administrators from the ranks of the people. We also asked for help from expert people in a great many fields, and more than 250 of our citizens volunteered, to form into task forces. They went into every department and agency of state government to see how modern

-9-

business practices could make government more efficient,
economical and responsive. They gave an average of 117 days
apiece full time, away from their own jobs and careers. At no cost
to the taxpayers. They made 1,800 specific recommendations. We
implemented more than 1,600 of those recommendations.

This was government-by-the-people proving that it works
when the people work at it. When we ended our eight years, we
turned over to the incoming administration a balanced budget.
A $500 million surplus. And, virtually the same number of
employees we'd started with eight years before. Even though the
increase in population had given some departments a two-thirds
increase in work load.

The water project was completed with $165 million left over.
Our bonds had a triple A rating, the highest credit rating you
can get. And the teachers' retirement program was fully funded
on a sound actuarial basis. And, we kept our word to the
taxpayers--we returned to them in rebates and tax cuts, $5 billion,
761 million.

I believe that what we did in California can be done in
Washington if government will have faith in the people and let
them bring their common sense to bear on the problems bureaucracy
hasn't solved. I believe in the people.

Now, Mr. Ford places his faith in the Washington Establish-
ment. This has been evident in his appointment of former
Congressmen and long-time government workers to positions in his

-10-

Administration. Well, I don't believe that those who have been part of the problem are necessarily the best qualified to solve them.

The truth is, Washington has taken over functions that don't truly belong to it. In almost every case it has been a failure. Understand, I'm speaking of those programs which logically should be administered at state and local levels.

Welfare is a classic example. Voices that are raised now and then urging a federalization of welfare don't realize that the failure of welfare is due to federal interference. Washington doesn't even know how many people are on welfare. How many cheaters are getting more than one check. It only knows how many checks it's sending out. Its own rules keep it from finding out how many are getting more than one check. Well, California had a welfare problem. 16% of all welfare recipients in the country were drawing their checks in our state. We were sending welfare checks to families who decided to live abroad. One family was receiving its check in Russia. Our caseload was increasing by 40,000 people a month. After a few years of trying to control this runaway program and being frustrated by bureaucrats here in California and in Washington, we turned again to a citizens' task force. The result was the most comprehensive welfare reform ever attempted.

And in less than three years we reduced the rolls by more than 300,000 people. Saved the taxpayers $2 billion. And,

-11-

increased the grants to the truly deserving needy by an average
of 45%. We also carried out a successful experiment which I
believe is an answer to much of the welfare problem in the nation.
We put able-bodied welfare recipients to work at useful community
projects in return for their welfare grants.

Now, let's look at housing. Washington has tried to solve
this problem for the poor by building low-cost houses. So far
it has torn down three and a half homes for every one it has
built.

Schools. In America, we created at the local level and
administered at the local level for many years the greatest
public school system in the world. Now through something called
federal aid to education, we have something called federal
interference and education has been the loser. Quality has
declined as federal intervention has increased.

Nothing has created more bitterness for example than forced
busing to achieve racial balance. It was born of a hope that we
could increase understanding and reduce prejudice and antagonism.
I'm sure we all approved of that goal. But busing has failed to
achieve that goal. Instead, it has increased the bitterness and
animosity it was supposed to reduce. California's Superintendent
of Public Instruction, Wilson Riles (himself a black), says,
"The concept that black children can't learn unless they are
sitting with white children is utter and complete nonsense."
Well, I agree. The money now being wasted on this social
experiment could be better spent to provide the kind of school

-12-

facilities every child deserves. Forced busing should be ended
by legislation if possible. By constitutional amendment if
necessary. And, control of education should be returned to local
school districts.

The other day, Mr. Ford came out against gun control. But,
back in Washington, D.C., his Attorney General has proposed a
seven-point program that amounts to just that: *gun control*.
I don't think that making it difficult for law abiding citizens
to obtain guns will lower the crime rate. Not when the criminals
will always find a way to get them. In California I think we
found an answer. We put into law what is practical gun control.
Anyone convicted of having a gun in his possession while he
committed a crime: add five to 15 years to the prison sentence.

Sometimes bureaucracy's excesses are so great that we
laugh at them. But they are costly laughs. Twenty-five years
ago the Hoover Commission discovered that Washington files a
million reports a year just reporting that there is nothing to
report.

Independent business people, shopkeepers and farmers file
billions of reports every year required of them by Washington.
It amounts to some 10 billion pieces of paper each year and it
adds $50 billion a year to the cost of doing business. Washington
has been loud in its promise to do something about this blizzard
of paperwork. And they made good. Last year they increased it
by 20%.

-13-

But there is one problem which must be solved or everything else is meaningless. I am speaking of the problem of our national security. Our nation is in danger, and the danger grows greater with each passing day. Like an echo from the past, the voice of Winston Churchill's grandson was heard recently in Britain's House of Commons warning that, "the spread of totalitarianism threatens the world once again and the democracies are wandering without aim."

"Wandering without aim" describes U.S. foreign policy. Angola is a case in point. We gave just enough support to one side to encourage it to fight and die but too little to give them a chance of winning. Now we're disliked by the winner, distrusted by the loser and viewed by the world as weak and unsure. If detente were the two-way street it's supposed to be, we could have told the Soviet Union to stop its troublemaking and leave Angola to the Angolans. But it didn't work out that way.

Now, we are told Washington is dropping the word "detente" but keeping the policy. But whatever it's called, the policy is what's at fault. What is our policy? Mr. Ford's new Ambassador to the U.N. attacks our long-time ally, Israel. In Asia our new relationship with mainland China can have practical benefits for both sides. But that doesn't mean it should include yielding to demands by them as the administration has, to reduce our military presence on Taiwan where we have a long-time friend and ally, the Republic of China. And, it is also revealed now that we seek to establish friendly relations with Hanoi. To make it more

-14-

palatable, we are told this might help us learn the fate of
the men still listed as Missing in Action.

There is no doubt our government has an obligation to end
the agony of parents, wives and children who have lived so long
with uncertainty. But, this should have been one of our first
demands of Hanoi's patron saint, the Soviet Union, if detente
had any meaning at all. To present it now as a reason for
friendship with those who have already violated their promise to
provide such information is hypocrisy.

In the last few days, Mr. Ford and Dr. Kissinger have taken
us from hinting at invation of Cuba to laughing it off as a
ridiculous idea. Except, that it was *their* ridiculous idea. No
one else suggested it. Once again--what is their policy? During
this last year, they carried on a campaign to befriend Castro.
They persuaded the Organization of American States to lift its
trade embargo, lifted some U.S. trade restrictions, they engaged
in cultural exchanges. And then, on the eve of the Florida
primary election, Mr. Ford went to Florida, called Castro an
outlaw and said he'd never recognize him. But he hasn't asked our
Latin American neighbors to reimpose a single sanction, nor has
he taken any action himself. Meanwhile, Castro continues to
export revolution to Puerto Rico, to Angola, and who knows where
else?

As I talk to you tonight, negotiations with another dictator
go forward. Negotiations aimed at giving up our ownership of the

-15-

Panama Canal Zone. Apparently, everyone knows about this except the rightful owners of the Canal Zone--you, the people of the United States.

General Omar Torrijos, the dictator of Panama, seized power eight years ago by ousting the duly-elected government. There have been no elections since. No civil liberties. The press is censored. Torrijos is a friend and ally of Castro and, like him, is pro-communist. He threatens sabotage and guerrilla attacks on our installations if we don't yield to his demands. His foreign minister openly claims that we have already agreed in principle to giving up the Canal Zone.

The Canal Zone is not a colonial possession. It is not a long-term lease. It is sovereign U.S. Territory every bit the same as Alaska and all the states that were carved from the Louisiana Purchase. We should end those negotiations and tell the General: We bought it, we paid for it, we built it and we intend to keep it.

Mr. Ford says detente will be replaced by "peace through strength." Well, now that slogan has a nice ring to it, but neither Mr. Ford nor his new Secretary of Defense will say that our strength is superior to all others.

In one of the dark hours of the Great Depression, F.D.R. said, "It is time to speak the truth frankly and boldly." I believe former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger was trying to speak the truth frankly and boldly to his fellow citizens. And that's why he is no longer Secretary of Defense.

-16-

The Soviet Army outnumbers ours more than two-to-one and in reserves four-to-one. They out-spend us on weapons by 50%. Their Navy outnumbers ours in surface ships and submarines two-to-one. We are outgunned in artillery three-to-one and their tanks outnumber ours four-to-one. Their strategic nuclear missiles are larger, more powerful and more numerous than ours. The evidence mounts that we are Number Two in a world where it is dangerous, if not fatal, to be second best.

Is this why Mr. Ford refused to invite Alexander Solzhenitsyn to the White House? Or, why Mr. Ford traveled halfway 'round the world to sign the Helsinki Pact, putting our stamp of approval on Russia's enslavement of the captive nations? We gave away the freedom of millions of people--freedom that was not ours to give.

Now we must ask if someone is giving away our own freedom. Dr. Kissinger is quoted as saying that he thinks of the U.S. as Athens and the Soviet Union as Sparta. "The day of the U.S. is past and today is the day of the Soviet Union." And he added, "...My job as Secretary of State is to negotiate the most acceptable second-best position available."

I believe in the peace of which Mr. Ford spoke--as much as any man. But peace does not come from weakness or from retreat. It comes from the restoration of American military superiority.

-17-

Ask the people of Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary and all the others--East Germany, Bulgaria, Rumania, ask them--what it's like to live in a world where the Soviet Union is Number One. I don't want to live in that kind of world; and I don't think you do either.

Now we learn that another high official of the State Department, Helmut Sonnenfeldt, whom Dr. Kissinger refers to as his "Kissinger," has expressed the belief that, in effect, the captive nations should give up any claim of national sovereignty and simply become a part of the Soviet Union. He says, "Their desire to break out of the Soviet straightjacket" threatens us with World War III. In other words, slaves should accept their fate.

I don't believe the people I've met in almost every State of the Union are ready to consign this, the last island of freedom, to the dustbin of history, along with the bones of dead civilizations of the past. Call it mysticism, if you will, but I believe God had a divine purpose in placing this land between the two great oceans to be found by those who had a special love of freedom and the courage to leave the countries of their birth. From our forefathers to our modern-day immigrants, we've come from every corner of the earth, from every race and ethnic background and we've become a new breed in the world. We're Americans and we have a rendezvous with destiny. We spread across this land, building farms and towns and cities, and we did this without federal land planning or urban renewal.

-18-

Indeed, we gave birth to an entirely new concept in man's relation to man. We created government as our servant, beholden to us and possessing no powers except those voluntarily granted to it *by us*.

Now a self-annointed elite in our nation's capital would have us believe we are incapable of guiding our own destiny. They practice government by mystery, telling us it's too complex for our understanding. Believing this, they assume we might panic if we were to be told the truth about our problems.

Why should we become frightened? No people who have ever lived on this earth have fought harder, paid a higher price for freedom or done more to advance the dignity of man than the living Americans, the Americans living in this land today. There isn't any problem we can't solve if government will give us the facts. Tell us what needs to be done. Then, gets out of the way and lets us have at it.

Recently on one of my campaign trips I was doing a question and answer session, and suddenly I received a question from a little girl who couldn't have been over six or seven years old, standing in the very front row. I'd heard the question before but somehow in her asking it, she threw me a little bit. She said, why do you want to be President? Well I tried to tell her about giving government back to the people; I tried to tell her about turning authority back to the states and local communities, and so forth; winding down the bureaucracy; it might have been an answer for adults, but I knew that it wasn't what that little girl wanted, and I left very frustrated. It was on the way to

-19-

the next stop that I turned to Nancy and I said I wish I had it
to do over again because I'd like to answer her question. Well,
maybe I can answer it now. I would like to go to Washington;
I would like to be President. Because I would like to see this
country become once again a country where a little six-year old
girl can grow up knowing the same freedom that I knew when I was
six years old, growing up in America. If this is the America
that you want for yourself and your children; if you want to
restore government not only of and for but by the people; to
see the American spirit unleashed once again; to make this land
a shining, golden hope God intended it to be, I'd like to hear
from you. Write, or send a wire. I'd be proud to hear your
thoughts and your ideas.

Thank you, and good night.

(END)

TRB®

from Washington

April 3, 1976

## Pray to Mencken

The danger of what I will call the Henry L. Mencken complex is that the Washington reporter comes to the conclusion that the whole performance is put on for his personal entertainment, and is not to be taken seriously. It is an insinuating illusion. Nobody before or after Mencken could describe it so pungently, but he is gone.

When President Ford the other day at the West Wilkes High School Gymnasium, Wilkesboro, North Carolina, boasted about his handling of the celebrated Mayaguez affair, it needed a Mencken. When Mr. Ford's acting campaign manager, Stuart Spencer, cited Jimmy Carter's evangelical and faith-healing sister, Mrs. Ruth Carter Stapleton, last week as an illustration to prove that Carter is a "fundamentalist"—and then balked at trying to define "fundamentalist"—Mencken's ghost was there rubbing his hands at the erratic 1976 presidential performance. In fact, maybe, the entire American scene requires a Mencken.

I remember that far off day in Elwood, Indiana, with Mencken, waiting for Wilkie's acceptance speech, interviewing pompous master of ceremonies Homer Capehart about arrangements for servicing 300,000-or-so visitors in the little town on such matters, for example, as comfort stations (I think Joe Alsop was with us), and Capehart boasting that he had set lots of them, "each one a hundred-holer." Mencken could hardly wait to get out of the room to vent his exquisite satisfaction at this addition to the American Language.

Mencken should have been in the Wilkesboro audience when Mr. Ford said, "I think what I did in the case of the Mayaguez is a good example of the

decisiveness that I can act with when we are faced with a problem. I could do it again."

He could do it in Cuba, for example. He and Kissinger ached to do it in Angola. But pussyfooting meanies in Congress blocked him. Yes, sir, he told the literati of Lenoir Rhyne College, Hickory, North Carolina, March 20, his proposal to spend $28 million to frustrate communism in Angola was cruelly thwarted. But for Congress, he told them, "Communism, whether it is the Soviet Union or Cuba, wouldn't be there today. That is unforgivable but that is the fact," he said.

Now that the Soviet Union "controls that very rich country," he added, "I think the American public wishes we had made that investment."

The Mayaguez affair for Americans in May a year ago was like balm to a smarting wound; we had lost Vietnam and were lost in humiliation and then decisive Mr. Ford bombed the hell out of Cambodia's Tang Island. He sank three Cambodian gunboats, struck the Sihanoukville oil depot (proved unused), and restored America's self-respect. "There are limits beyond which the United States cannot be pushed," said a proud Henry Kissinger. Thirty-four minutes after the US destroyer Wilson had reported that the American crew was all rescued the oil depot was struck. Over the protest of neighboring Thailand we used our base there to launch the attack on Cambodia and later apologized after Bangkok recalled its ambassador. (The Thai students remember it and are demanding that our troops leave now.) We rescued the 39 crewmen and lost only 38 or so servicemen in doing it. And, as Mencken would sardonically observe, with a glitter from his china-blue eyes, it restored Mr. Ford to his rightful role as national leader; in early May only 40 percent approved the way he was handling his office and 43 percent disapproved; after Mayaguez came the second sharpest jump upward ever recorded—11 points to 51 percent! (The sharpest gain, you will be glad to know, was the 17-point jump Nixon got in January 1973 after achieving Vietnam "peace.")

Can anybody doubt that a little chastisement of Cuba right now would send Mr. Ford's stock similarly soaring? There is a hateful little nation just asking to be kicked, and there is Mr. Ford in the high school gym proclaiming his

decisiveness. It would make us all a little taller.

The other item Mencken would have enjoyed recently is this preliminary confrontation of Mr. Ford's campaign manager, the competent and professional Stuart Spencer, with the Jimmy Carter problem. The problem is such in Washington today that you can't so much as say "Jimmy" in a cocktail party but what all other conversation stops, and guests come bounding over to participate.

At a breakfast meeting with reporters last week campaign manager Spencer raised the baffling subject himself. It is here that journalists face the dangerous Mencken Syndrome; it is so much fun watching conventional politicians sweating over the soft-voiced, Twice-Born Carter, that we are apt to lose our objectivity a little and give the curious new kid a boost up just for the hell of it. Carter remarked in an interview here that he planned in his first week in office to pardon all the draft defectors: "I don't intend to criticize the young people who left the country," he said, "I'd just issue a blanket pardon without comment."

The country is worried about its future and its soul and here is a Baptist from Georgia who wins elections and stops George Wallace, and says he won't lie, and carries black wards and white wards in Southern states, and speaks without the slightest embarrassment about his relationship with Jesus. Manager Spencer noted the article about Carter's chic, handsome sister, the mother of four and mystic, who says she will put her own work aside "until Jimmy gets in the White House." There is a set of standards here, and a vocabulary, and a way of looking at things, that no other presidential candidate in modern times, I think, has offered. Manager Spencer advanced the word "fundamentalist," and then hastily retreated from it; religion, he said, hasn't been mixed up in a campaign since Kennedy broke through the barrier in 1960. And what is a fundamentalist, and is Carter one? The inquiring reporter is as uncertain as anybody. The most reassuring thing about Jimmy, perhaps, is his 78-year-old ex-Peace Corps mother, "Miss Lillian," who observed, "I told him to quit this stuff about never telling a lie, and being a Christian, and how he loves his wife more than the day he met her."

Can we scoff at this? Mencken, where are you?

April 3, 1976

## White House Watch

### Ford's Way

On the road to the Republican nomination in Kansas City, a nomination that this reporter still expects Mr. Ford to get despite Ronald Reagan's first primary victory in North Carolina, the President continues to reveal a great deal about himself, his White House and his way of trying to run and lead the country.

A common supposition, one that Reagan himself advanced as a reason for staying in the race when he along with many others was misreading his own strength in North Carolina and assuming that he was going to lose and Gerald Ford was going to win the fourth primary in a row, is that he is driving candidate Ford to the right, toward more conservative positions than the President would otherwise take. This is a distortion of what has actually been happening. Mr. Ford has not taken a single "conservative" position for campaign purposes that he didn't already hold or wouldn't have taken in the natural course of the conservatism that he has practiced and exemplified ever since he entered Congress in 1949. What he has been doing of late, in response to Reagan and in appeal to the conservative voters whom the President must attract if he is to be nominated and elected, is expressing his basic and natural conservative views more vigorously and more often than he might be doing if he were not campaigning.

A possible exception to the foregoing generalization is the President's recent dumping of the term "détente" and his simultaneous argument that he isn't dumping the policy with the term while toughening his verbal stance toward the Soviet Union. But it can be argued—I think, demonstrated—that the seeming exception is more apparent than real and that there's been no actual and meaningful change in US policy toward the Soviet Union since the campaign heated up. Long before Ronald Reagan declared his candidacy, at a time when some of the President's political advisers were under the illusion that he as the incumbent, appointed though he was, could have the nomination for the asking, he prepared and submitted to Congress the first of what he continues to call with pride the two biggest defense budgets in US history. So recently as March 22 in Dallas, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger set forth once more "compelling reasons" for pursuing the strategic arms limitation talks (SALT) with the Soviet Union that since 1972 have been at the core of the détente policy. This part of the speech was overshadowed in the news by the Secretary's insistence, matching the President's recent and occasionally exaggerated talk along the same line, that "we are not the world's policeman—but we cannot permit the Soviet Union or its surrogates to become the world's policeman, either"; and, in a reference to

Angola, that "the United States will not accept further Cuban military interventions abroad." This sort of bellicose talk, unsupported by any believable indication of what the US would do if the Soviet Union and its Cuban surrogate persisted in Africa or elsewhere in what Kissinger called the "adventurism" and "military expansionism" that were successfully practiced in Angola, worried such friends and frequent apologists for the Secretary as James Reston of *The New York Times*. But the toughened talk indicated no substantive departure from the search for US-Soviet accommodation that the President first refused to label "détente" last August. One of the assumptions underlying the policy since its inception has been that the Soviet Union must and, given proper incentive by the US, will restrain its expansive tendencies. People who have trouble reconciling the policy with basic conservatism should remember that the father of the policy in its recent form was Richard Nixon.

A factor in the Ford campaign performance that's received very little attention in the media is what's been happening at the White House. The essence of what's been happening there is that the presidential operation in both its governmental and political dimensions has improved since Donald Rumsfeld replaced Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger and was replaced as White House staff chief by his former deputy, Richard Cheney. The President's White House people are reluctant to discuss the fact, much less acknowledge and explain it. It doesn't necessarily reflect upon Rumsfeld—practically all of the assistants who are functioning more smoothly and efficiently now than they did when he was there were assigned to their jobs by him. Rumsfeld is a professional politician who transferred from Congress to the executive at President Nixon's urging in 1969. He largely directed Gerald Ford's early campaign for the nomination. In the opinion of some of his former White House associates, he quietly encouraged the President's decision to fire James Schlesinger and welcomed his appointment as Defense Secretary in the belief that it would further his political ambitions. Yet the White House end of the Ford political operation under Cheney, a non-politician, is unquestionably functioning better than it did under Rumsfeld, the politician. Jerry Jones, a Nixon holdover who was brought into the center of the White House operation by Gen. Alexander Haig, Nixon's last staff chief, has risen steadily in position and influence under Rumsfeld and lately under Cheney. Jones heads a so-called "scheduling committee" that has expanded its role since Rumsfeld left and coordinates a wide range of presidential activities, both administrative and political. Mr. Ford's overt campaign instrument, the President Ford Committee, must clear all of its recommendations for campaign appearances and other endeavors through the Jones committee. The ultimate recommendations go to the President through Cheney, a quiet fellow whose air of calm restraint is in sharp contrast

5

6

The New Republic

with Rumsfeld's rather uptight nature and demeanor. The only coherent explanation of the recent improvement that I've heard at the White House is that "the fear of Rumsfeld" left with Rumsfeld and that the working atmosphere around Cheney is friendlier, more relaxed and therefore more efficient than it was under his patron and predecessor. The judgment is probably unfair to Rumsfeld but circumstances suggest that it's not wholly off the mark.

The improvement hasn't been total and the responsibility for the two most glaring of recent blunders rests with the President. One of them was his insistence, against much inner-circle advice, upon retaining former congressman and Secretary of the Army Howard ("Bo") Callaway at the head of the President Ford Committee and trying to paper over Callaway's deficiencies with the appointment of a theoretically subordinate political director, Stuart Spencer, a political technician who had a lot to do with engineering Ronald Reagan's election and reelection as governor of California. Callaway is a thoroughly likable Georgia politician and millionaire. The kindest thing to be said of him is that he is possessed of more good humor than intelligence. He recalls in his engaging fashion that he told Mr. Ford last summer: "Look, Mr. President, I know that I'm a good Secretary of the Army, but I'm not at all sure that I'd make a good campaign manager." He didn't. The committee's Washington headquarters and some of its state extensions were in shambles before Spencer was brought in last September. The later appointment of Rogers C.B. Morton, a former Maryland congressman and Secretary of Interior and Commerce, as a White House counsellor and campaign adviser, also helped. But the President was not persuaded to rid himself of Callaway until his bumbling efforts to further the family interests—specifically a Colorado ski resort—through federal favors while he was Secretary of the Army, a Republican national committeeman and lately the President's campaign chairman were disclosed.

The other blunder was the handling of Richard Nixon's report upon his recent visit to China. The White House handling of the report was exceeded in stupidity only by the handling of the visit itself, a comedy that was described in some detail in this journal's March 20 issue. The stupidity stemmed in both instances from the President's insistence that the visit and anything that might be learned from it be minimized in every possible way, lest the sudden reemergence of Richard Nixon remind voters of Watergate and the Nixon pardon and be politically harmful to Mr. Ford. According to Jack Brennan, the head of Nixon's small staff at San Clemente and his companion on the China trip, the former President was well aware of the effort to derogate the venture and determined during the flight home that he would report only to Henry Kissinger, who had treated the

event with more respect than the President and his spokesmen had.

By prearrangement with Kissinger, and with the President's knowledge and assent, Nixon prepared a written report of his conversations with Mao Tse-tung, Acting Premier Hua Kuo-feng, and other Chinese leaders. Kissinger knew on Monday, March 8, that Nixon, then back in San Clemente, was at work on the report and expected to have it delivered to the Secretary of State the following weekend. Warren ("Bill") Gulley, the White House assistant assigned to liaison with San Clemente, flew there on the weekend, partly by military and partly by commercial aircraft, and delivered two copies of the report to Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, the President's assistant for national security affairs, on Monday the 15th. Scowcroft gave Kissinger the copy marked for him that day. Scowcroft gave Mr. Ford the second copy the next day.

Press Secretary Ron Nessen and Robert Funseth, Kissinger's chief spokesman at the State Department, learned only on the following Monday, the 22nd, that the report had been received. They learned it from *Time*. Nessen, acutely embarrassed, said the second copy had been "addressed to the President." It was not addressed to the President. Scowcroft appears to have elected to give it to the President and to have read it before he passed it to Mr. Ford. CIA Director George Bush read it in Scowcroft's office after the President read it. Nixon had stipulated that distribution of the report be tightly restricted, that no copies be made, and that the two originals be returned to him. Brennan agreed with Gulley by telephone that the originals might as well be returned by ordinary mail instead of sent back to San Clemente by courier. Nessen quoted the President as saying the report was "very interesting and useful." Funseth quoted Kissinger to the same effect. It is inconceivable that the report of some 60 pages would have been mailed back to Nixon if it contained anything of vital national security interest. Classified intelligence information that may interest the former President is reviewed by White House Counsellor John Marsh, encoded, and transmitted to Nixon over a secured electronic circuit every two weeks or so. His China report did not require such care.

The extraordinary secrecy and reticence connected with the report's receipt, reading and return raised great storms in the White House and State Department press rooms. The affair probably interested the public far less than it interested Washington journalists. But it renewed an old and recently repaired rift between Nessen and Gen. Scowcroft and caused the President to censure Scowcroft, one of the ablest men at the White House, for failing to inform Nessen. Mr. Ford should have censured himself. He didn't inform Nessen, either, and the whole absurdity was essentially his doing.

John Osborne

8

The New Republic

knockdown price. It chose instead to change the tax laws so that corporations have effectively been relieved of all their tax liabilities, which has not only poured money back into the privately-owned sector, but done it without the need to be seen handing money over. With the threat of mass unemployment hanging over their members, the unions were in no mood to quarrel about the niceties of Socialist principle. But from that decision, the National Enterprise Board taking stakes in major companies, has been diluted to a holding company with a ragbag of state holdings that nobody wants and that is not allowed to move without approval from the private sector.

Proposals the left hoped would result in mandatory agreements being signed by all major companies about their actions in the coming years have all but disappeared. Instead, the government now hopes to make vague voluntary deals with a few firms.

The reason that the left has been powerless to protest these shifts in policy is that the union movement has acquiesced in them as part of the larger strategy for ensuring the survival of the Labour government. Many of the union leaders are left-wingers themselves, like Jack Jones, boss of Britain's biggest union, the Transport Workers. Jones is more than just the country's most powerful union boss. He is also a deeply idealistic Socialist who has long supported the Tribune group of left-wing MPs. But he is also the architect of the government wage restraint policy, which he sees as the only way to combat inflation. It is the failure of left-wingers to realize that the unions were swinging around in favor of such an anti-inflation policy, with a union-policed limit of $12 a week on pay

increases, that has done more than anything to weaken their position. This is because union leaders are, above all, concerned with finding a workable solution for the short-term problems the country faces, of which inflation is the most serious. In their desire to maintain unity with union leaders, the left went on defending pay raises of 30 percent and up long after it was clear the unions' mood had turned against them.

The real challenge from the left, then, cannot come now or for some time yet. If the economy does not turn up, or if it does and it becomes clear that the government strategy of bolstering confidence and hoping that the private sector will invest more is not producing results, then the left in the Labour party will be in a strong position to mount a challenge to the effective ruling group of Foot, Jones and Healey, who whatever their differences on the longer term are agreed on what needs to be done now. But if that kind of economic setback overtakes this government, then its prospects of survival look bleak indeed. The broad outlines of the economic policy that will lead Labour into the next election have been laid down, and they represent a pretty right-wing program in Labour party terms. They also are the only kind of programs that can realistically be expected from a party facing the most serious economic crisis in the history of the UK at a time when it is clear that there is still no consensus to introduce a great leap forward into socialism.

David Blake

Mr. Blake is foreign editor of business news at *The Times* (London).

## An Oriana Fallaci Interview

# Otis Pike and the CIA

One has to read the Pike report, even the censored version we have, in order to understand the indignation of the man who stood up against the CIA and Kissinger and the President of the United States. One has to meet Otis Pike to see the repressed tears that occasionally moisten his eyes, and comprehend the abberrant forms power can take—power dressed in the uniforms of a

manifest tyranny, power dressed in the suits of hypocritical tolerance. In either case opposing power serves only to keep alive a dream or keep our conscience clean. Bitter surprises crush those who think they'll win, like Don Quixote, acting the hero.

Otis Pike isn't exactly a hero. If he were, he would have faced to the end the consequences of his congressional investigation. He would have risked his seat in Congress and probably lost it; he would have

© Rizzoli Press L'Europeo, 1976

April 3, 1976

7

# Less Socialism and No More Harold Wilson

### London

Britain's ruling Labour party has to find a new leader to replace its retiring Premier Harold Wilson, but all the indications are that, for the moment at least, they are unlikely to change their policy radically. Of the four contenders in the first ballot, two are on the left of the party and four are on the right. But even the left's leading champion, Michael Foot, is expected to keep the government firmly committed to the broad outlines of economic policy that have been worked out by the Wilson administration with the trade union movement. Indeed, Foot himself has been one of the main architects of the policy, which has combined pay restraint with a series of measures aimed at boosting the confidence of the private sector rather than increasing the scale of state intervention.

For the real legacy that Harold Wilson has left his party is to swing it around in the past year from the left-wing stance of the manifesto on which it won office without provoking a breach with any of its important power centers. Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the recent decision to cut public expenditure in the coming years on a whole range of programs. Public spending on welfare, education and health has long been one of the deepest beliefs of the Labour party, with an appeal strongest to the left but reaching far beyond that group onto the center and the right. Yet not only did the government cut spending, it went out of its way to say that it had done so. In part this was to appease those in financial circles, who worry about the huge government budget deficit; but more important was a feeling that there had been a change of mood in the country as a whole. There is now widespread criticism of the alleged overmanning in the civil service, and a general feeling that although schools, welfare and health care are all very well, they are things that we cannot afford to provide lavishly at a time when the industrial base of the country is clearly crumbling. It is the failure of the left, which can fairly claim to have warned against de-industrialization, to gain any advantage from this mood that is the most striking feature of the past year.

The left-wing policy is clear, and for a period just after the October election of 1974 it looked as if it were being carried out. It has been most clearly articulated by Tony Benn, who is the only candidate to have taken up any public policy stance in the current leadership election and who, partly because of this, is generally thought to have no chance of winning. The left-wing policy starts out from a belief that the United Kingdom's economy is facing a double crisis. In the short term, it is suffering from the world recession, which came here late but has come with extreme

virulence. The short-term measures to be adopted are thus clear. The government should have acted much sooner to stop unemployment from rising, and ought to act now to bring it down faster than it seems likely to fall. These are exactly the policies that Benn tried to follow as industry minister. Using government money he backed a whole series of factories facing closure, either by nationalizing them or by financing the workers to go into business on their own. In trying to do this he was, in fact, going against the whole drift of government policy, and most of his efforts failed. After he was moved out of the industry department, following the EEC referendum where the left suffered a major reverse, the workers' cooperatives were quietly allowed to die as part of a major tightening in attitude toward assisting ailing industries.

Benn's followers claim that there was more to the policy of shoring up industry than the immediate task of saving jobs. Over the past few years there has been a dramatic collapse in the scale of British industry. During the recession investment has been cut back so that when good times come there is just not the capacity to make the goods required. British firms thus fail to make the profits they need to finance new investment. It is a vicious spiral that now seems to be getting out of hand.

The left's answer to this is, first of all, to limit the damage done by the recession. They want to stimulate the economy and protect firms from closure. Then, as the recovery begins to pick up, they would start pumping money into the manufacturing sector not just to help it survive but to make it grow. The most concrete example of this approach is the rescue scheme for British Leyland, which involves spending two million dollars over the next few years to re-equip its aging plant. No one on the left would deny that such a policy, applied across the board, would cause severe problems, most strikingly to the balance of payments. To ease the deficit, which always comes with a boom in Britain, they would impose import controls, risking the wrath of other countries and protecting home manufacturers during what ought to be a period of recuperation.

Some unions have shown interest in that part of the policy, but the left came unstuck over two other issues. These are the exact form the state intervention in industry should take and what to do about inflation. Although Labour is committed to what it calls "social ownership" (which usually means nationalization) of the commanding heights of the economy, a majority of its leaders still want a large private sector running most of industry. So, when it became clear in late 1974 that the whole corporate sector was on the verge of bankruptcy, the government was faced with a difficult choice. If it followed through the Labour policy of saying that any aid granted to a company must be matched by a share stake, it would have found itself taking over virtually the whole of industry at a

April 3, 1976

9

thrown it away. He would have published his original report without asking anybody's permission and without censoring it and without all the circumlocutions. Finally, he would have pursued legal action against Henry Kissinger. "What could happen to you if you did all that?" I asked him. "I would have been expelled from the Congress, I guess. And I would for sure have lost the next election," he answered. But he didn't persist. At a certain point, fatigued and bitter, he gave up. He turned the whole thing over to the House of Representatives, hence to the President. Maybe my judgment is naive (politics is not naive), but the fact remains that once in a while it would be good to have some naive heroes who die jousting with windmills.

Not exactly a hero, Otis Pike is something of a martyr. One can't expect everybody to stay in with the lions. (A certain lion named Henry Kissinger doesn't joke when he bites. He tears flesh from bone. And when he attacks he has all the power of the Establishment: at home and abroad. Abroad, some buddies like Brezhnev and Mao Tse-tung). One can't expect people to be saints, to give up everything and go live in a cave. Otis Pike himself belongs to the Establishment. He is not a grenade thrower who aims to change the society or peoples' minds. He isn't even a radical ready to go on hunger strikes to protest. Nor does he claim to be. He introduces himself as what he is: a good American citizen of the good American bourgeoisie, a good congressman who believes in the homely values of his youth. I mean God, the family, country, money well spent, democracy and freedom. I may be wrong, but somehow he reminds me of the character in an old movie by Frank Capra, like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. You know, the one with James Stewart leaving for Washington with his faith and his stubbornness and his provincialism, to cause trouble and to be defeated.

Pike's story justifies the analogy. He was born 55 years ago at Riverhead, NY, in the house where he still lives. During World War II, he was a Marine Corps pilot who spent 14 months dive-bombing in the Solomon Islands campaign, nine months nightfighting over Peleliu and Okinawa, occupying Peking. The war ended for him after 120 combat missions, five air medals and the rank of captain. He's been married since 1946 to the same woman, Doris Orth, and is so devoted to her that during my interview with him took only calls from her: "I'm always here for my wife." He has three children, all successful adults. He was graduated magna cum laude from Princeton and has several honorary degrees. He's a lawyer. He can navigate a boat, play a piano and a ukulele, catch a swordfish, play ping pong, sing a song, swing an axe. He's been a Democratic congressman since 1960, reelected every two years by one of the most conservative counties in the North: Suffolk County, NY. He's a product of the system, and a faithful one. For years he didn't even oppose the war in Vietnam. In 1973 he did vote against the bombings in Cambodia. But his criticism was never aimed at

Kissinger. He was convinced that Kissinger was a great man. He continued to be convinced until the inquest.

It's this Mr.-Smith-Goes-to-Washington innocence that seduces people like me; people who don't often trust promises, who think chatter about God and the family and country is foolishness, people who make Machiavelli possible and who fight only (when they fight) out of despair and rage and exasperation: knowing very well that the world changes but remains the same. It is Pike's late discovery of a truth complacently ignored for so long that makes him and others like him so respectable and likable. I did like Otis Pike from the moment I entered his office in the Rayburn building where he sat framed by a window that opened on the Capitol's dome. I liked his good-natured face, his hair so blond as to look white. I liked his carelessness in dress and movement, the nonchalant sloppiness of someone who always wears wrinkled trousers or jackets with a button missing. I liked his resonant voice, the voice of a preacher who claims to believe in the triumph of justice. And more than anything I liked his handcuffed sorrowful anger: "I hadn't understood that they were lying to me, that they were making fun of me." I interviewed him with empathy, I forgave him his reticence. He was cautious; I suspected he was saying much less than he could. A secret fear that he would never admit made his lips quiver. A fear of what "they" had done to him and still could do to him. They, the powerful.

**Oriana Fallaci:** Mr. Pike, in his interview, William Colby stated that your report on the CIA is partial, and written to give a false impression of CIA. He also said it doesn't contain all of what he said.

**Otis Pike:** Good Lord, no. If we were going to print everything he had said, it would be his report and not ours. We were certainly not asked to write a report which would meet the approval of the CIA. Of course Mr. Colby is not going to like it. We said that the CIA did a lousy job. We said that they missed their basic mission, which was to provide good intelligence to the United States. So we did not expect him to thank us when we got finished. Yet, I don't care what he says about me. I ended my investigation with a higher regard for the CIA than for the people who told them what to do.

**Fallaci:** You're referring to Dr. Kissinger, aren't you?

**Pike:** Listen, I don't have any problem in admitting that when I finished my investigation I liked Dr. Kissinger enormously less than when I started it. With Kissinger it was a real problem to get access to information. Dr. Kissinger takes the position that all of his communications, not only those with the heads of foreign

10

The New Republic

governments, but with other employees of the State Department are very personal. So the Congress should not be looking at them. As for Mr. Colby . . . Well, Mr. Colby is a very bright man and he knows how to play with words. But he isn't dishonest.

*Fallaci: Do you mean that William Colby has been a scapegoat?*

*Pike:* To a very large extent, yes. Sure. I do think that. Though I also think that he loved it. I told it to him, one day. I said: "You do love being the scapegoat, don't you?" He didn't answer. He just sat there. But it was so clear that he relished the role in which he was cast. Besides, nobody could have done it any better and with better results. Honest to us, loyal to his people . . . He won. And I lost.

*Fallaci: In what sense did you lose?*

*Pike:* In the most evident one: my report hasn't been published. They suppressed it. When the House of Representatives said that it couldn't be published until the President had determined that there was nothing in it that would affect foreign intelligence activities, it was clear that I had lost.

*Fallaci: But who wanted the House of Representatives' vote that put everything into the hands of the President?*

*Pike:* The White House. The State Department. The administration. Dr. Kissinger, of course. And a lot of people in the Congress, too. All the people, I mean, who liked the way oversight had been conducted in the past and who were very unhappy with our committee. They found any kind of excuse. The inopportunity of having a disagreement with the President was an excuse. The Welch case was another excuse . . . People asked me: "Are there names of CIA people in your report?" And I answered: "Yes, there are names, of course, but they are only the names of those who came to testify before our committee as representatives of the CIA". But all the same they acted very concerned. No name, they said, should come out to identify people who could get involved in some other Welch case. Those papers did not contain everything we knew. We had taken things out of them. We had taken out names. We, too, didn't want to get anybody killed.

*Fallaci: Let's face it, Mr. Pike. Some of the fault is yours. Why did you have to ask permission to print your report? Did you have to ask the President's permission?*

*Pike:* My personal judgement is that we did not have to ask the permission of the President. But I had to bring the case in the Congress. Thanks to the obstacles and delays imposed on us, we ran out of time at the end. We didn't have time to finish our report. I had to ask the House of Representatives to give us more time; I only needed two weeks. And they held the extra time as hostage to not publishing the report.

*Fallaci: Yes, and it seems to me that the whole thing is a hell of a hypocrisy. If they didn't want the truth to be published, then why did they ask you to do the investigation? Just to throw smoke in the eyes of Americans?*

*Pike:* I couldn't agree more. Hypocrisy is the word.

*Fallaci: Who has the uncensored version of your report?*

*Pike:* The President has it. Dr. Kissinger has it. The CIA has it. The CIA had everything we had all the time. They got our first draft the same day the members of our committee got it, at my insistence. I wanted them to tell me if there were any factual errors in it . . . Finally, four committees of the House of Representatives have it. And any member of the House can go and look at it, if he agrees not to reveal anything that is in it. But not many want to read it.

*Fallaci: Why?*

*Pike:* Oh, they think it is better not to know. There are too many things that embarrass Americans in that report. You see, this country went through an awful trauma with Watergate. But, even then, all they were asked to believe was that their President had been a bad person. In this new situation they are asked much more; they are asked to believe that their country has been evil. And nobody wants to believe that.

*Fallaci: The most baffling thing, in my opinion, is this pseudo-innocence of yours. Because all these reports confirm things that, in the rest of the world, we already knew. Take the example of Castro. He kept saying that the CIA tried to kill him and you didn't believe it.*

*Pike:* Right. And it turned out that it was true. The same thing happened with Cambodia. The press wrote about it, but the average citizen did not believe it. Even the average congressman, the average senator, did not believe it. They only believed what the government said. I was one of them. It took this investigation to convince me that I had always been told lies, to make me realize that I was tired of being told lies.

*Fallaci: Let's go back to the hypocrisy problem, Mr. Pike. Where did the major difficulties come from?*

*Pike:* The basic problem as I saw it came from the President, from the Secretary of State, Dr. Kissinger, from the head of the CIA, from the FBI, and from the administration in general. They were always promising complete cooperation and they were always holding back information. They knew all the time that the life of our committee was limited. So they would give us what I call the dribble-treatment. When we said: "we need those documents," they did not necessarily refuse them. They gave us one piece of paper. Just one. So we had to ask again for the others, and wait again for

April 3, 1976

11

another piece of paper. They would dribble out papers one at a time. And we never got the documents we wanted.

*Fallaci: Yet Kissinger came to testify.*

*Pike:* We only had him one day, in the morning and in the afternoon. The report speaks for itself. I tried as hard as I could to make him tell what we needed to know. He always went back to his "very personal communications." I was prepared to cite Dr. Kissinger for contempt of Congress. I voted three resolutions to cite Dr. Kissinger for contempt. But the majority of the members of the Congress did not want to proceed. They would have had to choose between Dr. Kissinger and me, or between Dr. Kissinger and our committee. And nobody wanted a confrontation with him.

*Fallaci: But why is everybody so scared of Kissinger?*

*Pike:* I don't know. I really don't. All I can say is that I am not. The fact is that he has many horses, that Kissinger. He is a tremendously astute public relations man. When things don't go as he would like, he calls up his buddies in the media and he gets powerful editorials. As a matter of fact, he mounted an attack against our committee, thanks to his buddies. And since then support has dwindled.

*Fallaci: Why didn't you go after Kissinger yourself, alone? Why didn't you take him to court?*

*Pike:* I could have. But it would have taken too long. Our courts don't move rapidly enough, and the life of the committee would have expired before we got an answer. I had to give up and bear all those obstructions. They even silenced witnesses. They told them flatly that they couldn't talk about certain things. They said: "You cannot even be interviewed without having a representative of the State Department in the room."

*Fallaci: But in the case of the covert operations, from whom did the CIA have to take orders? Apart from the President.*

*Pike:* From the Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

*Fallaci: Kissinger.*

*Pike:* Right. Then, from the Secretary of Defense and from the Secretary of State.

*Fallaci: Kissinger.*

*Pike:* Right. Then from the National Security Council.

*Fallaci: Which Kissinger belongs to.*

*Pike:* Right. What I mean is that the CIA can do by itself only some little tiny noncontroversial things. It cannot take any initiative on its own. I do not agree with Sen. Church when he refers to the CIA as a rogue elephant.

I came to the conclusion that the CIA did things somebody told it to do.

*Fallaci: Mr. Pike, I have to ask you something else. Do you think that Kissinger is democratic?*

*Pike:* No. I won't equivocate. The answer is no. First of all I think that Dr. Kissinger has very little respect for the Congress. And we may deserve very little respect, but the point is that he has very little respect for democratic processes too. Oh, yes, he's really impatient with democracy; he is not as good at democracy as he is at diplomacy. And we simply cannot have a man in his capacity, no matter how brilliant he may be, who is unwilling to accept the majority's views, claiming that he knows better.

*Fallaci: Tell me, Mr. Pike, did this investigation hurt your political career?*

*Pike:* I don't know yet. I will not know until the elections. Maybe.

*Fallaci: Do you feel or did you feel that the CIA would spy on you?*

*Pike:* Yes, I felt that during the investigation. But I didn't let it change anything I did. Now, don't take it that I had any evidence that they were spying on me. There are all kinds and degrees of spying. I have a hunch that the CIA knew all about me: what I like and what I dislike, what my eating habits and my drinking habits are, and other very personal things. I think they know me back and forth and sideways. But I don't fault them for that. An intelligence agency which is being investigated by a congressman would be sort of missing its own duty if it didn't find out what that congressman is like.

*Fallaci: The leaks must have hurt you a lot.*

*Pike:* A hell of a lot. They hurt the credibility of the committee, they hurt me personally as chairman of the committee, they hurt the concept of congressional oversight and the intelligence agencies in general. They benefited only the CIA and the top people. I would strongly support legislation punishing the leakers. Now, having said that, I will also say that if I had to choose between an assassination or a policy of assassinations and a leak that stops assassinations, I'd prefer the leaks.

*Fallaci: Colby denies the CIA had anything to do with the leaks.*

*Pike:* Well, having seen what the CIA is capable of, I wouldn't say they are incapable of leaking a newspaper story. It is quite possible, believe me.

*Fallaci: Mr. Pike, there is one point that leaves me bewildered in your judgement of the CIA. The incapability of the CIA to predict a surprise attack in case of war.*

*Pike:* If you talk about a surprise attack like Pearl

12

The New Republic

Harbor, or one over some installation of ours somewhere in the world, we certainly wouldn't know about it from the CIA. I have seen nothing that could give me confidence in that sense. Probably our best intelligence in this regard is in Europe. In spite of what happened in Czechoslovakia, when we simply lost the Russian army for two weeks, I expect that we would know more in Europe. We have improved there, I guess, in seven years. But elsewhere! The Arab-Israeli war episode is discouraging. All right, it took place in an area where we are not immediately involved . . . where we have no bases or troops, I mean. Yet our intelligence was awful. Absolutely awful. Just imagine, after the war had already started, for three or four hours the CIA kept saying: "Nothing is going to happen."

*Fallaci: Colby says that your statements on this subject are irresponsible. He says that the CIA is the best intelligence operation in the world.*

*Pike:* We did not start this investigation with the preconceived intention of revealing only their failures. I can assure you that. After we had looked at the money they spent, I said to the members of the committee: "Now we are going to examine the results." And I asked them to suggest situations which were important from the point of view of American foreign policy and it turned out that, in everything, the CIA had done badly. We chose the Tet offensive in Vietnam, the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Arab-Israeli war in 1973, the coup in Cyprus, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, the Indian nuclear explosion, the coup in Portugal. And we found that in no way did the American taxpayer get value for what his intelligence cost. In all of those seven cases, the CIA performed badly, did a lousy job.

*Fallaci: The time has come for me to taste my dessert—I mean the Italian covert action story. Does your report say everything there is to say about the pay-off in my country?*

*Pike:* To the best of my knowledge, yes. Aside from the names, I would say yes.

*Fallaci: Do you think we will ever know those names officially?*

*Pike:* I have no idea. But I have mixed feelings about it. I mean, if I were a member of the Italian parliament . . . and the allegation had been made that some members

## To our Readers

With this issue, Henry Fairlie joins *The New Republic* as contributing editor. Formerly editorial writer of *The Times* (London), he has written on American political affairs since 1966. Fairlie is also the author of *The Life of Politics* (1968), *The Kennedy Promise* (1973), and *The Spoiled Child of the Western World* (Doubleday, 1976). The Oxford English Dictionary identifies him as the *locus classicus* for the first use of the term "the Establishment."

of the Italian parliament had received campaign contributions from the CIA, and I had not received any contribution from the CIA, I would want those names to be published in order to clear my personal reputation. On the other hand, if I had accepted a campaign contribution from the CIA, and if I felt that this had helped to get me elected but in no sense had diminished my loyalty to [my country] then I would think it terribly unfair to see my name published. Because my life would be in danger.

*Fallaci: Are you speaking like those who suppressed your report, Mr Pike? Are you using Richard Welch's death as an excuse? Come on! There is a hell of a difference between an agent and somebody who takes money.*

*Pike:* You say that there is a hell of a difference but someone killed Mr. Welch. You cannot rationalize everything because assassins are not rational people. I am not sure that anyone of those who took money from the CIA would be safe from terrorists.

*Fallaci: What has paying off foreign politicians to do with your national security? What is this national security?*

*Pike:* I guess it means the essential strength of the nation. And, in that sense, I can see how they might consider certain payoffs as connected to the national security. Yes, I can. You see, the basic fear in America, as far as the Italian Communists are concerned, is that if they won an election there would never be another election.

*Fallaci: But the problem remains, as I said to Colby, that we want to take care of this in our way because we are not a colony of yours.*

*Pike:* I couldn't agree more. Absolutely. The problem is: to what extent do the Soviets finance the Italian Communist Party? And what kind of policy do we Americans follow there?

*Fallaci: A last question Mr. Pike. How did you feel when you discovered that part of your money had gone to the Italian neo-Fascists? Did you reproach anyone?*

*Pike:* Of course, America does not have the right to do that. But reproaching someone after the fact isn't terribly useful. The goal is always to prevent abuses from recurring. You should ask me: was your reproach of any use? And I would answer: yes, I think it was of some use for a while. For a while . . . Now that they know they've gone too far in many areas and in many ways, the CIA and the NSA are going to be a little more careful for a while. What I am afraid of, in fact, is the consequence of the Welch assassination and of the leaks. There will be no congressional oversight in the near future, I'm afraid. The real oversight will have to come from the executive branch. And I don't think that the executive branch will ever completely monitor itself. So, after a while, I fear, the oversight will become pro forma again. And the abuses, I fear, will start again.

TRB®
from Washington
March 13, 1976

Shellshock

A year ago America's 16-year involve-
ment in Vietnam cracked and crumbled.
What is left are some young Americans
in exile, a national mental block amount-
ing to near-psychosis, and some
behavioral quirks that would delight a
psychiatrist: distrust of ourselves,
alienation, a lassitude of will, and a
clutch of presidential candidates roaming
the nation warning against the
federal government.

America's allies pray that we will snap
out of it soon, using, perhaps, the
standard therapy of such cases:
reconstruction, one by one, of the
painful events leading up to the
blackout. "One year ago," murmurs the
patient on the couch, "it seems like a
century, an age!" It was only March 5,
1975, however, that newspapers noted
the start of a new North Vietnamese
attack in the Central Highlands.

It was the beginning of the end. Mr. Ford was "terribly disappointed" that Congress delayed $522 million supplemental aid in the emergency. But a year ago the nation was fed up: Gallup reported 78 percent of the public opposed more aid; the House Democrats voted 189-49 against it.

Fall of the Lon Nol regime in Cam-
bodia "could vitally affect the national
security of the United States," Mr. Ford
warned Congress, March 17. Such
nonsense seems incredible a year later.
But we had heard statements like that
for years and, besides, Congress was
being set up to be blamed for the loss of
the war in the 1976 election. South
Vietnamese troops began abandoning
provincial capitals, followed by hun-
dreds of thousands of pitiful civilians.
On March 20 last year Mr. Ford linked
the retreat to the uncertainty of US aid.

Hue fell, the former imperial capital. Washington tension grew. *The New York Times* unexpectedly declared, March 21, that it would be "unconscionable" to cut off ammunition for Saigon, and it urged a three-year terminal aid program "to remove the Vietnam issue from next year's (1976) presidential election." The Communists removed it themselves. Americans watched on their TV sets South Vietnamese troops fight civilians to get on the last plane from Da Nang.

Was that only last year?—surely it
must have been longer! The climax came
soon, but as always, the details were
surprising. Scoop Jackson told the
Senate, April 8, that he was "reliably
informed" that former President Nixon
had made "secret agreements" with
Saigon. Yes, said the White House the
next day, but only to assure Saigon (in
1973) that the US would "react
vigorously" to any violation of the
pending cease-fire agreement. We
wanted Thieu to come along, just as we
had when Kissinger electrified the
nation, right before the 1972 election,
that "peace is at hand."

The Communist advance rolled
forward. Mr. Ford suddenly asked an
evening joint session of Congress, April
10, for $722 million more aid to help
Saigon "save itself." Maybe this wasn't
an effort to put the monkey on Con-
gress' back but it looked like that. The
end was near. The Pentagon estimated
that $780 million of US-supplied arms
had been lost in the retreat.

Cambodia surrendered on April 10. That ended one US adventure: an unprovoked and unconstitutional presidential war. It recalled the Christmas bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong, also ordered by Nixon without consultation. The bombing was too bad, State Department officials agreed later, because this most intensive bombing in history (2000 strikes, 12 days) was not a military necessity; it was a sweetener to persuade Premier Thieu to come along with cease-fire negotiations.

Saigon surrendered April 30. That
ended 30 years of bloodshed. The war
began as a native rebellion, led by Ho Chi
Minh, to throw off French colonial rule.
The US was half-sympathetic at first but
finally decided French morale had to be
bolstered. The US provided financial aid
to France, and after she was thrown out
began supplying military advisers to the
South in the civil war that followed.
Always there were two beliefs; the belief

that all underdeveloped countries would
love America if only they got to know us;
and the belief in monolithic com-
munism.

The first belief brought the classic
peroration of Sen. Ken Wherry discuss-
ing China in the 1940s, "With God's help
we will lift Shanghai up and up—ever
up, until it is just like Kansas City." And
the other belief brought hardly less
romantic utterances: Secretary Dulles'
that we would make Laos a "bastion of
the free world," and Jack Kennedy's that
"the security of all Southeast Asia will be
endangered if Laos loses its neutralist
independence."

"Probably the only people who have the historical sense of inevitable victory are the Americans," English political scientist Denis Brogan once wrote with awe. It was never understood in Washington, explained David Halberstam, that what was happening in Vietnam "was a revolutionary war, and that the other side held title to the revolution because of the colonial war which had just ended."

Europeans watched Washington and
Saigon with equal curiosity a year ago.
The *Sunday Times* (London), April 6, saw
"a pitiful lack of dignity" in Washington:
"The President rails at Congress, as if a
few million dollars could change the
course of history." The *Daily Telegraph*
decided that America's other alliances
were safe; "the United States never at
any time had the *will to win* in Vietnam."

The London *Times* summed it up;
there were "two flaws" in America's
policy from the first, it said. "One was
the tendency to see the tentacles of a
centrally-directed Communist con-
spiracy everywhere . . . The other was
the tendency to see the American
political system as the neutral and
universal goal of human endeavor."

Exactly; and these myths departed a
year ago as America lost its innocence
and came of age. It happens to nearly
everybody, sooner or later, but it is hard
to face. It helps account for the dis-
illusionment and alienation of the
election mood. Mr. Ford still attacks
Congress: the other day he called it
"gutless" about Angola. We sent 550,-
000 to Vietnam, but it is hard to forgive
Cuba for sending 10,000 to Angola.
Congress is still to blame; we lost the
Great Society and got inflation in the
war; some draft evaders are still in exile
wishing they had a pardon like Nixon,
and the thing cost the US $170 billion
and 55,000 lives. It ended a year ago.

March 13, 1976

9

toward the right, that "the electorate is more conservative today than at any time since pre-New Deal days." It is conceivable that it may turn out that way in the end, but we're quite sure that the results thus far do not sustain so sweeping a conclusion.

Though some of the news was good for progressive Democrats not all of it was. The GOP has apparently resolved not to default this election with a suicidal mission headed by Ronald Reagan. The Democrats will have to fight for this one, and fight hard.

## White House Watch

### Two For the Road

Here are some notes on the campaign performances of President Ford and Ronald Reagan, with special attention to Reagan because his try for the Republican nomination deserves substantive discussion that it has not previously been accorded in this space.

During three days on the road with Reagan in New Hampshire and New York City, before the New Hampshire primary, and three days with Gerald Ford in Florida, this reporter found the audiences and their reactions to the candidates at least as interesting as the candidates were. This was particularly true of Reagan and of his impact upon his audiences.

The Reagan observed in New Hampshire was the masterful communicator that he'd been touted to be. But there were some odd and generally unnoticed aspects of the communication during the New Hampshire-New York phase. Although Reagan appeared to be in remarkably good shape for a 65-year-old fellow, he was noticeably tired at the start of the two mornings that he was observed after a day and evening on the road. He seemed to gather vigor as the days proceeded. The days and evenings weren't really as hard as the schedules made them seem to be. It was evident that Reagan's tour managers guarded his energies as carefully as Bob Haldeman used to guard Richard Nixon's in the White House and on the road. There was no turning up at factory gates at 7 or even 6 am, as some of the Democratic contenders were doing. Reagan's days began at a civilized hour, never before 8 o'clock, and "staff time" was set aside in the late afternoons and early evenings. Reagan's hard-bitten and thoroughly professional press secretary, Lyn (for Franklyn) Nofziger, insisted that the candidate's managers had no need to conserve his strength and that they actually were "working him like hell." The sensitivity was more revealing than the assertion.

The pattern of the audiences arranged for Reagan was also interesting. With one exception during the period in discussion, they were small groups of evidently committed supporters and school audiences

composed mostly of teenagers and teachers. The exception was a general-audience meeting at the state university in Durham for one of Reagan's question-and-answer dialogues with citizens. President Ford had drawn about three times as many people to the same auditorium two nights before Reagan appeared. A raucous gang of young scruffies, billing themselves as representatives of the People's Bicentennial Commission and similar in age and behavior to the anti-war demonstrators of the Johnson and Nixon years, did Mr. Ford the favor of arousing audience sympathy for him. They'd had several previous encounters with Reagan and on this occasion seemed to be weary of the game, listless and bored with themselves, and so in a negative way they contributed to a tepid affair.

One of the unkind things being said by Stuart Spencer and William Roberts, the California campaign specialists who managed Reagan's sensationally successful runs for governor in 1966 and 1970 and are working now for President Ford, is that the articulate and seemingly outgoing Reagan is actually an introverted loner who detests crowds and "crowd situations." He seemed to be at ease with his New Hampshire crowds and to enjoy the appearances. At Durham after a short speech and a lengthy question-answer session, he invited his hearers to file by him for a handshake, a little conversation, and autographs, and in several instances spent minutes in earnest talk with individuals. He never plunged into crowds and "pressed the flesh" in the frenetic fashions of Johnson, Nixon, Ford. Florida news accounts of his final appearances in that state, where victory in its March 9 primary had become vital to his survival after his marginal loss in New Hampshire, noted small crowds and half-filled halls. In New Hampshire, that facet of the Reagan tours was intended and contrived and never explained.

The reaction of the high and prep school audiences in New Hampshire was both interesting and depressing. Reagan chose Phillips Exeter Academy, of all institutions, for a fierce and carefully prepared attack upon the Ford administration's policies of accommodation with the Soviet Union and Communist China, its alleged propensity for giving away far more than it was even trying to get in strategic arms negotiations with the Soviet Union, and its readiness—inherited from the Nixon administration and set forth in the Shanghai Communiqué of 1972—to dump the nationalist Republic of China on Taiwan at some undefined future stage. Each of these points, along with implied attacks on Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and a strong suggestion that Gerald Ford had been lying to the American public about the real nature and consequences of his foreign policies, brought many of the students to their feet, screaming and applauding. Public school students, all white in every instance observed for this report, were sent into transports of applause, clapping and stomping, by Reagan's denunciations of "forced busing to achieve racial balance" and of

10

The New Republic

proposals to control the sale and ownership of handguns. The adult audiences were aroused to peaks of approval by Reagan's promises to reduce the power of the federal courts to interfere with local preferences and practices and, in general, to get the federal government "off the backs" of state and local governments.

The foregoing brings us to Reagan's famous $90 billion goof and his effort to extract himself from the hole that he dug with it. At the risk of expulsion from the company of respectable journalists, I herewith gallop to Ronald Reagan's defense in one important matter. He was widely reported to have said in a speech in Chicago on September 26 that the transfer from federal to state governments of responsibility for "welfare, education, housing, food stamps, Medicaid, community and regional development, and revenue sharing, to name a few... would reduce the [annual] outlay of the federal government by more than $90 billion, using the spending levels of fiscal 1976." Well, he did say it, but most of the subsequent reports and interpretations had him saying *only* that. When I first heard him say in New Hampshire that his critics "neglected to say" that he'd actually proposed transfer to state governments of the federal "resources" necessary to finance the programs, I assumed that he was faking. He wasn't. The text of his Chicago speech shows that he preceded the passage just quoted in part with the following sentence—with emphasis added: "What I propose is nothing less than a systematic transfer of authority and resources to the states—a program of creative federalism for America's third century." It was Reagan's fault that the reference to "resources" was so brief and casual that it went practically unnoticed. A "fact sheet" issued with the text was so full of budgetary absurdities that it's been withdrawn and suppressed by the Reagan people. Otherwise critical commentators have conceded, however, that the proportion of federal and state responsibility for social programs is a valid issue and that Reagan, despite the flaws in his original proposal, did a service in raising it. Martin Anderson, a conservative young urbanologist who was one of the Nixon staff's best members in its first, best years, joined the Reagan staff in November to help Reagan out of the $90-billion hole and to inject some needed sense and sophistication into related Reaganisms. When Anderson says that the transfer or relinquishment of some federal revenue sources to the states is possible and practicable and that the modified Reagan proposal is not sheer demagoguery, I listen with a respect that I do not automatically grant to anything said by Ronald Reagan.

This piece was written when President Ford and his people were struggling to contain and conceal their increasing belief that Ronald Reagan was about to become a past-tense candidate. They were trying to contain and conceal it because, as Ford campaign

manager Howard ("Bo") Callaway kept saying, for President Ford Committee workers in Florida and Illinois, where he was scheduled to campaign next, to conclude that the race was as good as won "would be disastrous." Yet, as a reporter who has never had any faith in his perceptions of crowds and their attitudes, I must admit that there was something infectious and suggestive of growing Ford support in the crowds drawn by the President in Florida on February 28-29. The trip provided a mixed display of repellent demagoguery and attractive folksiness—demagoguery in the President's foolishly unqualified statement to 1078 newly naturalized Cubans that "this administration will have nothing to do with the Cuba of Fidel Castro"; folksiness in the "Gee, it's wonderful to be with you wonderful people" note that Mr. Ford sustained throughout a 14-stop motorcade from Palm Beach to Ft. Lauderdale, mostly in pouring rain. The rain kept down the crowds, to the initial dismay of the President's official party. But the hundreds who turned out despite it in the smaller places (Briney Breezes, for instance) and the thousands in larger towns may have been a bigger plus for the President than the large crowds that appeared to hear him, smile with and at him, and beg for a handshake or a baby-kiss during the sunny Sunday that followed. Soaked, rumpled, hair askew, Mr. Ford said at one point on the rainy Saturday, "I don't look very good but I think I'm a darned good President." One didn't have to agree with him to take pleasure in his pleasure with the crowds, himself, and his prospects.

John Osborne

## Mercenary Psychiatry

It is difficult to say whose behavior in the Patty Hearst trial is more distasteful—the defendant's, her lawyers', or her psychiatrists'. However, some revelations about the antics of the alienists have at least injected an amusing note into the repellent proceedings. These disclosures have also added a few fresh facts to the story, a commodity in notoriously short supply in dramatic criminal trials.

In June 1975, before Patty Hearst was apprehended, Dr. Louis J. West, chairman of the department of psychiatry at the University of California at Los Angeles, wrote a letter to Patty Hearst's parents telling them not to despair "because she might be restored to health" if she was returned to them alive; and advising them that "powerful legal and medical arguments can be mobilized in her defense."

Such testimony-chasing by a psychiatrist is no more surprising than is ambulance-chasing by a lawyer. Each has a sacred professional duty to protect his client's

TRB®

from Washington

May 22, 1976

## Men of the Year, 1926

A reporter who occasionally covers the Senate can't help a sneaking hope that Daniel Patrick Moynihan, erstwhile ambassador to the UN, erstwhile envoy to India, erstwhile historian, urbanologist, sociologist, erstwhile everything else, might reach that body. It's stodgy and needs flamboyance. It wasn't always this way. Before radio and television, when a member in a string tie and swallowtails could reach a crowd of 10,000 without straining his tonsils or using amplifiers, the Senate always had a sprinkling of wonderful eccentrics, let alone some noble characters, sometimes combined in one man. They are still there, perhaps, masquerading as solid citizens, but electronics has flattened them out, and the disguise is deep.

This isn't an endorsement of Pat Moynihan who, according to some reports, is about to toss his leprechaun's hat into the senatorial race in New York; it is just a nostalgic thought about old times where he might have fitted in better. He's gregarious and controversial-prone, and the fatherless Irish shoeshine boy turned counselor to presidents would liven the Senate up. I found myself turning to a red-bound Congressional Directory, 69th Congress, 2nd Session, December 1926, Calvin Coolidge president, with the cover stamped "Cora Rigby." Half a century ago . . . The Senate list is there, all 96 of them: 53 Republicans in roman type; 42 Democrats in italic type, and one Farmer-Labor in ROMAN CAPS—that was Henrik Shipstead, practicing dentist of Kandiyohi County, Minn., who could pass a law or take out a tooth.

My eyes move lovingly down the list starting with witty, courtly Henry F. Ashurst (D) of Arizona, who defined a

happy life as one that lasted 90 creative years and ended with a shot from a jealous husband. There is Royal Copeland of New York, with his red carnation. There is gimlet-eyed, austere, Tom Walsh, Teapot Dome prosecutor, born in Two Rivers, Wisconsin but Montanan by choice—the nemesis of Albert Fall. Aiding him in the inquiry was Burton K. Wheeler whose apartment, like Walsh's, was mysteriously rifled, office ransacked, telephone tapped, mail opened, and past probed by government agents.

Melodrama didn't begin with *All the President's Men*. Here is the clown from Alabama: "An empty taxi drove up and Heflin stepped out," somebody quipped: an amiable and likable phony, "Tom-Tom" Heflin, who, as *Time* magazine used to say, "mortally hates and fears the Pope of Rome."

What a contrast with humorless Reed Smoot, lugubrious as an undertaker, whose coming to Washington in 1903 occasioned a row because he was a Mormon and did they still practice polygamy? He didn't; in 1926 he was in his fifth term and the author of the violently protectionist Smoot-Hawley tariff. He was immensely powerful (under Coolidge) as chairman of the Finance Committee. Poor chap, he was scandalized by modern laxity and wanted to censor periodicals, provoking the alliterative headline, "Smite smut, Smoot!"

It is a Senate to watch. Reporters loll in their chamber behind the press gallery as they do today, but no longer does the gallery superintendent poke his head through the swing door to cry, "Borah's up!" The room empties in a minute; everybody piles out into the gallery to hear the great rumbling tones of the leonine orator. What an accolade for a man 50 years later; just two words—"Borah's up!"

Down there, too, is Carter Glass from Virginia, founder of the Federal Reserve System, testy and emotional, with an odd twist to his mouth and an accent everybody tries to imitate. "Just think what Carter would say," Woodrow Wilson observed once in pretended awe, "if he used his whole mouth!"

"Fighting Bob" LaFollete is gone but his Wisconsin seat is taken by his son. Just two years before in the three-way presidential race LaFollete, Sr. got five million votes. At that 1924 Democratic Madison Square Garden convention another Alabama senator was his state's

favorite son. The convention was the first broadcast by radio and ran to 103 ballots. As the battle swung between Al Smith and William Gibbs McAdoo, the roll call started with Alabama, delivered in a stentorian Southern accent—"Al-bam-ah casts twenty-fo' votes for (pause) Oscar W. UN-derwood!"

What a list. Hiram Johnson, Pat Harrison, Jim Couzens, steely-eyed Jim Reed, that wonderful fraud, Jim Watson. Presiding over it is Gen. Charles G. (Hell-and-Maria) Dawes. They had crackling personalities (like Fiorello LaGuardia over in the House), which somehow the TV age tends to standardize, subdue, flatten. The present election is a media event—for the first time we have an actual Hollywood actor running for president, and inevitably this is a trend so long as we pick candidates by personality parade; television discards issues, parties and the supporting cast of congressmen and throws its spotlight on the Big Shot—the thespian type.

There was one man in the 69th Congress who didn't fit the pattern, George Norris of Nebraska. He was simple, idealistic, rock-hard. In the House he overthrew Speaker Joe Cannon, and in the Senate got through the 20th Amendment ending the notorious lame duck session. Then after a 15-year struggle, he won Muscle Shoals for the people. Public ownership shocked Coolidge and Hoover and for the sake of private enterprise Henry Ford offered $5 million to buy the priceless nitrate plant. In his veto Hoover said that public ownership would "break down the initiative and enterprise of the American people . . . I hesitate to contemplate the future of our institutions, of our Government, and of our country if the preoccupation of its officials is to be no longer the promotion of justice and equal opportunity but is to be devoted to barter in the markets. This is not liberalism, it is degeneration." Sounds like Mr. Ford vetoing the daycare bill.

George Norris had arched eyebrows that gave him a surprised look, and he was a poor speaker but, as FDR said of him on a special outdoor stop at McCook, Nebraska (September 28, 1932) as the sunset burned and throbbing above the prairie, "He was the very perfect gentle knight of American progressive ideals."

Quite a crowd when you come to think about it.

6

The New Republic

## White House Watch

# Pressure on Henry

Henry Kissinger was hardly back from his first tour of southern Africa when he went running to trusted friends, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller notably among them, asking them whether he had become a political liability to the President and therefore should resign. Kissinger, who years ago proved himself a past master at getting people to beg him to do what he wants to do, heard what he presumably wanted to hear. He was urged and begged to calm down, hang in there, and ignore the complaints that some Republican politicians were making to the President. The immediate complaint was that Kissinger's advocacy of black majority rule in Rhodesia and South Africa and his declaration of "unrelenting opposition" to the white minority government of Rhodesia, just three days before the Republican primary in Texas, had contributed materially to Ronald Reagan's triumph and Mr. Ford's disastrous defeat in that contest. A more general complaint was that Kissinger had come to personify all in Ford foreign policy that was most vulnerable to Reagan's distorted, disgraceful and politically effective charges that the administration was giving the Panama Canal back to Panama and, in a soft-headed pursuit of peaceful accommodation with the Soviet Union, letting that Communist power achieve strategic superiority over the United States.

The Republican complaints to the President were not really as weighty as Kissinger seemed to think they were when he returned from Africa on May 7. Sen. Robert P. Griffin of Michigan, the assistant Republican leader in the Senate, told reporters that one person at a Republican leadership meeting with the President had "suggested that Secretary Kissinger ought to go." Griffin didn't identify the person and others at the meeting said they didn't recall anyone going quite that far. Griffin said he didn't think Kissinger's resignation "would help politically." John Rhodes of Arizona, the House Republican leader, complained through a spokesman and in person that Kissinger's Africa trip and declarations were poorly timed. He also said, rather elliptically, that "in my opinion Henry Kissinger has been and is a fine Secretary of State" and that "one of the real signs of his greatness is that he will know when he has gathered enough barnacles and scars so he can no longer be an effective Secretary of State." A spokesman said Rhodes didn't mean that last remark to be the nudge that it could be interpreted to be. Rep. Robert H. Michel of Illinois, the assistant House Republican leader, was quoted as saying the Africa trip had a "devastating effect" in southern states and that Kissinger ought to be "muzzled." Asked through his secretary if he'd been quoted correctly, Michel sent word that he'd said it all and meant it all "in spades."

We concentrate in the remainder of this report on the Africa trip, the prelude to it and its aftermath because the sequence perfectly illustrates Kissinger's relationship with the President, Mr. Ford's part in a difficult, risky shift in foreign policy, and his handling of the problem that it made for him.

When reporters tried to pin upon the President explicit responsibility for Kissinger's most incendiary statement in Africa, the declaration of "unrelenting opposition" to continued white minority rule in Rhodesia, Press Secretary Ron Nessen said over and over (with slight variations): "I want you to know that the President makes foreign policy and Dr. Kissinger carries out and enunciates that foreign policy, and that is what he has done on his African trip." A reluctance to add to Gerald Ford's liabilities in a period of unexpected and possibly ruinous erosion in the Republican primaries was understandable. But it seemed to me that the President would have been better served if Nessen had been authorized, as he obviously had not been, to be explicit and detailed about Mr. Ford's role in formulating and approving the positions stated by Kissinger in Africa. It's true enough that the President and Kissinger declared the United States to be for black majority rule and against white minority rule in the black countries of southern Africa only after the Soviet-Cuban success in Angola thoroughly frightened an administration that, like all of its predecessors, had been indifferent to the blacks of southern Africa and indeed to black Africa as such. It also may be argued that "majority rule", meaning black rule in Rhodesia, South Africa and Southwest Africa ("Namibia"), would not automatically and necessarily be in the national interest of the United States as that interest is usually and narrowly defined. But, however ignoble its immediate origins and motivation, the revised African policy that Gerald Ford authorized and Henry Kissinger enunciated is right. It is right morally and, I believe, will in the long run prove to be right politically and in terms of national security.

Mr. Ford's responsibility for the policy is total. He, Kissinger and a few advisers, including both political and national security assistants, discussed every aspect of the policy and possible alternatives to it before Kissinger went to Africa. Kissinger and others reminded the President that the enunciation of the policy at this time—the key statement of it occurred at Lusaka, Zambia, on April 27—would surely have unfavorable political effects. I am told at the White House—not at the State Department—that Mr. Ford's reaction to this warning was instant, emphatic, unmistakable. He said that if this was the right and necessary thing to do and say, and he had come to believe it was, he was not going to let election-year considerations interfere with either the doing, the saying or the timing of it.

At a press conference before he left for Africa, Kissinger outlined the policy and the American

May 22, 1976

5

## Gracias, Fidel

In a bizarre way, Cuba pushes the US into policies that, were it not for Fidel Castro, might never have been formulated—policies in which successive administrations have taken real, if belated, pride. Cuba was physically attacked and has been villified by the US for the past 17 years, since Castro came to power in Havana. And despite it all the Cubans have succeeded, from the birth of their revolution, in placing the "Colossus of the North" on the defensive. Cuba has created conditions under which Washington had little choice but to react as it did.

The most recent example of the phenomenon is the "new" policy in southern Africa enunciated by Secretary of State Kissinger during his recent tour. Kissinger would not have announced the "unrelenting opposition" of the US to minority white rule in Rhodesia—and probably would not have made the African trip at all—had Cuban military intervention in Angola not imposed a new reality in that part of the world. Simultaneously, the danger arose of guerrilla warfare against the Ian Smith regime in Salisbury. Before Angola, the US was satisfied to ignore conditions in southern Africa.

That Kissinger's initiatives in Africa, including his promise of expanded American aid to the "Third World," which he made at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Nairobi, are grist for the mill of Ronald Reagan's jingoistic presidential campaign is a separate matter. It is painfully ironic that on one of the few occasions Kissinger has enunciated an enlightened policy—the Panama Canal negotiations are another example—Kissinger has become the target of ultra-conservative political attacks that, given President Ford's own uncertainties, endanger the policy.

Cuba has been affecting US foreign policy since the Eisenhower Administration. While opposing the Cuban revolution with all its might (preparations for the Bay of Pigs invasion had started under Eisenhower in mid-1960), the US decided that the time had suddenly come to pay attention to Latin American economic and social problems. The Act of Bogotá—the first serious effort by the US to face change in Latin America—was clearly a response by the Eisenhower Administration to the threat that the Cuban revolution might be "exported" throughout the Hemisphere.

When John Kennedy launched the Alliance for Progress on March 13, 1961 (five weeks before the Bay of Pigs), he took another step to avert the spread of the Cuban revolutionary influence. A massive program compared to the Act of Bogotá and earlier American policies in the region, the Alliance was as much an anti-Castro effort as it was an expression of new US idealism. Significantly, the rhetoric of the day propounded "evolution, not revolution" in Latin

America, and the accent was purely reformist. Cynical Latins said, "Gracias, Fidel" whenever a new Alliance for Progress project was inaugurated.

Cuba also affected US-Soviet relations. Many people believe that Castro might not have encouraged the Russians to emplace nuclear missiles on his island in 1962 had the US not carried out the Bay of Pigs adventure a year earlier. As part of his missile crisis settlement, Kennedy made assurances that the US would not repeat invasion attempts. The long-range effect of the missile crisis was to define, for the first time, the boundaries of Soviet nuclear deployments. The price paid by the US was the renunciation of military action against Cuba.

In 1964, President Johnson undertook negotiations with Panama over the status of the canal. He was responding to wild riots around the Canal Zone. But another of his concerns was that the Cuban revolution might infect Panama if efforts were not made to draft a new treaty. Kissinger, evidently realizing the degree of radicalization in the Caribbean (clearly inspired by the Cuban example) and the emerging Third World support for Panama, resumed the negotiations in 1974. Today, given the warm relationship between Panama's strong man, Gen. Omar Torrijos, and Castro, the Ford Administration is trying to justify attempts to negotiate a treaty by raising the specter of guerrilla warfare against the US in Panama. There should be, of course, a more valid public argument for defending a policy of self-enlightened US interest in the area, but that's the best that Ford, responding to Reagan's use of the canal issue, could do.

In Africa, the victory of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) was facilitated by the well-armed Cuban expeditionary force. The Cuban intervention, in concert with the Soviets, forced a rethinking of American policy in southern Africa.

Prior to Angola, the US was content to look the other way while Smith ran his white racist minority régime. The Administration, for example, made no effort in five years to repeal the Byrd Amendment, which, by allowing US corporations to import chromium from Rhodesia, violated the United Nations embargo on Salisbury. The policy was based on a 1970 conclusion by the White House that white régimes in Africa were safely entrenched, an illusion shattered by the 1974 revolution and the grant of independence to Mozambique and Angola.

Even the Portuguese revolution failed to alter US policies in southern Africa. Only when the Cubans demonstrated that the black liberation movements had a serious ally did Kissinger discover that the US simply could not go on espousing every unpopular cause in Africa. So America's "unrelenting opposition" to Ian Smith was born. And it's the Africans' turn to say, "Gracias, Fidel."

Tad Szulc

May 22, 1976

7

commitment to "majority rule." The politicians who were soon whining about the timing had nothing to say about it then. In a season of weekly primaries, there was no "good time" for such an announcement, anyhow, so that part of the complaint never made much sense. The passages in Kissinger's Lusaka speech that made most of the trouble for him and the President were: "... the United States declares ... that independence must be preceded by majority rule which, in turn must be achieved no later than two years following the expeditious conclusion of negotiations [between black nationalists and the white Rhodesian government];" and "the Salisbury regime must understand that ... it will face our unrelenting opposition until a negotiated settlement is achieved." A promise to press for repeal of a law that permits the US importation of Rhodesian chrome in violation of UN economic sanctions probably had to be made, though neither the Nixon nor Ford administrations ever really worked for repeal and Kissinger and the President must have known that Congress probably won't repeal the law. Congressman Gerald Ford voted for the law.

A passage in the speech that Kissinger drafted with the utmost care and that the President fouled up when he tried to paraphrase it during the final days of his Texas campaign had to do with white rights under black rule in "Zimbabwe," the name that the blacks intend to give the country. Kissinger said: "Finally, we state our conviction that whites as well as blacks should have a secure future and civil rights ... A constitutional structure should protect minority rights together with establishing majority rule." Mr. Ford said in Texas: "... our policy would guarantee minority rights for any individuals in any of those countries in Africa." A reporter asked Press Secretary Nessen whether the President meant, as Kissinger had carefully avoided even suggesting, that the US would guarantee white rights. Nessen checked and reported that the President did not mean this-"we won't do the guaranteeing," Nessen said. Mr. Ford proceeded to say in his next reference to the matter: "This country has traditionally believed that under any and all circumstances we should protect minority rights or guarantee minority rights" and added that "as long as we seek to guarantee the minority rights of individuals in Rhodesia," a peaceful settlement should be attainable. He confined himself to saying once that the US would do its best "to make sure that minority rights ... will be guaranteed" and then went back to saying: "We believe that in the process of self-determination we must absolutely guarantee the rights of the minorities ..." Of course the US can neither make nor enforce such a guarantee. Mr. Ford never meant to say, while saying repeatedly, that it could and would.

A sad feature of the aftermath was the shortage of
praise from quarters that should have been generously
praising the President and Henry Kissinger. The
Congressional Black Caucus welcomed the trip as a

first step toward a viable Africa policy but said the proof
will be in what happens next. Hubert Humphrey in a
statement and eight more or less liberal Republican
senators in a draft resolution commended Kissinger for
charting "a more moral foreign policy" and for
signalling "a new realism in United States policy toward
Africa." These and a few other commendations got less
notice than the feckless argument over whether the
amended policy was good or bad politics. One of the few
heartening features was the assurance conveyed to me
that the President is determined to stick with Kissinger.
If our Henry would accept that as fact and quit fretting
all over the place, he and the President and the country
would be the better for it.

John Osborne

The Flowering of Contempt

Lost Solemnity

In the last analysis ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a
high degree of solemnity . . . .
—Ambrose Bierce

It was bound to happen, one supposes. Henri Peyrefitte's "accusation" that the Pope is homosexual—let's forget whether it might be true, appropriate or in any conscious political sense justifiable—is a kind of ne plus ultra of a trend that has taken very few years to develop into a brand new historical problem for those capable of thinking about it, namely the disappearance in our era of solemnity as the ultimate guardian in the throne room of authority. It is a different phenomenon from revolution—or at least its revolutionary character is beclouded and uncertain—because it reveals a spreading desire among the populace, any populace in any jurisdiction, not to rebel and wrest power away from their rulers, but to "answer back," heckle and jape at them, specifically to hurl contempt in their faces and embarrass them to the point of... of just what is hard to say, perhaps to a form of "career suicide."

Consider. Since 1968 we have seen two Presidents
driven to their respective walls and slaughtered as
public figures as much by haunting, incessant shows of
public contempt as by any judicial or specifically
political acts. As well, their personal lives have been
gleefully raked up even afterwards, no doubt so that
their ghosts will stay down. Another President, once
revered as a martyr, has had his personal life raked up as
well, as though proof of a steady diet of degeneracy in
the White House going back a decade-and-a-half were
the proper folklore antidote to executive pretensions,
used rather as is garlic to ward off vampires. (And, if
Gore Vidal could have his way, the private life of even
Eisenhower would be subjected to the American

8

The New Republic

version of Peking's famous wall posters).

Whence comes this sudden flowering of contempt,
this thirst for reasons to belittle and laugh at men in
high office? Cynics and satirists have labored for
millenia to accomplish just that result, of course, but
their literary efforts have mainly gained the apprecia-
tion of their fellow lodge-members. To shake the seats
of prelates and the thrones of princes—what Swift,
Voltaire and Byron could not accomplish—is now
accomplished on a timetable that seemingly grows
more and more efficient, by a public audience that buys
newspapers and magazines, and occasionally books, to
see what new dirt Peyrefitte or Woodward and
Bernstein have to tell them about the follies, fantasies
and near-insanities of the so-called great. Indeed, it is as
if Mencken had never labored, a paradox of astonishing
proportions, really. It is now not for the aristocrats to
condemn the masses as foolish, irrational guttersnipes,
but for the masses to turn the tables and cast their
rulers in the role of foolish, maudlin and cretinous
tickle-brains, if not actual vermin.

My theory about this turn of affairs goes as follows. This century has seen the first attempt in history, over an important part of the world, to educate everybody. I should say "educate," because I don't mean really deep or searching mental and intellectual development putting everyone in touch with Homer and Milton, Euclid and Kepler, at their wavelengths, but just a passable literacy and formal ability to peruse the affairs of the day by whatever means are available. And, in contrast with so many other strivings of public policy in this century, this one was seemingly so un-political that no one importantly disagreed with it in principle, and all regimes, liberal or conservative, Fascist or Communist, colonial or feudal, strove to advance the cause of literacy and the spread of information. It was wonderful as a program: it was easy to do because paper and airwaves are easier to manipulate than, say, concrete or asphalt for roads or industrial plants; it was something almost no one could object to because learning has always been a magic word and because it was a nonideological idea; and it was something almost any government in fact knows how to do, as opposed, on occasion, to fighting wars, managing the economy or achieving justice. (It was just a complex form of talking or publicity, and what have all politicians done since the dawn of time but talk and publicize something?)

But no one seems to have seen what has just begun to
hit all governments and régimes. As the general level of
literacy and information-access in the whole populace
rose to approximate that of the rulers themselves,
crises have gone off all over the world. Not primary
crises like defeat in war or the collapse of diplomatic or
economic schemes, but a new form of secondary crisis
consisting of massive disbelief, and its frequent
vigorous expression, by the citizenry, on the grounds
that the people were being talked down to by leaders

who in fact could no longer persuade by the authority
of office alone, and had to start arguing in terms the
populace by now was reasonably familiar with, and the
judgment by the populace was in several spectacular
cases: baloney! A comparison of the US presidency and
the papacy is revealing here. In just about the same
stages, and at the same time, as our President was
struggling to explicate the Vietnam War to an
increasingly sceptical populace, so the Pope was
struggling to maintain docile order and discipline in the
Church on the issue of contraception. The results were,
roughly, parallel. The Pope encountered a concert of
opposition—rising to derision with the issuance of
*Humane Vitae*—from Catholics who knew just about as
much on the subject as he did, and in many cases felt
they could reason a good deal better than he chose to
do. President Johnson, by 1967 and '68, could no longer
fall back on the arguments used in the earlier phases of
the Vietnam War around 1963-64 (typical: "The
administration has access to more facts and figures
than we do, so we have to trust them."), for by 1967 the
populace probably had access to *better* facts than the
President, through the writings of Bernard Fall and
many others. By 1967 the President was reduced to
arguing with the populace, or else standing on his
dignity and refusing to hold press conferences: the *vox
pop*., through the press, was getting a little too close, and
the heat was building. In *Humanae Vitae* the Pope fell to
arguing with millions who could argue as well as he
could, and certainly several thousands who could argue
a good deal better. The Pope does not hold press
conferences, so he can't cancel them when he's
nervous, but the flatness of his encyclical, his failure to
respond to critics (until his recent missive on sexuality,
which tries to win the old battle in a new court), and his
divisionary forays into the politics of Jerusalem are a
fair mark of the losses he has suffered.

When Richard Nixon gained the presidency
proclaiming a "secret plan" to end the war "with
honor," he proved once again that he had badly read the
charts of history. This, and his other posturings as
super-personage, a "sovereign" no less, stirred an
inchoate vein of contempt in the populace all over
again: they were content to wait, just in case there
really was a secret plan of some sort, and they even re-
elected him overwhelmingly (those who voted, that is;
half the qualified electorate failed to vote, another
ominous bench mark of contempt), but though he
ended the war, but by means that proved how silly his
"secret" talk was and that it could have ended that way
four years earlier, the populace was quite prepared to
pounce on him over the Watergate scandal as though
the '72 majority were a cake of ice in the August sun.

Here, Nixon never understood the role of the press.
The press, if anything, was timid, downlooking and
egregiously respectful of the old-fashioned symbols of
power and the solemnity of office. The populace
reached the obvious conclusions about John Mitchell—

THE NEW REPUBLIC
A Journal of Politics and the Arts, Vol. 174, No. 19,
Issue 3200, May 8, 1976. Published weekly (except the issues of January 3, July 10, August 14,
August 28) and distributed by The New Republic, Inc., 1220 19th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036. Phone 331-7494. Single copy, 60¢; Yearly subscriptions, $21;
foreign, $24; students, $14. Send all remittances and correspondence about subscriptions,
undelivered copies and changes of address to Subscription Department, The New Republic, 381

West Center Street, Marion, Ohio 43302. Copyright 1976 by The New Republic, Inc. Item g. Second class
postage paid at Washington, DC and additional mailing offices. Indexed in Reader's Guide.

Contents

5 Comment

Henry's Successor
Carter's Lead
Common Sense

9 Drug Pushers—*Peter J. Ognibene*

10 The Cigarette War—Eliot Marshall

12 The Fight over Oversight—
*Jerry J. Berman & Morton H. Halperin*

14 Riots of Spring—Donald R. Katz

16 The Ideal Ticket—Ken Bode

18 Theater—Stanley Kauffmann

19 Living with Lobbies—Neil Harris

23 Books—Reviews by John Seelye, Arnold Rampersad, Thomas LeClair, Bell Gale Chevigny, Edith Milton

31 Correspondence

The Staff

Chairman, Editorial Board—Martin Peretz

Publisher—Robert J. Myers

Managing Editor—David Sanford

Literary Editor—Roger Rosenblatt

Senior Editor—John Osborne

Associate Editor—Eliot Marshall

'76 Politics Editor—Ken Bode

Assistant to the Editors—Gwen Somers

Assistant to the Literary Editor—
Cherryl Holt

Films and Theater—Stanley Kauffmann

Guest Poetry Editor—Robert Fitzgerald

Contributing Editors—Robert Brustein,
Robert Coles, Henry Fairlie, Joseph
Featherstone, Gerald W. Johnson,
Nathan Lewin, Roger Morris, Peter J.
Ognibene, John Seelye, Tad Szulc,
Melville J. Ulmer, Michael Walzer,
Paul R. Wieck

Production Manager—Elise D. Ritter

Assistant Production Manager—
Philip Terzian

Circulation Manager—
Elizabeth Scanlan O'Brien

Business Manager—Pearl Wilmer Ramsey

Secretary/Accounting Clerk—
Carolyn Carpenter

Bookkeeper—Rhonda Phyllis Davis

New Republic Feature Syndicate—
Leslie B. Seagrave

Advertising—Beth W. Newburger
(202) 331-7494

Receptionist—Ruby McGowan

Editorial Assistant—William Straus

Leadership Network Advertising—
Robert F. Sennott, Jr., New York
(212) 532-2500

Henry's
Successor

Though he is likely to survive the superficial cuts and bruises of the campaign, Henry Kissinger now finally is showing his political mortality. Whether or not the Democrats win in November, this peerless, flawed man is coming to the end of his historic mastery of US foreign policy. His leaving will please many people in both parties who once were in his thrall. In the two years since in Salzburg he threatened to resign and sent shivers through the press and Congress, the emerging record of Kissinger blunders and deception has reduced the appeal of his brilliance and charm.

But before his critics celebrate the exit of Super K, they should reflect on what the country will probably get in his place. For almost a quarter century, under both Republicans and Democrats, the office of Secretary of State has been the preserve of a small ingrown elite clustered mainly in New York and Washington. Many of the lawyers, bankers, foundation executives and house academics of this foreign policy Establishment have sat by the phone waiting for a call from the White House asking them to manage America's role in the world, or, as luck would have it, to judge the "soundness" for the office of one of their colleagues. The call often came. Unsure of their own abilities and their grasp of diplomacy, politicians from Harry Truman to Lyndon Johnson turned to the Establishment to fill the most important cabinet post. The elite served up patrician lawyers Dean Acheson and John Foster Dulles, and later, Rockefeller Foundation president and erstwhile bureaucrat Dean Rusk. The rest is history, much of it unpleasant.

Richard Nixon departed from tradition. Accurately feeling himself to be a hated outsider by this Establishment, he relied for his foreign policy on a relatively obscure Harvard professor named Henry Alfred Kissinger, whose independence and intellect had put him in the company though never in the league of the Achesons, the Dulleses and Rusks. Lecturing to the fleshy faces around those seminars at the Council on Foreign Relations, Kissinger quickly discovered the ultimate dirty little secret of the foreign policy club: its intellectual shallowness. He saw the incestuous jockeying for postion, the endless gossip, the common obsession with keeping a blurred, unexceptionable reputation for the moment when the President might call. Lost in the seamy scramble was any genuine thought or debate about foreign

The New Republic

policy. "Very little in the experience that forms these men," Kissinger wrote prophetically in 1961, "produces the combination of political acumen, conceptual skill, persuasive power, and substantive knowledge required for the highest positions of government." Theirs was, he went on, "a style of life that inhibits reflectiveness." Privately, his opinion of the grasping and incompetence of the elite was expressed in plainer language.

The Establishment's claim to rule, its irresistible power over self-doubting souls like Johnson, Hubert Humphrey or even now Jimmy Carter, has always been its "experience." For the men now elbowing their way into line for high office under the Democrats, "experience" means, no matter how much they and we would like to forget it, Vietnam. Reading the recent speeches and articles of employable former officials, however, it's hard to imagine how the Kennedy and Johnson administrations made it through those eight years and 20,000 American dead with so many policymakers so fiercely opposed to the war. They'd been discreet. They hid their dissent so well that most of them went right on watching silently or actively contributing to the duplicity and disaster. Those not directly involved in Vietnam stood by while the war devoured every worthwhile initiative in our foreign policy. Most of Kissinger's real accomplishments—SALT, the Middle East mediation, the opening to Peking—were authentic prospects in American diplomacy years before, but they had atrophied in the policy paralysis and bureaucratic stagnation of the Democrats. Yet among the many men who served in the key jobs at the level of assistant secretary in State or Defense in the 1960s—men who now quietly advise the candidates and expect to govern again—there was not one resignation in public protest. The Establishment, as everyone knows, has its unwritten rules about "going public" that way. Consuming ambition kept members of the elite from telling the truth to the American people about the most costly US mistake in this century.

And what about the future in this painful new world of inflation and resource scar cities? Is the Establishment qualified to deal with such human issues? The conflict of interest is congenital. As lawyers, financiers, foundation grandees—all wards of big money—their bread-and-butter clients are the vast corporate powers that are adversaries of the public interest from Kansas City to Kinshasa, wherever people want a fair say in their economic destiny. Presumed so worldly, the elite tends to be provincial and isolated. Driven snugly past the slums of New York and Washington on the way to their comfortable exiles, they are often oblivious to the life of their own communities, let alone the rest of the United States. Nor is the Establishment in tune with the national demand for a more open foreign policy. Its contempt for the public was plain in the secret government it has conducted. Democrats should remember that the Pentagon Papers rival anything

Kissinger has perpetrated in the art of public lying. Many of the CIA horrors unearthed by the Church and Pike committees are traceable to operations approved by officials in the Johnson administration whose zeal for intervention and purchasing foreign governments is another part of the past that must be dropped down the memory hole if Democrats are to take office.

If all this seems abstract, consider a sampling of the men who are now most prominently mentioned as foreign policy advisers by Democratic candidates or as potential Republican successors to Kissinger.

* *Cyrus Vance*, who is awaiting Jimmy Carter's inauguration, was a high official in the Pentagon throughout the '60s, including 1964-1967 as McNamara's deputy secretary of Defense, and is now a New York lawyer serving on several corporate boards. Vance was a major participant in a foreign policy that destroyed the last Democratic President, yet his recollections are unshared and his views on world issues, as one observer put it recently, are "invisible to the naked eye." Wouldn't it be useful to know more?

* *George Ball*, long the favorite of the moderate wing, is a former undersecretary of State to Dean Rusk now come to Wall Street, where he is a senior partner at Lehman Brothers. Ball's gentle but insistent dissent on Vietnam is publicly recorded in the *Pentagon Papers*, though thanks to Dan Ellsberg, not Ball, who resigned quietly in 1966 and even returned to be UN ambassador in 1968 without confusing the public with facts about how they were being governed. Would he feel differently next time? And is he not of all the pretenders the most preoccupied with foreign policy as an instrument for investment opportunities?

* *Eugene Rostow*, a former undersecretary of State for political affairs under Johnson, is admired by hardliners. Like his brother Walt, he was an ardent supporter of the Vietnam policy at its nadir in 1966-68. He is now back at Yale as a law professor, but he left behind at State a record in the handling of international financial issues that, unattended, led to the collapse in 1971 of the postwar economic system. Would his candidacy for Secretary of State survive an examination of that record?

* *Paul C. Warnke*, mentioned by many as a prospect for State or Defense, was an assistant secretary in the Pentagon under Johnson, and is widely credited with dissent on the war, though the *Pentagon Papers* account of the fateful post-Tet decision on troop reinforcements raises serious questions about that. Warnke's qualifications also include tenure as an adviser to Sen. Muskie in 1972. He is a partner in Clark Clifford's Washington law firm. Would Warnke have told the truth about Angola, Chile, Cyprus?

May 8, 1976.

7

The list could go on: Benjamin H. Read, president of the German Marshall Fund, who was Rusk's executive secretary coordinating Vietnam diplomacy; Thomas L. Hughes, president of the Carnegie Endowment and former director of State's Intelligence and Research who stood by while the 303 Committee, Democratic predecessor to the 40 Committee, performed its interesting duties; Zbigniew Brzezinski, Columbia professor, director of David Rockefeller's Trilateral Commission of US, Japanese and European multinationals, and one of Kissinger's favorite Establishment caricatures, who was briefly a consultant to Johnson and would like to extend his service with Jimmy Carter.

On the Republican side, the possibilities and their record are more familiar and no less depressing. Thus there is talk of Melvin Laird, whose years in the Pentagon under Nixon, from Cambodia to the carpet bombing of Hanoi, are a hint of the quality of his future service. Elliot Richardson, if he is not vice president, would bring to the State Department a career as a reliable toady, modified only by his idiosyncratic behavior at the end of the Watergate ordeal. Or perhaps it will be Donald Rumsfeld, from Defense, who dismantled the poverty program for Nixon, and was a groping ambassador at NATO. Then there is John Connally, the most successful political switch-hitter of the age, barely out from under the shadow of personal corruption, yet eagerly serving the most avaricious and corrupt multinationals. Or the restless Nelson Rockefeller, who actually believed until last week that Henry Jackson's top staff had been infiltrated by Communists. This only hints at how inappropriate this vain and ambitious man would be.

That these fellows, particularly the Democrats, have such backgrounds is disturbing enough. But the deeper injustice, to the public and to them, is that the question of policy and people in foreign affairs is one of the most studiously ignored issues of a presidential campaign, and one of the most costly. There may well be men on our list who would be better Secretaries of State than the incumbent. But what can be seen on the slick surface is not reassuring, and the usual procedure is that no one will know until the appointment has been made, the polite confirmation given, and it is too late.

Democratic candidates should be required to discuss this issue—the kind of man they'd put in what can be the second most important office in government—with the same sense of obligation they now apply to their campaign and personal finances and to the state of their health. Which men (or women) do they have in mind? Where do they stand, and what are their records? Can one reasonably expect them to be alive to the new economic issues if their worlds are so largely bounded by executive suites on the East Coast? Do their records reveal a commitment to arms control, but without appearing too eager to the Russians? Or an awareness of the bureaucratic inertia that crippled policy under LBJ? Can they distinguish between worthy ally and

tyrannical client, between a genuine national interest and the often diametrically opposed interests of large corporations? Are they individuals who have demonstrated a devotion to an open and democratic foreign policy, the betrayal of which did so much to drive the last Democratic administration from office in disgrace? And who are the people, the train of aides, they would bring with them? Would those often important assistants be people of fresh and independent mind, or merely anxious replicas of their Establishment elders?

If such an examination were made, a new Democratic President might be obliged to exclude anybody who'd held a policy-level job with Kennedy and Johnson, and be doing us all a favor. It would be too harsh a rule. Obviously one can find exceptions to the Establishment everyman: lawyer Clark Clifford, who all but single-handedly turned around Johnson on the war, or Chester Bowles, who resisted the coopting and the glibness. But those exceptions are too few and now too old.

The alternative is for the American people, for Carter or whoever survives as a candidate, to learn at last to trust themselves with their own diplomacy. The foreign policy elite was never the best and the brightest; only the most available when politicians and the rest of the country foolishly abdicated its good sense and responsibility. We could have a more humane, democratic foreign policy, one that deserves the public faith demolished by Kissinger and his Democratic predecessors, if the next Secretary of State is free of the taint of Establishment ambition, isolation and ignorance. Hundreds of Americans, in labor, business, the sciences and the academy, yes, even electoral politics, are shrewd negotiators with a sense of their own nation who could lead that foreign policy. But if Kissinger's successor is dredged from the same old reservoir, if the only real change at the State Department is a decline in virtuosity, liberals and conservatives alike will soon be missing Henry more than we can now imagine.

## Carter's Lead

Jimmy Carter won in Pennsylvania what had become for him an absolutely indispensable primary victory, and he won it decisively. But it is not the conclusive victory that his partisans are claiming and that those in the news business who like chasing express trains said it was. The next few primaries (not yet held as we go to press) will extend his string of triumphs. But his now mortally wounded opponents—Scoop Jackson, Mo Udall and George Wallace—will continue to amass votes and delegates, hard currency at the July convention. It is Hubert Humphreys' near-final renunciation that has given Carter the long lead he now has. But

8

The New Republic

despite the heavy odds for him, the process is too unpredictable to view as inevitable what more than two months of history might yet upset.

It is, in any case, not in the interest of the Democratic party to have its candidate anointed so early in the game. This is particularly true because Carter remains at this date a minority candidate—that is, the candidate of only a minority of those who have already chosen, who are in turn only a minority of those Democrats who will ultimately participate in primaries and caucuses.

One encouraging aspect of Carter's win, hardly noticed by the commentators, is that it was in some part the result of his decision at last to deal with issues. And he did that by appropriating the traditional liberal stance on jobs and health care, though these positions seemed curiously at odds with the rhetorical tone of his campaign and with the views he had previously expressed. (Memory is not much of a factor in our politics.) It is difficult to conceive of trade unionists

breaking so sharply with their leaders and in such large numbers if Carter had not supplemented his personal charm by making them feel he was at one with their concrete interests and needs. Without meaningful opposition, without pressure to focus on particular and hard problems of domestic and foreign policy, Carter may well lapse back in to his genial style, thinking it an appropriate strategy against Ford but leaving the public ignorant of what he would do with a mandate to govern.

Carter's support, one shrewd observer has suggested, is broad but thin; that is, it is built on the insubstantial foundations of an image eagerly and favorably projected by the press, largely because he seemed so different from the rest of the pack. The differences may be only superficial ones; that's life in the celebrity trade. And now enters Gov. Brown, a contender in two states beyond California; his personal appeal is no less substantial than Carter's. His experience, short as it is, is at least as relevant. Crucially, he also brings to the campaign a distinctive, idiosyncratic personal style that engages voters and reporters alike. One of the major polls reveals, for example, that had Brown's name been on the ballot in Pennsylvania, on whose soil he had not set foot since he was a boy, he would have gotten 12 percent of the vote. Were Brown to beat the former Georgia governor in Maryland, the edifice of Carter's popularity might begin to flake.

If Brown, like Sen. Church, who may also have something to barter come July, is more an upstart in this enterprise than an answer to a popular prayer, that was not the case with Hubert Humphrey, who ranked a consistently stunning first in the polls and whose phone rang off the hook following the Pennsylvania primary with pleas from friends and supporters that he finally become an active seeker of the nomination. (Many of those personally closest to him, as it happened, urged him to stay out.) Those Humphrey backers who wanted him in felt that if he did not move now the prize would be Carter's by default. It was honorable of him, though in our view mistaken, that he decided to stick by his guns and remain aloof from the contest. He had said he would be available to a deadlocked convention and this is still his position. But Carter's momentum is such—and there are so many corpses strewn about the stage—that a deadlock seems less and less likely. It was a now or never decision for Humphrey, at least it seemed to be to many of Humphrey's supporters in the light of Pennsylvania, and he decided to stay out. Humphrey more than any other man personifies the programs and principles of the Democratic party, its weaknesses and strengths alike. He could have run Carter a good race and might have prevailed. In any case he would have held Carter's face to the fire, forcing him to be unequivocal. But the Humphrey strategy for a divided convention has not fared well. It may yet, but even he seems to think it's not his year.

increasingly presented as singlehanded achievements by Kissinger. As the press image began to develop, Kissinger felt more and more confident that he had an independent power base. There was a gradual erosion of the Goodpaster staff system. Kissinger began to by-pass the system.

Important communications were set up between Moscow and Peking to which no one except the president was privy. As an example, the announcement of the conceptual breakthrough in SALT I, issued in May 1971, came after four months of back-channel discussions between Soviet Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin and Kissinger. But Kissinger misled the responsible agency, the Verification Panel, two days before that announcement was issued, so that its members had no inkling of the major accommodation about to occur — and of course, none of the participation which their staff function had been set up to produce.

These by-passings became more frequent. And in most cases, the decision represented a weakening of U.S. positions as Nixon and Kissinger pressed to achieve SALT I prior to the '72 election.

Some of these decisions from on high led to the emergence of "ambiguities" in the SALT agreements. Staff protest of these decisions led to some of the "agreed interpretations" and "unilateral declarations" with which Kissinger, after the fact, sought to regenerate support for risky decisions.

SALT I was achieved. Assurances were given to all that U.S. firmness of purpose would insure Soviet performance. But even as the ink was drying on SALT I agreements, the ambiguous language which had resulted from by-passing the system began to haunt Kissinger.

For example, the U.S. SALT delegation and his own NSC staff concluded that identification of the specific "older" launchers that the agreement allowed the Soviets to trade in for modern submarine-launched ballistic missile launchers was dangerously vague.

Kissinger went to Dobrynin and executed, without informing anyone in the chain of responsibility, an "agreed clarification." This specified that "launchers of older ballistic missiles on diesel-powered submarines ... cannot be used for purpose of replacement." This language was intended to make clear that the Soviets could go from 740 to 950 SLBMs only by retiring 210 older land-based ICBMs.

At the same time, however, this "clarification," executed in secret and without proper agency scrutiny, created a new loophole by defining a modern SLBM as one "deployed on a nuclear-powered submarine commissioned since 1965." This wording would have made it possible for the Soviets to build any number of diesel submarines and install new nuclear missiles on them.

In 1973, the rest of the U.S. government discovered the "secret covenant, secretly arrived at" when the Soviets told our SALT negotiators about it 11 months after the fact. We paid a price to renegotiate this sloppy clause.

By the end of Phase II, Kissinger had risen so high in public esteem that Richard Nixon, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman jealously were about to return him to private life in the first blush of re-election victory.

'If God had meant man to fly ...'

These personal tensions between Kissinger and Nixon provided a check on the power the former had acquired.

Phase III began with Watergate and continued to the resignation of Nixon. Early in this period, in one of those dramatic reversals of fate, Kissinger was made secretary of state, while keeping his assignment as national security assistant. This appointment was designed to restore a tarnished presidential image with Kissinger's reflected glory.

The appointment intensified a phase characterized increasingly by the most severe misuse of his position. Kissinger's ego and his president drove him to continue foreign policy "successes." Now, at last, Kissinger had the legal authority to match the responsibility he had assumed through his committee chairmanships.

During this phase, a number of dedicated public servants concluded that they could no longer serve under such a system and, in varying ways, began to terminate their services. As the June-July 1974 Moscow summit approached, the distinguished Paul Nitze terminated his service, stating publicly that he could no longer see how arms control negotiations could be carried out until respect for the Constitution was restored. This resignation and other opposition led Mr. Nixon, with his eye on the need for anti-impeachment votes, to pull back at Moscow. He refused to sign an agreement which would have signalised permanent strategic inferiority and limited himself to a conceptual agreement on the test ban.

Kissinger, in implicit protest, issued his famous lament: "What in the name of God is the meaning of strategic superiority? What do you do with it?" — forgetting in his eagerness to gain a negotiating objective that you use strategic superiority to back the other side down

in a crisis as in Cuba 1962; forgetting that with it you frighten the allies of the inferior superpower into changing their political relationships.

Phase IV began with the accession of Mr. Ford to the presidency. Ill-prepared in the foreign policy field, having in his first year to concentrate on restoration of domestic tranquility, Mr. Ford chose initially to keep Kissinger on in both jobs. Ford was aware of the increasing congressional distrust of Kissinger's word and policies. But to date, he has chosen to support Kissinger.

He has been ill-rewarded. The information Kissinger provided which led Ford on June 25, 1975, to deny any violations of SALT was badly misleading. It is inconsistent with Kissinger's private admission recently that the Soviets lied to us at the 1972 summit when they assured us they would only deepen (not also widen) their silos and by not more than 15 per cent.

At this point, in order to avoid continuing Soviet strategic superiority, real and perceived, and to evaluate Soviet performance and integrity in the strategic portion of detente, there are major actions that need to be done to redress Kissinger's disinformation campaign and to insure that the President and the public are aware of the facts:

* First, Congress should hold hearings to measure the performance of the Soviet Union in SALT I against the assurances the administration gave the Congress when the agreements were ratified, in order to have a basis for judging what might occur under SALT II

* Second, the President should reduce his risk of being misled in the future by terminating the dual status of Henry Kissinger and installing a new national security assistant in whose honesty the country and the Congress may have full confidence.

WASHINGTON STAR - SUNDAY

August 10, 1975

Zumwalt-Bagley on the Kissinger Legacy

Soviets Cheat, and
We Turn Our Backs

By Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr.
and Worth Bagley

Soviet violations of the SALT I Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and Interim Offensive Agreement signed in Moscow in 1972, together with President Ford's acceptance of the violations, have created a new strategic arms relationship — one that is appreciably different and less desirable than the one defended before the Congress, and one which has no congressional sanction.

The process of public discovery of this evasion of the constitutional process is a fascinating demonstration of the democratic system at work.

In the fall of 1974, Admiral Zumwalt wrote a letter to Melvin R. Laird, former secretary of defense.

pointing out that press information indicated the Soviet Union was violating the SALT understandings by deploying missiles heavier than were permitted. In December 1974, Laird replied that "There is no question that if information is available indicating that the SS-X-19 missile deployment will go forward in 1975 with a volume 50 per cent greater than the SS-11, such deployment would be in violation of the 1972 interim agreement unless . . . amended."

By the summer of 1975, Laird was writing that the U.S.-Soviet SALT I Treaty "explicitly forbids testing any radar for ABM use . . . yet . . . the Russians have cheated on the treaty." Laird further stated that "the Soviets have cheated on . . . the clear American understanding that neither side would appreciably increase the size of the intercontinental ballistic missiles."

Regrettably, when asked on June 25 about the Laird article, President

Ford erroneously reported that the Russians "have not used any loopholes, and in order to determine whether they have or they haven't,

Admiral Zumwalt, chief of naval operations from 1970 to 1974, retired last year, but has continued to be outspoken on defense issues, especially in warning of a growing Soviet threat to the ability of the U.S. Navy to control the seas. Admiral Bagley retired this year after serving as vice chief of naval operations.

This article was distributed by New York Times Special Features. In 1975 Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr. and Worth Bagley.

there is a Standing Consultative Group that is an organization for the purpose of deciding after investigation whether there have been any violations, and (it) came to the con-

clusion that there have been no violations."

Properly alarmed, two senators sought to correct the public record. Sen. Henry Jackson immediately issued a statement expressing surprise at the President's answer in the light of information from the director of the CIA and the secretary of defense. Sen. James Buckley said that Ford's "statement ignores the enormous amount of intelligence" concerning a "persistent pattern of apparent Soviet violations of numerous elements of the first round Soviet accords and the ABM Treaty." Admiral Zumwalt subsequently agreed with Laird, Jackson, and Buckley and disagreed with the President.

Why is it that four honorable men can take a position which disagrees so markedly from the account presented by an honorable President? The answer lies in the terrible complexity of the strategic agreements and in the Byzantine nature of the negotiation process used by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

The original SALT agreements were a patchwork of shockingly loose language, with loopholes big enough to drive a truck through. They came about in the following way:

The two sides, over many months, argued over the language of the prospective strategic contracts. As the Moscow Summit of May 1972 approached, President Nixon and Secretary Kissinger found themselves under pressure to bring home the deals to which they had committed themselves a year earlier. The re-election campaign was bearing down upon them.

Under this pressure, both men made numerous attempts to win support within the Executive Branch for

See SALT, C-4

Continued From C-1

the draft language which the Soviets
had indicated they would buy. But
Secretary of Defense Laird and the
Joint Chiefs were unwilling to leave
obvious loopholes in the language.

Nixon and Kissinger knew that
such reservations would come to
light in congressional hearings dur-
ing the approval process. The device
hit upon to allay defense concerns
without actually clarifying the lan-
guage was to arrive at separate
interpretive statements, initialed by
both the U.S. and Soviet delegations,
as well as other "understandings"
which were not set down formally. In
those cases where the Soviets would
not agree formally with the proposed
interpretive language, the U.S. is-
sued "unilateral declarations" con-
struing key provisions in the agree-
ments, and stating that Soviet
conduct at variance with those U.S.
statements would be considered
inconsistent with the agreements.

President Nixon and Secretary
Kissinger gave the strongest kind of
assurances to witnesses in the
Executive Branch who were sched-
uled to go before Congress, that the
U.S. would insist on meticulous Sovi-
et observance of the "agreed inter-
pretations" and "unilateral
declarations." The testimony of these
witnesses, the language of documents
presented to the Congress, and the
assurances given by the President
and Kissinger in their briefings to the
congressional leadership and the
press, represented this patchwork
deal with the Soviets as much more
precise than its terms warranted.

Kissinger, in a June 1972 briefing
to congressional leaders, categorized
the interpretations as assurances
that we had succeeded in placing a
limit on expansion of the Soviet
strategic forces. There is no question
Congress believed it was approving
strategic arms limitations of a pre-
cise nature which the administration
was committed to enforce.

Viewed in this light, President
Ford's reply on June 25 is seriously
misleading in several ways. The
Soviets have violated the basic con-
tracts, the attached protocols, the
agreed interpretations, and the
unilateral declarations.

The U.S. has protested to the
Standing Consultative Commission
(SCC). That group — the President's
answer notwithstanding — is not an
investigative or fact-finding body,
nor can it form conclusions about
violations. It is essentially a negotiat-
ing forum, containing U.S. and Soviet
members. Many senior U.S. officials
have spent hours in private and in
official councils deliberating Soviet
violations. In the SCC meetings the
Soviets have lied to us, until confront-
ed with unarguable evidence from
our intelligence community. In con-
trast to what the President has said,
this is the picture with which the
commission has been presented:

The USSR continues to deploy the
SS-19, a missile 50 per cent larger
and three to four times heavier in
throwweight than the SS-11 it re-
places, and therefore in clear viola-
tion of the U.S. declaration that such
deployment would be inconsistent
with the Interim Agreement. We are
acquiescing to Soviet acquisition of
greatly increased throwweight — in
direct contradiction to what the
administration told the Congress the
1972 agreement would accomplish.

We complained of this Soviet ac-
tion in the SCC. The Soviets contin-
ued their SS-19 deployments. We then
told them that we would be very dis-
turbed if they committed still larger
violations by deploying missiles even
heavier than the SS-19. In this way
the U.S. effectively condoned Soviet
cheating on the contract approved by
the Congress. But Congress has not
even been informed of this action
which substantially amended the
agreement the Congress earlier ap-
proved.

The Interim Agreement specified
that missile silo dimensions would
not be increased more than 15 per
cent. Our negotiators made it clear
that this meant an increase of 15 per
cent in one dimension. Congress ap-
proved the agreement with this
understanding. The Soviets have vio-
lated the 15 percent limitation. They
have argued that all silo dimensions
can be increased by 15 per cent,
which would give them silos 50 per
cent larger in volume than before.
But Congress has not been officially
informed of these violations or asked
to approve the new strategic relation-
ship which derives from failure to re-
dress the violations.

The Soviet violation of the ABM
treaty's prohibition against upgrad-
ing air defense is most serious. By
testing unauthorized radars in an
ABM mode, they have violated the
treaty. After we protested the ABM
cheating, they stopped their testing.
But no one can be sure that the Sovi-\ets haven't, by that cheating, already
learned what they need to know.
Assurances previously given Con-
gress about Soviet inability rapidly to
expand their ABM network beyond
authorized limits are, at a minimum,
less valid as a result. But Congress
has not been so informed.

There have been other actions by
the Soviets sufficiently serious to
warrant a protest to the SCC, such as
development and possible deploy-
ment of land-mobile ICBMs which the
U.S. specifically stated would be
inconsistent with the objectives of the
Interim Agreement; violations such
as the construction of silos in greater

numbers than authorized under the
treaty. These violations have been
protested. The protests have been
ignored, or the facts denied, or the
claim made that the activity is al-
lowed by loopholes in the agree-
ment's language. Again, the Con-
gress has not been officially-inform-
ed.

Thus, with another summit set for
later this year to flesh out another
ambiguous strategic arrangement
loosely agreed upon by President
Ford at Vladivostok, there are
major, unexplained issues which
must be resolved by the Congress:

What is the long-term value of the
administration's formal interpreta-
tions and assurances to Congress?

How can the Congress fairly
deliberate upon the consequences of
a new strategic relationship when the
existing one has been changed in
major and disadvantageous ways by
Soviet disregard of the contracts as
they were explained by the Presi-
dent?

Does the President have the au-
thority to redefine Soviet obligations
under existing agreements in a way
that significantly alters the strategic
balance without consulting with the
Congress?

How can the U.S. continue to vest
its security on such imprecise con-
tracts?

3

Let us now examine the deal currently in the making. At Vladivostok, in his first act of summitry, President Ford achieved what was called a great conceptual breakthrough. It was announced that both sides had agreed to have 2,400 strategic delivery vehicles and 1,320 MIRVed (Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicle) missiles. This was made to appear responsive to the Jackson Resolution which told the U.S. administration in essence:

> "Don't come back again without strategic parity."

But when we examine the fine grain of Vladivostok it is clear that the relationship that will result from the "breakthrough" is a four-fold superiority in missile megatonnage for the Soviet Union and a 2.7-fold superiority in missile warheads when the Soviets complete deployment of their huge new systems. These advantages for the USSR are similar to the ones the U.S. had at the time of the Cuban missile crisis — when both sides clearly perceived U.S. strategic superiority.

But not content with this advantage, the Soviet Union — this time in advance of the submission of a contract of the U.S. Congress — is in the process of modifying the Vladivostok accord.

First, possibly as a result of sloppy negotiating, the U.S. may not be able to count as a strategic vehicle the Backfire, a Soviet intercontinental bomber. We say "possibly" because there continues to be evidence that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger secretly gave away Backfire even before Vladivostok. In his December 1974 backgrounder, and on return from Vladivostok, he told reporters it, had been agreed that Backfire would not count against the Soviets' overall limit.

When a majority of NSC members objected to this one-sided concession, Kissinger "reversed" his position; and when the December backgrounder was, several months later, pried from his office under the Freedom of Information Act, it was noted that the text had been altered to eliminate Kissinger's earlier admissions on Backfire.

Our SALT delegates at Geneva continue to argue that Backfire

should be included. But the knowing smiles of the Soviets suggest that Kissinger's earlier deal remains intact.

As bad as the Vladivostok asymmetries are for us, Russia's 2.7-fold missile warhead superiority represented an upper limit as long as the 1,320 ceiling on MIRVed missiles remained verifiable. Under fire from critics of the Vladivostok summit, Kissinger in December 1974 assured us that the U.S. would not enter into any SALT II agreement without tough verification provisions. He went so far as to say that, "If the Soviets reject our verification formula, it is very hard to conceive how there can be a deal."

The Soviets have rejected Kissinger's verification formula, stating that verification provisions are not needed. They hint they might accept a weak verification provision if we pay for it with other concessions. Thus, although U.S. experts all agree that nothing weaker than the current, already watered down U.S. verification proposal will work, the Soviets seek to plant the seed of future ambiguities in this forthcoming deal — ambiguities which would make it possible for them to MIRV all of their missiles, not just the authorized 1,320.

Logically we could expect the Soviets, after rendering largely meaningless the "parity" of 2,400 strategic vehicles by excluding from their total the Backfire bomber, to imbalance the relationship still further by cheating and proceeding to MIRV most of their 2,300 ICBMs.

This is where Soviet cheating under SALT I and our attitude toward it become relevant to the Vladivostok negotiation. The administration's decision not to disclose Soviet cheating on the contracts approved by the Congress in SALT I is a grave blow to those who believe in continuing sensible arms control arrangements. It destroys U.S. leverage to achieve resolution of "ambiguities." It emboldens the Soviets to fight still harder for even greater ambiguities in future agreements. It puts the Ford seal of approval on very bad Soviet conduct. And it makes unlikely any real teeth on verification.

There remains to be explored the question of why and how President Ford has failed to focus on the differences between the agreements as portrayed to the Congress, in contrast with the way they have been accepted in practice by the administration.

The question is how Ford has been misled. It is, we think, the result of his being relatively isolated from other experts in these matters by the duality of Kissinger's role. Receiving information from his secretary of state — Henry Kissinger — on the one hand, which is vetted and validated by his assistant for national security affairs — Henry Kissinger — on the other, has destroyed the natural give and take designed to prevent a President from becoming captive to a single view. Of course, there is nothing in theory to prevent Henry Kissinger from providing accurate information to the President.

The rise and decline of Henry Kissinger must be discussed in four phases. His character has not changed but his attitude toward his job has modified remarkably as his power has increased.

Phase I was the objective phase. Soon after Mr. Nixon was elected he brought Gen. Andrew Goodpaster to Washington to work out with Kissinger a formal system for the National Security machinery to supersede the very loose system which both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson had preferred.

The system which Goodpaster and Kissinger recommended was designed to bridge the interface between the various agencies to insure that all were represented, all had their "day in court," and that an adversary process existed to distill the issues. Organizational entities, appropriately constituted with membership from responsible agencies, were created to accomplish these objectives — the Washington Special Action Group; the VP (Verification Panel) to deal with arms control issues; the SRG (Special Review Group); The Forty Committee in the covert intelligence field. Each of these organizations had a different charter. There were members who had seats on several of these organizations. Kissinger emerged as the chairman of each of these committees.

Kissinger's job was to compile alternatives, listing the pros and cons of each, and to distill in that way the complex issues in order to make it possible for a busy president to make decisions.

In Phase I, the system worked reasonably well. Henry Kissinger, in the proper subordinate role, presented balanced views and distilled the issues fairly.

Phase II began in 1970, after the shakedown period was over and the players began to become familiar with their assignments. It continued until the election of 1972. This phase was characterized by an increasing power struggle. Kissinger had been discovered by the press. He began spending long hours with chosen reporters and commentators, giving brilliant dissertations on foreign policy issues. "Frank" revelations of the president's thinking were made. Bureaucratic struggles were described. The problem that a "highly qualified" national security assistant had in dealing with an "unsophisticated" secretary of state was subtly demonstrated. The problem that the same NSC assistant had in "controlling for the president" a secretary of defense (Laird) with an independent power base in Congress was gently revealed. If the reporter was of the left he heard of Kissinger's battles with the right; if of the right, of Henry's battles with the left.

Delicately, the web was woven. The stories of Kissinger's successes began to emerge — at first in tandem with praise for Mr. Nixon, and later increasingly presented as single-handed achievements by Kissinger. As the press image began to develop, Kissinger felt more and more confident that he had an independent power base. There was a gradual erosion of the Goodpaster staff system. Kissinger began to by-pass the system.

Kissinger went to Dobrynin and executed, without informing anyone in the chain of responsibility, an "agreed clarification." This specified that "launchers of older ballistic missiles on diesel-powered submarines . . . cannot be used for purpose of replacement." This language was intended to make clear that the Soviets could go from 740 to 950 SLBMs only by retiring 210 older land-based ICBMs.

During this phase, a number of dedicated public servants concluded that they could no longer serve under such a system and, in varying ways, began to terminate their services. As the June-July 1974 Moscow summit approached, the distinguished Paul Nitze terminated his service, stating publicly that he could no longer see how arms control negotiations could be carried out until respect for the Constitution was restored. This resignation and other opposition led Mr. Nixon, with his eye on the need for anti-impeachment votes, to pull back at Moscow. He refused to sign an agreement which would have signalled permanent strategic inferiority and limited himself to a conceptual agreement on the test ban.

© First, Congress should hold hearings to measure the performance of the Soviet Union in SALT I against the assurances the administration gave the Congress when the agreements were ratified, in order to have a basis for judging what might occur under SALT II

© Second, the President should reduce his risk of being misled in the future by terminating the dual status of Henry Kissinger and installing a new national security assistant in whose honesty the country and the Congress may have full confidence.

Soviet strategic missile in site.

January 25, 1977

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE

S 1411

ings in neighborhoods still spared from complete physical and social decay. And it was careful in choosing tenants—mostly lower-to-middle-income, working-class families. Tenants were educated in the upkeep of their apartments; "some were afraid of the pilot light in stoves and didn't know what the garbage compactor was for," he says. Applied's 54 tenement buildings have, in fact, been well maintained. More tenements are being renovated.

Applied's work has attracted a lot of interest, and Joseph Barry, a partner in the firm, has been on the lecture circuit, describing how to lure private investment into federally subsidized housing. He blames past failures in low-income housing partly on government policies that enabled "every Tom, Dick and Harry housing developer," with little investment of their own, to build subsidized housing, take profits and ball out quickly, with the property often left in poor financial shape.

Joseph Barry proposes that two or three experienced developers in each city be given practically a monopoly on developing subsidized housing. These housing "utilities" would be required to have the capital and experience to build and operate such housing, and their profits would be keyed partly to their efficiency.

Observeis of Hoboken's home-improvement programs over the years say generally attractive buildings have resulted. "We've had some homeowners who have been insensitive to esthetics—shaving cornices off their buildings to put up sheet-metal siding, that sort of thing. But, on the whole, it's gone well," says Sally Aaronson, formerly with the Community Development Agency.

### ONE PUZZLING PROBLEM

With housing rehabilitation moving along, city officials these days wonder what to do next.

That question invariably gets around to how Hoboken can attract business and cut its persistently high unemployment rate. Louis DePascale, a former mayor instrumental in the housing rehabilitation thinks the city should provide high-rise office space for the brokerage houses that he believes will continue to flee Manhattan for less-expensive quarters and lower taxes elsewhere. "From here, they'd have a great view of Manhattan," he jokes. "Over there, they pay more and what have they got to look at? 'Hoboken!'"

At city hall, the current mayor, Steve Cappello, wonders what can be done with the 37% of the city's waterfront property that lies unused. A proposal for an oil-tank farm was killed a few years ago when a citizens' group protested, and the city now is exploring other ideas. "I think I'd give that waterfront to a developer if he'd do something with it," Mayor Cappello says in a moment of frustration.

Nevertheless, there is widespread feeling here that down-at-the-heels Hoboken—long the butt of corny jokes—is making a comeback. The mayor, a former policeman and the last of 12 children of an Italian bootblack, naturally reflects this optimism. People in Hoboken, he says, "are the true heroes of the '70s, who have scuffed and fought to maintain their dignity, their cherished lifestyle, their homes and their neighborhoods."

### NÃO E THE NEW SOVIET THREAT

Mr. HUMPHREY, Mr. President, our distinguished colleagues from Georgia and Oklahoma (Mr. NUNN and Mr. BARTLETT) have just released a report to the Senate Armed Services Committee on "NATO and the New Soviet Threat."

Based upon a recent inspection trip to Europe, this report examines Soviet mili-

tary capabilities and the problems facing the NATO alliance in responding to that threat.

Since there is widespread public and congressional interest in this most significant report, I ask unanimous consent that the major portions of the report be printed in the RECORD.

There being no objection, the report was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

#### Letter of transmittal

##### U.S. SENATE,

###### COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES,

Washington, D.C., January 24, 1977.

Hon. JOHN C. STENNIS,

Chairman, Committee on Armed Services,

U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: At your request, I traveled to Europe in February of 1974 to examine a number of issues surrounding our troop deployments there. In view of your continuing concern and the interest of the Committee with the NATO military posture, I undertook a similar trip on October 31-November 14, 1976.

On this recent trip, I was accompanied by my colleague from the Committee, Dewey F. Bartlett, who has a long-standing interest in NATO. His hard work and diligence in defense matters has made him an invaluable member of the Committee. During our discussions with American and Allied officials, his expertise in conventional weapons and forces was extremely useful.

In Brussels, we met with General Haig. Supreme Allied Commander Europe, and his staff to discuss the current military situation and major issues facing the Alliance. We would like to thank General Haig and his staff for their splendid cooperation. General Dr. Schnell and Lieutenant General Schuize discussed Allied interdependency and readiness with us. We also met with the U.S. Ambassador to NATO, Mr. Strausz-Hupe. We were able to get different perspectives on the NATO Alliance from the British, Belgian, French and German Ambassadors to NATO and from NATO General Secretary Luns. Admiral Sir Peter Hill-Norton, Chairman of the Military Committee, provided us with informative views on the NATO military situation.

In Bonn, we had the opportunity to exchange views with high military and government officials. We had frank and useful discussions with Defense Minister Leber and Foreign Minister Genscher. Lieutenant General Wuust, Deputy Chief of German Armed Forces, pointed out a number of important aspects of the military situation in Central Europe.

We also visited our senior commanders in Europe. General Blanchard of the Army discussed the current U.S. conventional posture, General Ellis of the Air Force reviewed United States and Soviet air capabilities and Admiral Turner of the Navy presented an overview of the situation in the Mediterranean. In addition to visits to Allied and U.S. Army and Air Force installations, we observed carrier operations of the Sixth Fleet at sea.

In Vienna, we met the U.S. Ambassador to the MBFR negotiations, Mr. Resor. He gave us an informative report on the current negotiations.

In Spain, we visited with King Juan Carlos, Prime Minister Suarez, Deputy Prime Minister Osorio and Foreign Minister Oreja to discuss Spain's movement toward democracy and its role in the defense of Europe. Ambassador Stabler provided us with his first-hand observations of problems and progress in Spain.

Mr. Chairman, we have attempted in the attached report to bring together the military and political problems of the Alliance inherent in confronting the new Soviet threat.

The purpose of this report is to examine and to discuss the Soviet military capabilities, not Soviet intentions.

A debate on these and related issues within the Alliance and within each member country is imperative if NATO is to develop a credible conventional deterrent. It is, therefore, essential that the Armed Services Committee, the Congress and the American people be fully apprised of the new problems facing the Alliance.

Our observations and this report are based on an exhaustive military study and upon numerous discussions with American and Allied officials, both in Washington and in Europe. The report provided to the Committee by Lieutenant General James F. Hollingsworth (Ret.) was of great value during our trip. This study was conducted by General Hollingsworth at my specific request while he was still serving in the Army. General Hollingsworth's expert assistance throughout our trip and as a consultant to the Committee have been invaluable. We are also grateful to Secretary of the Army Martin Hoffmann and former Army Chief of Staff Fred Weyand for authorizing the Hollingsworth study.

Finally, we would like to commend the staff who accompanied us on the trip or assisted us in the preparation of this report: Mr. Frank Sullivan, staff director, and Miss Louise Hoppe of the Armed Services Committee staff, Dr. Jeff Record of my staff and Mr. Fred Ruth of Senator Bartlett's staff. They are outstanding staff members and their efforts were extremely valuable. We would like to express our appreciation to Colonel Hank Steenstra, who was escort officer for our trip, and to Senior Master Sergeant Rasm Malley. They juggled a complete and demanding schedule, all without a hitch.

Sincerely,

SAM NUNN.

### INTRODUCTION

It is the central thesis of this report that the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies are rapidly moving toward a decisive conventional military superiority over NATO. This trend is the result of NATO's failure so far to modernize and maintain its conventional forces in response to the Warsaw Pact's buildup and modernization of conventional forces.

In an era of nuclear parity between the United States and the Soviet Union, the importance of a capacity to wage war successfully below the nuclear threshold has mushroomed because of the declining credibility of nuclear responses to non-nuclear aggression.

The viability of current NATO force posture in Europe and perhaps even NATO's strategy of flexible response and forward defense is questionable. There now exists a disparity between the Alliance's declared strategy and the ability of NATO forces to implement this strategy.

To meet the new Soviet threat, substantial alterations in current NATO force posture are necessary. Unless changes are made, the Alliance will become increasingly important as a vehicle for the collective security of its members.

### The importance of NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded on April 4, 1949, to preserve the territorial and political integrity of Western Europe. That Western Europe twenty-eight years later remains free, democratic, and shielded from unacceptable external pressures is in no small part attributable to this Alliance, which for all its faults and problems, is still the primary guarantor of its members' security.

NATO is the most important of all of America's military alliances. If there is one place outside the territorial confines of the North American continent where our interests may

S 1412

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE

January 25, 1977

be regarded as truly vital, that place is Europe. It is for this reason that the possibility of another war in Europe—however remote it might appear to some in an era of detente and after three decades of peace on that Continent—remains the principal determinant of the size and structure of our armed forces.

### The U.S. stake in Europe

The importance of U.S. security interests in Europe cannot be exaggerated. Together, NATO's European members possess the world's largest industrial plant, a population greater than that of the United States or the Soviet Union, and an aggregate gross national product larger than the American GNP and over double that of the U.S.S.R. Western Europe's loss to any power or group of powers hostile to the United States would be unacceptable. Control of Western Europe would give an adversary a magnitude of human and industrial resources which we could not counterbalance. However, these facts also demonstrate that NATO has more than enough resources to counterbalance the U.S.S.R. militarily. NATO must demonstrate the will to convert these resources to a credible conventional deterrent.

Overlying America's security interests in Europe are a host of political, cultural, historical, and commercial ties spanning the North Atlantic which gave NATO the character of a genuine community of nations. These ties are such that events on the European continent have and will continue to affect the United States in a way that events in no other part of the world can. The United States has fought two major wars in Europe in this century. The cost in blood and treasure of a third war would dwarf the price of deterring a future conflict upon that Continent. The defense of Europe is our defense. The issue is not whether the United States should be committed to Europe's defense. It is rather how best to enhance the effectiveness of that defense.

### The state of alliance defenses today

Unfortunately, NATO defenses today are not what they should be. In the crucial Central Region,¹ which would be the decisive arena of combat in any future military conflict in Europe, declining real defense expenditures over a period of years and shrinking active force levels, relative to the increasing Warsaw Pact buildup have hampered efforts to maintain a credible deterrent to aggression by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies. The continued refusal of France to participate in NATO's integrated military commands is cause for serious concern, as is the pulling back of key formations to the Low Countries. Furthermore, the continued dissipation of NATO combat power through reliance upon a multitude of different weapons, tactics, procedures and supplies must be reversed.

Questions mount—as indeed they should—as to whether the current posture of NATO's conventional forces in the Central Region is capable of dealing with a dramatically altered Soviet threat in Eastern Europe. The Warsaw Pact forces which confront NATO today across the inter-German border represent more than simply an enlarged threat. It is a threat whose character has been deliberately re-tailored to exploit fully the very weaknesses in NATO's conventional position which have always plagued the Alliance. This threat challenges not only the viability of NATO's conventional deterrent but also the capability of NATO's political machinery to authorize the mobilization of that deterrent in time to meet the likely demands of a future military crisis.

The problems confronting NATO forces in the Central Region, although serious, are not

insurmountable. They can be overcome within the framework of the political, economic, and military resources now available to the Alliance. Moreover, solutions are at hand which would entail no major expansion of NATO's active manpower levels. For NATO, the issue is not one of simply increasing numbers of men, tanks, ships, and aircraft. The principal task before the Alliance is improving the firepower and making better use of the forces it already has.

NATO weaknesses in the Central Region are compounded by the erosion of Alliance defenses in the Mediterranean. Combined, weaknesses in Central Europe and disarray in the south could threaten the vital interests of both Europe and the United States.

Indeed, NATO's Southern Flank can be regarded as little more than a shambles. Against a background of expanding Soviet naval power in the Mediterranean, NATO's Mediterranean members appear to be abdicating their responsibilities under the North Atlantic Treaty. Although the quality and performance of the Italian Navy remain impressive, Italy, buffeted by a worsening economic crisis, has announced plans to cut the size of its army by one-third. Greece has withdrawn from military participation in NATO. Turkish and Greek armed forces, which together muster almost 700,000 men, continue to betray no more enlightened objectives than preparation for war against one another.

The situation along NATO's Northern Flank is little better. The defense of the Northern Flank is more heavily dependent upon early reinforcement than the defense of any other military sector of the Alliance. Yet, in the face of a growing Soviet threat on the Kola Peninsula and in the Norwegian Sea, neither Norway nor Denmark as yet appear predisposed to undertake the initiatives necessary to facilitate the full exploitation of reinforcements.

### THE NEW SOVIET THREAT

Soviet conventional forces in Europe have undergone significant expansion during the past decade and are now being qualitatively improved. Against a background of strategic nuclear parity with the United States and substantial advances in their tactical nuclear capability, the Soviets have provided their non-nuclear forces deployed opposite West Germany an ability to initiate a potentially devastating invasion of Europe with as little as a few days' warning. This is evident in a growing emphasis upon firepower and readiness of ground forces and in the dramatic transformation of Soviet tactical aviation from a defensive force into a hard-hitting offensive air armada of extended reach.

While Soviet forces in Eastern Europe can initiate a conflict from virtually a standing start, NATO forces continue to require warning time of a duration sufficient to permit the Alliance to mobilize and deploy to the center of conflict its ultimately greater but typically less ready and poorly deployed forces. As the Warsaw Pact capability to attack from a standing start grows relative to NATO's defensive capacity, so does the likelihood that the Warsaw Pact would already be on the Rhine when the NATO decision is made to use tactical nuclear weapons.

### Ground force expansion

Prior to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Soviet Army forces in Eastern Europe contained over 400,000 men organized around 26 divisions. Since then, approximately 100,000 men (including five divisions) have been added to that deployment. This sharp increase has been attributable primarily to the introduction of a major Soviet force presence in Czechoslovakia following the invasion, and to an expansion in the personnel authorized for both Soviet armored and motorized rifle divisions pursuant to their recent reorganization. It is estimated

that thousands of men have been added to Soviet ground forces in Eastern Europe since the beginning of the MBFR talks in 1973. It is worthwhile to note that the latest NATO proposal at MBFR calls for the removal from East Germany of 69,000 Soviet troops—a Soviet tank army.

### Ground force modernization

Following this quantitative expansion, the Soviets have pursued a program of organization and modernization designed to provide Warsaw Pact ground forces the capacity to wage successfully the kind of blitzkrieg called for in Soviet doctrine. Among the highlights of this program are:

(1) The T-72 main battle tank has been introduced into the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. This improvement in tank quality has been coupled with an increase of 60 to 80 tanks in the standard inventory authorized for their 16 motorized rifle divisions in Eastern Europe. Together, these improvements have greatly strengthened Pact armor, which today outnumbers NATO's by almost three to one.

(2) The replacement of armored personnel carriers with the BMP-60 mechanized infantry combat vehicle. This has granted Soviet infantry an ability to fight without dismounting—a capacity denied to almost all of NATO's mechanized infantry (German infantry being the sole exception). For the most part, NATO is still tied to the technologically obsolescent armored personnel carrier.

(3) The shift from towed to self-propelled artillery, which permits artillery to keep pace with advancing armor, thus significantly enhancing the tank's survivability. This shift has been accompanied by an estimated expansion of at least 50 percent in the number of Soviet artillery tubes in Eastern Europe in recent years.

(4) The proliferation throughout Soviet ground forces of a formidable array of tactical air defense systems. Better air defense could result in a severe loss of NATO aircraft during the opening stages of hostilities.

(5) The impressive growth of Soviet ability to neutralize NATO's anti-tank capabilities.

### The transformation of Soviet tactical airpower

The simultaneous quantitative and qualitative upgrading of Soviet ground forces in Eastern Europe during the past eight years has been accompanied by a dramatic transformation of Soviet tactical aviation. In 1968, Soviet tactical air forces were oriented primarily toward the defense of air space over Pact territory, and accordingly were composed largely of short-range, low-payload aircraft possessing only incidental ground attack capabilities. Since then, Soviet tactical air forces have been fundamentally restructured with the apparent objective of acquiring a powerful offensive force for both close air support along the entire breadth of the battle area and deep interdiction throughout NATO Europe. This could threaten vulnerable fixed-site targets such as nuclear weapons facilities, supply bases, airfields, and air defense sites.

The rapid introduction on a large scale of a host of longer-range, heavier-payload aircraft and strike helicopters—the MIG-21J, K, and L, MIG-23, SU-17, SU-19, Backfire bomber and Mi-24—greatly reduces NATO's traditional advantage in tactical air power. According to the latest U.S. estimates, the Soviets have increased their deployment of new fighter-bomber aircraft in Eastern Europe by 200 percent in the past two years. Moreover, recent Pact air exercises appear to be focusing more and more upon simulated long-range strikes against vital NATO military targets.

NATO's technologically superior tactical air forces continue to possess greater staying power than those of the Pact. NATO also

¹ Defined as the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany south of the Elbe, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, and the United Kingdom.

January 25, 1977

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -- SENATE

S1413

has an advantage in pilot training and experience. However, as a ranking NATO air officer recently concluded, "the air war in the Central Region has shifted westward, and although the ultimate mission of NATO's air forces remains that of providing the Army firepower, we must now first save ourselves before we can save the Army." If this assessment is correct—that the new and emerging character of Soviet tactical aviation has deprived NATO's own air power of its traditional role as the great "equalizer" of Pact preponderance on the ground—the size and role of NATO's air forces demand a thorough re-evaluation.

### The new threat: Decreased warning time

The precise consequences for NATO of each of these numerous improvements in Soviet conventional forces remain speculative. However, taken together, the size and capabilities of Soviet ground forces in that region and the new power accorded to Soviet tactical air forces has fundamentally altered the character of the threat to NATO in the Central Region.

Soviet forces deployed in Eastern Europe now possess the ability to launch a potentially devastating conventional attack in Central Europe with little warning. Such an attack might be unattended by the telltale prior callup and transfer to the Central Region of Soviet divisions stationed in the western military districts of the U.S.S.R.

NATO's conventional force posture in the Center remains predicated upon the presumption that, for Pact forces to have any reasonable chance of overwhelming NATO, they would require, prior to hostilities, substantial augmentation by Soviet reinforcements drawn from the U.S.S.R.'s western military districts. Based on this assumption, these transfers, and the likely accompanying mobilization of less ready divisions throughout Russia would take weeks. They could not escape early detection by NATO. If acted upon promptly, this would give the Alliance a degree of warning time sufficient to mobilize fully its forces already deployed in NATO Center and to transfer and assemble there crucial reinforcements from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

If, however, Pact forces in Eastern Europe alone now possess a substantial conventional capability independent of prior augmentation, then NATO is confronted with the prospect of warning calculable in days, not weeks or months. The significance of a Pact capability to launch such an attack from virtually a standing start cannot be exaggerated. Such an attack would hit the Allies in a reduced state of readiness. The Pact could also employ an attack to divide the Allies, particularly if the attack were launched against one member rather than against the Alliance as a whole. For NATO, the political and military implications of sharply decreased warning time are profound. They call into question whether NATO's present conventional force posture is adequate to meet the new threat.

### IMPLICATIONS OF DECREASED WARNING TIME

Major Warsaw Pact aggression preceded by perhaps just a few days' warning would exploit certain political and military weaknesses which continue to plague NATO. For this reason, it is hard to entertain the notion that the fundamental alterations in the character of Soviet force posture in Eastern Europe registered during the past eight years have been anything but deliberate.

We are neither suggesting any intention on the part of the Soviets to invade Western Europe nor predicating an invasion. Divining ultimate intentions is an arcane if not occult endeavor which defies scientific precision. However, we are persuaded that Soviet military capabilities, which are identifiable, do indicate the kind of conflict the Soviets would wage should they choose to make war.

### Implications for strategy

Military strategy should serve as an impetus and a basis for planning and structuring forces to meet a military threat. However, NATO conventional forces have not been adequately changed to meet a shifting Soviet conventional threat. Therefore, it is time for a careful rethinking of NATO's capabilities to meet the new Soviet threat and to take advantage of the major developments of conventional military technology in the areas of firepower, mobility, and command and control. Some of the latter developments were evident in the 1973 Mid-East war. The principal issue is not the stated principles of NATO strategy, but rather the ability of the Alliance to implement them. In our view, there is a grave disparity between expressed NATO strategy on the one hand, and NATO force posture on the other.

### History of NATO Strategy

Strategy for the defense of Europe has changed markedly since the formation of NATO. Until the mid-1960's, America's overwhelming strategic and theatre nuclear superiority was believed alone sufficient to deter any form of Soviet aggression in Europe. Although the Soviets and their East European allies maintained, as they do today, a preponderance of conventional forces on the Continent, the threat of massive nuclear retaliation against the Soviet Union itself was adequate to deter the use of those forces by a country incapable of responding in kind. The function of NATO's conventional forces, such as they were, was primarily that of a trip-wire designed to establish the fact of aggression and thus to ensure an immediate nuclear response by NATO.

By the mid-1960's, however, the credibility of the U.S. strategic nuclear guarantee to Europe was under serious challenge. Confidence that nuclear weapons alone could continue to deter hostile Soviet military action across the full spectrum of threats ranging from nuclear attack to limited conventional aggression had markedly declined. The emergence of formidable Soviet strategic nuclear retaliatory capabilities, although still inferior to those of the United States, had rendered the American homeland itself a potential target in the event of war in Europe. Doubts arose in Europe, voiced most strongly by French President Charles DeGaulle, over whether any American president would risk a nuclear holocaust for his own country in defense of anything other than American territory.

These developments strongly argued for the creation a genuine capacity to defend Western Europe before resorting to nuclear weapons. The result was the formal adoption by NATO in 1967 of the current strategy of flexible response.

### Present Strategy

Flexible response calls for the development of strategic nuclear, theatre nuclear, and conventional capabilities sufficient to provide NATO an ability to deter, and if necessary, to defeat Pact nuclear and conventional aggression. The basic premise underlying flexible response is that the emergence of secure Soviet nuclear retaliatory capabilities at both the strategic and tactical levels has lessened the credibility of NATO's nuclear deterrence of non-nuclear aggression against Western Europe. We believe that the essence of flexible response is the altered role of NATO's conventional forces: no longer simply a trigger to automatic nuclear escalation, they are today charged with the task of halting a conventional attack without an immediate resort to a theatre or strategic nuclear response. NATO's conventional forces are further charged with the mission of presenting a defense which would require the Warsaw Pact to use such massive con-

ventional forces in any invasion as to pose grave risks of escalation to nuclear war.

An integral part of NATO's flexible response strategy is the doctrine of forward defense—the requirement that defense against conventional attack be waged as far eastward (forward) in West Germany as possible. Tactically, according to the U.S. Army, the forward defense of NATO Center² would be implemented as follows:

#### Phase I

A non-nuclear Pact invasion of NATO Center would be met initially by a NATO "covering force", consisting largely of armored cavalry formations deployed well forward along the inter-Germany border. The covering force trades space for time. These forces today represent approximately one-quarter of all active NATO ground forces deployed in NATO Center.

#### Phase II

The second phase of the defense calls for waging the main defensive battle, with the aim of halting the advance of Pact forces. This battle would be fought by a combination of major NATO combat formations in Europe and reinforcements brought in from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom during Phase I. Unless there is nuclear escalation, the location of the battle would depend on the degree to which covering forces could slow the pace of advance of attacking Pact forces during the first phase.

#### Phase III

The third phase hinges upon the outcome of the main defensive battle. Should NATO succeed in stopping the Pact's advance, a major counter-attack would be launched, designed eventually to rid all NATO territory of hostile Pact forces. Should NATO conventional forces be threatened with destruction, immediate consideration would be given to using theatre nuclear weapons. Thus, even if unsuccessful, NATO's conventional forces would at least "buy time" for the Alliance to ponder the alternative of nuclear escalation.

### Problems of Flexible Response and Forward Defense

Several observations may be made about flexible response and forward defense without questioning the political and military necessity for either NATO possession of a wide range of defense options or for a conventional defense as far forward as possible. We do not question the desirability of NATO's commitment to forward defense. We endorse this commitment. We do, however, question NATO's capacity to carry out this commitment.

First, inherent in the concept of the "covering force" operation is an at least temporary loss of some German territory. Currently, this risk is compounded by deficiencies in the posture of NATO's deployed forces which threaten both the ability of the covering force to provide the time needed to mount a main defense, and the capacity of the covering force to hold forward positions. Together, these conditions could result in a loss of territory so substantial as to demoralize Germany's civil and military authority. This could result in early loss of NATO's most powerful continental member. Even if the Soviets stopped their attack at that point to negotiate (perhaps the most valuable option for the Soviets), it might be only a matter of time before all Western Europe would be dominated by the Soviet Union. We wonder about the value of a "forward" defense which is insufficient to protect crucial forward areas.

² Defined as the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany south of the Elbe and the Benelux countries.

S 1414

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE

January 25, 1977

Second, the proposition that retreating NATO forces, which up to the main defensive battle had suffered the agony of defeat, could suddenly halt, regroup, defeat, and eject a vastly larger enemy flushed with the thrill of victory borders on the fantastic. In 1914, so-called "Miracle of the Marne" was attributable more to mistakes made by invading forces than it was to any intelligent defense. In the 1940 campaign against France and the Low Countries, the invader made no mistakes.

Third, whatever chances NATO's conventional forces might have for success under current tactical doctrine may depend upon the amount of warning time preceding the outbreak of hostilities. Insufficient warning could preclude both the full mobilization and deployment of European-based forces and the arrival on the Continent of adequate reinforcements from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Finally, recent developments in Soviet theatre nuclear force posture, particularly when coupled with Soviet achievement of parity at the strategic nuclear level, suggest that the Soviets are striving to neutralize NATO's tactical nuclear options under "flexible" response. During the past several years the Soviets have expanded their theatre nuclear forces in Europe to the point where they may now credibly deter a NATO first use of tactical nuclear weapons. The bulk of Soviet tactical nuclear weapons are more destructive and longer-ranged than NATO's. They could be used against most large European cities. Moreover, the Soviets have, to a much greater extent than NATO, organized and equipped their conventional forces to continue to operate and fight on a nuclear battlefield.

In sharp contrast, the comparatively short reach and low yield of most of NATO's tactical nuclear weapons would restrict their employment primarily to NATO territory, particularly if NATO's conventional forces had been driven deep into the rear of Germany. As one knowledgeable German recently remarked, "During the past eighteen months NATO has played five war games, and my country has been 'defended' five times and destroyed five times."

### Political implications

The political implications for the Alliance of decreased warning time relate to NATO's capacity to fund and station adequate forces in peacetime and to decide to act once warning is received. Failure to do either could involve major Soviet escalation in a crisis.

### Decisionmaking in Crises

First among the political implications of short warning time is the need to improve current procedures within the Alliance to obtain the political authority for timely and coordinated mobilization and reinforcement of NATO's conventional deterrent. The present formal structure of collective political decisionmaking within NATO is so complex and cumbersome that it raises a catastrophic prospect of hostilities preceding even a NATO decision to mobilize. Moreover, the entire structure rests upon the willingness of each member state to accept the judgment of NATO's international military commanders and staff, which may or may not be in accord with those of national intelligence services. This complicated procedure not only lengthens the decision process but also risks disjointed mobilization.

The current means of mustering adequate political authority for comprehensive military mobilization may have been tolerable at a time when NATO could justifiably count upon weeks if hot months of military warning. They are clearly unacceptable against the threat of unexpected attack.

### Forward Stationed Peacetime Forces

Decreased warning time severely limits the reinforcements that could be moved from

North America and the United Kingdom to NATO Center. This greatly magnifies the importance of forces already in place on the Continent, the bulk of which are of necessity must be European. Yet there has been a contraction of active forces forward deployed in the Central Region.

At a minimum, Allied contributions to the defense of NATO Center should be stabilized and improved both in strength and location. U.S. and German forces in the Central Region are the only ones that have not been reduced. Indeed, present plans call for the addition of another entire U.S. tactical air wing. The British Army of the Rhine has been sapped by the demands in Northern Ireland, Dutch and Belgian contingents forward deployed in Germany have been weakened. The French have announced plans to cut their Army forces in Germany by almost 25 percent. Each country has its own immediate political reasons for these actions, but the cumulative long term effect of weakening conventional forces could be disastrous for Europe.

The outcome of modern war is no longer decided simply by masses of men, tanks, airplanes, and ships. But at some point numbers do count, especially in the face of an eroding NATO technological superiority no longer capable of offsetting, to the degree it once did. The Pact's widening quantitative preponderance of forces.

### Equitable burden sharing

Primary responsibility for the defense of Europe below the nuclear threshold is, and must be, a European one. The defense of Europe is vital to the United States; but it should be even more vital to Europeans. Although no member of NATO (including the United States) is doing all it could to confront the Pact with a credible conventional deterrent, the gap between potential and actual contributions is widest among our European allies, none of whom have either significant security commitments outside Europe or major strategic nuclear responsibilities.

Contributions to NATO's conventional deterrent cannot and should not be measured solely by quantitative "bean counts" of men, tanks, aircraft, and ships. Numerical comparisons serve to inflate European contributions while ignoring significant differences in actual combat power between U.S. and Allied military forces deployed in the European theatre. The truth of the matter is that, in terms of such crucial factors as firepower, mobility, and readiness, U.S. ground and tactical air forces deployed in Europe are decidedly superior to those of most of our Allies. Thus, purely quantitative comparisons of U.S. and European contributions to the defense of the Continent do not provide an adequate foundation for any discussion of conventional defense burden sharing within NATO. We plan to issue a subsequent report to the Committee for the purpose of discussing this concern more thoroughly.

### Military implications

The military implications for NATO of decreased warning are no less grave. If current trends continue, the credibility of the Alliance's present conventional force posture will be increasingly subject to question. The decreased warning time implicit in the changing character of the Soviet threat in Eastern Europe in the last eight years may be said, militarily, to represent a Soviet invitation to a "come as you are" party. It is an affair which NATO, unless improved, cannot extend because it is inappropriately dressed and lacks transportation.

### Tactical Doctrine

The pitfalls of a so-called "forward" defense doctrine without adequate forward deployed forces to carry it out are apparent. The inability to implement this doctrine could result in a withdrawal from rather

than a major defense of Germany east of the Ruhr. Such a doctrine will not work if the invasion is launched (1) before in-place forces can be mobilized and moved forward, and (2) before adequate United States, Canadian, and British reinforcements can begin to be transferred to the Continent. There is comparatively little space in NATO Center to trade for anything. It is doubtful whether NATO's present covering forces possess sufficient mass and firepower to impose a substantial delay upon a highly mobile armored juggernaut estimated to contain as many as 58 Pact divisions. This implies that current tactical doctrine may give insufficient attention to developments in firepower, mobility, and command and control which, if exploited, are capable of bringing massive conventional firepower to bear quickly on any attack.

### Deployment Patterns

The maldeployment of NATO forces already located in the Central Region further reduces the readiness of the Alliance. It is widely recognized that the deployment of the entire U.S. Army, Europe (USAREUR) in southern Germany is not a product of contemporary tactical considerations but rather a legacy of World War II logistics arrangements and of postwar occupation agreements. Yet it is the North German Plain which is the most likely principal axis of Pact aggression, and where the Soviets have deployed fully two-thirds of all their forces in Eastern Europe. In short, despite a larger and more immediate Soviet threat in northern Germany, NATO remains stronger in southern Germany.

Less well recognized is the East-West maldeployment of NATO forces. The peacetime positioning of major combat units well to the rear, beyond the reach of the Pact's initial onslaught, does not support a forward defense strategy. In some corps areas, formations are withheld so deep in the rear that it is questionable whether they would be available in time to participate in major defensive operations against a sudden or unexpected blitzkrieg. For example, five of the six Dutch brigades committed to the "forward" defense of the crucial 1st Dutch Corps area along the Elbe remain in Holland. The French Army in Germany, the Canadian Battlegroup, and substantial Belgian, German, and U.S. forces also are stationed west of the Rhine or in the distant southwest corner of Germany.

The successful movement of these forces to their assigned wartime positions east of the Rhine, as is called for in present doctrine, would be doubtful in the face of a warning of only a few days. Moreover, once hostilities were initiated by the Pact, the probable destruction of many of the bridges across the Rhine would severely delay this movement.

Finally, even forward deployed units are not without problems. Urban sprawl and growing German safety and environmental restrictions have led to the separation of many combat units from even their initial supplies of ammunition, thus imposing further delays upon their redeployment to assigned wartime positions.

### Reinforcements

As for the timely introduction of United States, Canadian, and British reinforcements, decreased warning makes clear the inadequacy of the present pace at which they could now be transferred to the Continent. For example, the time required for the projected buildup of the British Army of the Rhine, once parliamentary approval was obtained, would be insufficient against the new Soviet threat. Decreased warning imposes even greater restraints upon the movement of adequate U.S. forces in Europe. They would have to move exclusively by air since forces moved by sea would not arrive in time.

The problem is compounded by an already inadequate U.S. strategic airlift capability

January 25, 1977

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE

S 1415

and by an acute shortage of key arms and equipment prepositioned on the Continent and earmarked for use by U.S. forces to be transferred to Europe by air. Thus, in the face of decreased warning, the demand for existing strategic airlift resources is likely to exceed the availability. Moreover, those units which do arrive in Europe before D-Day may be compelled to "fall in" upon depleted sets of equipment which would preclude them from realizing their full combat potential. Finally, it is not clear that U.S. reinforcements, once in Europe, would have available to them sufficient tactical airlift resources to permit their rapid tactical positioning and resupply. The U.S. Army has, as yet, specified no tactical airlift requirement for Europe, although a study on the subject is reportedly nearing completion.

### Firepower and readiness

Another significant military implication for NATO of decreased warning time is the woeful inadequacy of the current level of fire. Power readily available to NATO forces in the Central Region. The immediate application of immense firepower upon Pact forces along both sides of the inter-German border may be the only means of halting an invasion well forward. Yet there is a general shortage of armored fighting vehicles, artillery, missiles, and other high priority items throughout NATO Center. Ammunition stocks are grossly inadequate in the light of expanded consumption rates projected for modern combat in Europe. Shortages in artillery shells are especially acute. Finally, the disparity between authorized and actual levels of equipment maintained in U.S. war reserve and prepositioned stocks is nothing short of a disgrace.

In this regard, the plight of the U.S. Army. Europe is especially illustrative, USAREUR today is short of its authorized ammunition, of which a substantial percentage is stored at a few vulnerable locations west of the Rhine. However, pursuant to a recent Department of Defense reassessment of the likely rates of ammunition consumption in a high intensity conflict in Europe, USAR EUR's authorization has been dramatically expanded. Therefore, if DoD's new projections are correct, USAREUR now has on hand but a fraction of the ammunition it will need during the first thirty days of war.

The separation of many USAREUR combat formations from immediate access to their ammunition; the concentration of ammunition storage sites in a manner which represents a standing temptation to a preemptive Soviet air attack; and the disposition of much of USAREUR's ammunition west of the Rhine (including England) all combine to raise serious questions about USAREUR's true readiness for combat.

The state of USAREUR's war reserve and prepositioned equipment is appalling. War reserve stocks are general stocks maintained to replace equipment expenditures or losses in combat; prepositioned equipment, or POMCUS (prepositioned overseas materiel configured to unit sets), is equipment specifically withheld for use of U.S. reinforcing units flown in from the United States. Yet, current shortfalls in both types of stocks are of such magnitude that deployed USAREUR combat units and initial reinforcements might not be able to sustain more than a few days of high-intensity combat.

Compounding the problem with the POMCUS equipment is the incompleteness of "unit" sets. Some equipment that is listed as "in stock" may not be operationally ready because there may be other integral equipment associated with it, such as radios or batteries that are either not in stock or not operationally ready.

The principal cause of these shortfalls is a comparatively low production base in the United States for many items of equipment coupled with transfers and foreign military

sales to other countries. These actions appear to place a higher priority upon equipping the forces of foreign countries than our own. The present shortages in stocks of such high-technology weapons as improved Hawk air defense missiles, AIM-7 and AIM-9 air-to-air-missiles, and TOW and Dragon anti-tank missiles could be eliminated with a small percentage of these weapons the United States has recently sold (or undertaken to sell) to a handful of Middle Eastern countries. In some cases, equipment already authorized by the Congress for the Army or the Air Force has been abruptly siphoned off the production line by one foreign military sale or another deemed "critical to the national interest". We wonder what national interest could be more critical than that of supplying U.S. fighting men with equipment sufficient to survive on the battlefield. We wonder who has higher claim on America's arsenal, our own forces or those of the Middle East?

The war reserve and POMCUS equipment that is present is more often than not poorly maintained or placed in the category of deferred maintenance. We visited a POMCUS site where, for example, armored fighting vehicles were stored in open fields completely exposed to the elements, while such non-essential items as tent pegs, tents, garbage cans, and field kitchens were neatly tucked away in climate controlled shelters. In some cases, vehicles lacked workable vital components such as radios and batteries. We plan to file a more detailed report on the status of POMCUS and war reserve stocks at a later date.

### Anti-Tank Capability

NATO's all too often casual confidence in the ability of its preponderance of anti-tank weapons to offset the Pact's advantage in armor may be unjustified. The Soviet Union's inventory of main battle tanks—conservatively estimated at 42,000—(of which over 15,500 are deployed in Eastern Europe) is alone of sufficient magnitude to absorb a very high loss rate, perhaps even higher than that sustained by both sides during the Yom Kippur War of 1973.

Moreover, even the latest generation of Western anti-tank systems, such as the wire-guided TOW, Dragon, HOT, and Milan missiles have severe disadvantages which can be exploited by an alert enemy. Most are "line of sight" weapons requiring not only visual acquisition of a target but also sustained and uninterrupted visual observation of the target from launching to impact, during which time the anti-tank "gunner" and crew must remain exposed to the threat of hostile fire.

Unlike Middle Eastern battlefields, the terrain and vegetation Central Europe, together with the prevalence of inclement weather throughout the Region for much of the year, inhibit the full exploitation of these weapons, particularly at extended ranges.

The pronounced and deliberate Soviet emphasis on camouflage, smoke, night operations, and on prodigious use of their overwhelming preponderance of long-range artillery to suppress anti-tank defenses further reduces the potential effectiveness of these weapons. This is not to suggest that NATO's heavy investment in these weapons is or has been misdirected. It is to say, however, that their contribution to the defeat of Pact armor probably will fall short of expectations derived from the Middle East experience.

### AIR DEFENSE

The new Soviet threat also poses serious problems for NATO's air defenses. As we noted earlier, the Alliance's longstanding confidence in its tactical air power to offset Pact preponderance on the ground must be reassessed. The emergence of a Soviet air

force capable of conducting wide-ranging offensive operations suggests a need for heightened NATO attention to air defense. U.S. ground forces have historically been accustomed to fighting without the serious threat of air attack, and the goal of achieving air superiority would be extremely important in any confrontation in Central Europe. We urge the U.S. Department of Defense and NATO to study intensively the various ground and air options for greatly increasing air defense capabilities in Central Europe. In particular, better integration of ground air defenses with the new highly capable F-15 and F-16 aircraft is essential.

Ground air defenses are particularly thin in the CENTAG area, and much of the great U.S. logistics infrastructure in southwest German, such as the mammoth Kaiserslautern Army depot, is poorly defended. Moreover, a significant proportion of NATO's air defenses are tied to fixed-site weapons, like the Nike-Hercules, whose vulnerability to preemptive air attack greatly reduces their potential contribution to the protection of U.S. ground forces.

A major deficiency in NATO's ground air defenses in a crucial shortage of surface-to-air missiles. One example will suffice. According to USAREUR authorities, the "basic load" of improved Hawk missiles for U.S. Hawk batteries assumed to the defense of the Fifth and Seventh U.S. Corps areas in today adequate to sustain combat against a high-intensity Pact air threat for only a few days, after which the batteries would be compelled to draw upon ware reserve stocks. Yet Hawk missiles withheld in war reserve represent only a small percentage of the level authorized, and most are older, unimproved Hawks. As of the third quarter of 1976, the United States under the Foreign Military Sales Program had sold or had contracted to sell over 2,000 Hawks—most of them improved—to Iran, Israel, and Jordan alone.

### Command, Control, and Communications

A final implication for NATO of the new Soviet threat is the inadequacy of the Alliance's current command, control, and communications capabilities, which one senior NATO commander recently declared to be "the fundamental deficiency within NATO today."

The threat of an immenseeszikrigt preceded by little warning places upon NATO stringent demands for these capabilities. The anticipated intensity and breadth of combat, as well as it rapidly changing character will require a capacity not only for instant communication among NATO's various national forces operating in the battle area, but also for rapid, efficient, and coordinated allocation of the Alliance's military resources. Only in this way can both ground and air trragets be quickly acquired and destroyed without the confusion, delay, and duplication which would inevitably accompany reliance on NATO's present command, control, and communication capabilities.

These capabilities are constrained by the scarcity within NATO of all-weather reconnaissance and attack aircraft; the absence of easy communication among tactical units of differing national armies; the acute shortage of sophisticated information processing systems; continuing obstacles to efficient air-ground communications; and what appears to be unnecessarily large and unwieldy staffs at some headquarters.

### Implications for MBFR

The Mutual Balanced Force Reduction (MBFR) negotiations have been underway since January, 1973. No reduction of NATO and Warsaw Pact general purpose forces in central Europe has yet been made as a result of these talks.

In our view, the manpower disparities between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in the

S1416

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—SENATE

January 25, 1977

designated reduction area (formally known as the NATO Guidelines Area) are not the major NATO problem. Of great concern, however, is the Pact's superiority in firepower, greater readiness, and unsurpassed mobility. These are the true pillars of success in modern war, as was dramatically demonstrated in the October War of 1973. In our opinion the main objectives of MBFR should be to reduce Soviet firepower in the Guidelines Area, to provide the necessary verification means to insure it is not reintroduced, and to take steps which would improve early warning of impending attacks. We plan to file a more detailed report on the MBFR situation at a later date.

## TASKS BEFORE THE ALLIANCE

In lieu of eliminating the threat of decreased warning through negotiation, it is imperative that NATO alter its own conventional force posture to offset the military benefits the Pact now enjoys as a result of decreased warning. The tasks before NATO are formidable. But they are unquestionably within the economic resources of the Alliance. NATO encompasses the greatest economic and industrial constellation on the planet. NATO does not lack the means; NATO must demonstrate that it does not lack the will. Moreover, the tasks cannot be fulfilled on the national level. They can be only as part of a comprehensive, coordinated, and concerted program undertaken by the Alliance as a whole. The failure of any member to do its part could jeopardize the efforts of others.

### Work in progress

We agree with the general concepts of a truly flexible response and a conventional defense as far forward as possible. The issue is the ability of present NATO forces really to provide these capabilities.

Many of the deficiencies in present NATO force posture discussed in this report are both longstanding and recognized by the Alliance. Some have for years been the object of great concern within the Alliance, and this concern has heightened sharply in the face of the new Soviet threat. Moreover, many of the corrective actions we propose have at one time or another been entertained within NATO at the national or international level, and some are currently under intensive study.

Promising initiatives have been undertaken by the Alliance and its member governments which, if carried to fruition, could to some extent reduce some of the advantages conferred upon Soviet and Pact forces by decreased warning. Prominent among these initiatives, planned or in progress, are:

1. the reorganization of the U.S. Army, Europe, the British Army of the Rhine, the Bundeswehr, and the French Army to improve the immediately available combat power;

2. the relocation of some critical stocks of ammunition and other stocks to forward sites closer to combat units;

3. the assignment of three new brigades (one U.S. and two German) to northern Germany;

4. the development of an improved, more reliable, and integrated command and control system supported by an expanded secure voice network and by enhanced protection of critical international command headquarters;

5. the revision of logistic consumption planning rates and stockpile guidance to reflect recent reassessments of the needs of modern combat;

6. the expansion of the capacity of NATO airbases to cross-service (including ordnance re-arming) aircraft of various national air forces;

7. the creation of an integrated tactical air command system;

8. the addition of an F-111, and an F-15 air wing; and

9. the possible procurement of the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS).

As commendable as these initiatives are, however, they are not enough, Even together, these efforts to increase the effectiveness of NATO's conventional forces will not compensate for the new threat posed by the Soviets. More—much more—must be done.

### Political tasks

The NATO allies would be most vulnerable to an intense conventional attack with short warning at a time of political weakness or transition when the decision to mobilize or to use nuclear weapons might be delayed. To meet the new threat confronting the Alliance requires changes not only in military posture but also in political attitudes. The political leadership and the general public must understand the implications of the new Soviet conventional threat. It appears that public opinion in some NATO countries is ahead of political leadership in this regard. Our NATO Allies and the United States must devote enough resources to provide a credible conventional deterrent to the threat of attack with little warning. Additionally, top priority attention should be given to developing ways to speed up the political decisions required to meet unexpected Warsaw Pact mobilization. We recommend that a conference of key NATO military and political leaders be convened as soon as possible to identify the steps needed to meet this challenge.

### Military task

First, current U.S. force planning assumptions as to the prior warning time and likely duration of a future conflict in Europe must be revised. Although some individual NATO and national commands have undertaken such revisions on their own, there is still no common, Alliance-wide agreement on the issue.

For example, for planning purposes the Department of Defense continues to project over three weeks warning time followed by a conflict of up to six months. These assumptions appear to be increasingly unrealistic in the light of the new Soviet threat. Serious consideration should be given to establishing for NATO as a whole planning factors which would encourage coordinated preparation for an intense war preceded by perhaps as little as a few days' warning. This should be done without weakening powerful hedges in NATO force structure against a protracted war. Against the economic and industrial might of the West, the Soviets would be foolish indeed to risk a long war. Yet for NATO to continue to focus so much of its planning on this unlikely scenario is to presume that the enemy will cater to our strengths and ignore our weaknesses. What good are NATO hedges against a long war if the Alliance cannot survive a short war?

Second, current postural deficiencies which threaten NATO's ability to conduct a successful forward defense should be corrected with the aim of permitting the Alliance to wage the main defensive battle close to the inter-German border. NATO forces currently deployed along that border which are designated as "covering forces", and designed to slow but not stop a Pact invasion, should be strengthened to the degree necessary to compel the Pact forces to deploy for major battle before they enter NATO territory. This may require a redeployment of selected combat formations now located along the Rhine or to the west of it to forward assigned wartime positions. It may also necessitate the transfer of forces more northward along the likely principal axis of major Pact aggression.

We realize that formidable political and economic obstacles stand in the way of re-deployment. There is a severe shortage in Germany of land suitable for military purposes, and German safety and environmental

laws and regulations cannot be ignored. Moreover, the repositioning of U.S. combat units from CENTAG to NORTHAG could be interpreted by the United Kingdom, Belgium, and the Netherlands as evidence of American willingness to assume military responsibilities which those countries currently bear, and serve as an excuse for reduction in deployed Allied forces. NATO should not be permitted to degenerate into little more than a United States-German military combination.

Therefore, consideration of the militarily sound proposal to establish a second and even a third U.S. brigade in northern Germany, must be approached with political caution. Yet, whatever the nonmilitary obstacles to-redressing the maldeployment of forces in NATO Center, there can be little doubt that it must be redressed if NATO is to confront the Pact with a truly forward defense of NATO territory.

Corrective action in this regard should not be misinterpreted as a call for the creation of a Maginot Line along the inter-German border at the expense of powerful active forces withheld in the rear as a flexible reserve. The Maginot Line concept of defense was discredited thirty-seven years ago. It is a call, however, for a shift in the weight of NATO's combat firepower deployed in the Central Region to the east and to the north.

Third, a quantum jump is needed in NATO's conventional firepower. In the short term, this can be accomplished by procuring additional artillery, anti-tank, and air defense systems. Top priority should be given to artillery, which is a comparatively cheap source of firepower and one of the most longstanding and pronounced deficiencies of NATO ground forces. Ammunition stocks also should be brought up to authorized levels based upon revised requirements. Artillery ammunition stocks must be increased, since current stocks in some corps areas would cover only a few days' expenditure at projected rates. The fulfillment of these short-term objectives for U.S. forces should not be permitted to fall victim to commercial or foreign military sales. The lives of American fighting men must take precedence. Restoring and maintaining U.S. POMCUS and war reserve stocks must be given top priority.

In the long term, the quantum jump in NATO firepower necessary to counter the new Soviet threat can be obtained only by accelerated exploitation of ongoing technological advances in munitions and delivery systems. Representative of these advances are cannon-launched guided projectiles, air- and artillery-delivered mines, laser-guided weapons, and tactical applications of cruise missile technology. The new potential of multiple rocket launchers also should be explored.

Fourth, the readiness for immediate combat of deployed U.S. and Allied forces must be improved. In addition to the permanent eastward repositioning of selected U.S. and Allied combat units to their assigned wartime positions, this aim can be helped by the collocation of combat units with their initial supplies of ammunition.

Fifth, NATO's air defenses must be transformed into a capability to inflict unacceptable losses upon intruding Soviet tactical air forces. This can be achieved through better integration of existing air defense systems: surface-to-air, air-to-surface, air-to-air, and surface-to-surface. The critical shortage of surface-to-air missiles must be remedied.

Sixth, the Alliance's present command, control, and communications capability must be substantially enhanced to accommodate the demands of the modern battlefield. There is an impressive consensus within NATO that procurement of the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) is essential to realization of this objective.

Seventh, the pace at which U.S. and British