Conclusão

18

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

In this period of constant crisis, it is easy to overestimate our perils.

We should keep in mind that we alone have two times the Gross National Product of the Soviet Union and, with our allies, five times the Gross National Product of the Soviet Union.

We should remember that the Soviet Union is a system of government that has never managed a legitimate succession. There have only been four leaders in the whole history of the Soviet Union in the over 60 years of their history. Two died in office, one went on vacation without taking his colleagues with him (Laughter), and the fourth is determined not to repeat that mistake. (Laughter)

A system of government where the average age of the top leadership group is 18, the Politburo, is about 70, hardly represents the wave of the future. The economy of no planned economy has ever been able to compete with a market economy whether it is Czechoslovakia and Austria, East and West Germany, North and South Korea, never have the market economies done

1. anything but outstrip the socialists
2. countries.

3. it is true
4. So we are in a critical period. It is

5. true that we will face a period in which we must make major efforts and sacrifices to restore the military balance.

6. by a crisis
7. We have been shocked and thereby given the opportunity to rally free countries and we have
8. ahead of us some difficult years.

9. But if one looks at the longer term, future, one will face a reality, certainly, that Soviet domestic problems will mount while ours can be mastered. At some point the choice in Moscow must be for a genuine co-existence that we have not yet had.

10. If we look to our security in the dangerous period immediately ahead, it is not excluded that we can close off Soviet options whether we achieve a world which

15. is free of the danger of nuclear war, but also

16. free of the danger of nuclear blackmail, a world in which the desire for peace does not become a weapon of war most ruthless

19. most ruthless
20. in the hand of the strong but is allied to
21. the determination of the just; whether we can
22. bring about a world of hope and of confidence, is
23. finally dependent on whether at last we can stop

23. It depends on our own problems, whether we can unite and mobilize our own efforts and the vitality of free peoples;

LEAVITT REPORTING SERVICE, INC.

14

finally in Afghanistan. It was compounded and partly
reflected by the collapse, for whatever reason, of a
friendly government in Iran, which for 37 years had been
a major ally of the United States and had in turn been an
important bulwark of other moderate forces in the entire
region.

It is a painful fact that since 1975 every significant
change in the world has been produced by Soviet arms, Soviet
proxy troops, Soviet friendship treaties, and outright Soviet
intervention. Precariously situated countries in the Middle
East see a Soviet-supported Cuban advance coming up through
to
Africa/establish a base right across the Red Sea in Ethiopia;
a Soviet base in South Yemen and a northern pincer of the
same design occupying Afghanistan. They observe Vietnam
swallowing Cambodia; Soviet-armed guerrillas invading Morocco
and radical upheavals buttressed by a small Soviet combat
force in the Caribbean.