OM) CR | ae

‘By FRED WEIR
14.
a tan rowing fears in both West and
Fon tthe entire arms control process
iggp verge of final collapse, the
a week extended its year-old
"| tthe Weapons testing moratorium for
Bi, T five months, to January 1, 1987.
ij cUshtful people will recognize that
. DViet move required considerable
and political determination. In
4} ns “Strategic terms, it is an enor-
| Men famble to suspend testing at a time
i, belo” S adversary is going full-tilt on
at | Pent of new weapons.
|r €t leader Gorbachev admitted that
| Issn agreat deal of concern within the
op Menge the security implications of
i Lhion ing the moratorium. ‘““The Soviet
q ling jn ould have every reason to re-
. Snuclear tests,’’ said Gorbachev.
te Wwe are convinced even now that
’ nation of nuclear tests... would
lon of breakthrough towards a suspen-
the nuclear arms race”’.
if The popaganda and all that
( feos: response was swift and pre-
» | Mere econ the western white house,
as esident Reagan is relaxing on
of his interminable vacations, came a
tent litany of deceit. First, said presi-
Soviet Spokesman Larry Speakes, the
Rog,» Horatorium is ‘‘a lot of propa-
- (The U.S. should make such
Paganda), Second, he claimed, a test
me Cannot be adequately verified’’.
Titan and Soviet scientists, acting
lVate citizens, have already put in

t prospect

In what may be the biggest propaganda
lie since Hitler accused Poland of aggres-
sion against Germany, Speakes insisted
that the USSR is ‘well ahead’’ of the
U.S. in nuclear testing. Just for the re-
cord, the figures on atomic explosions

since 1945 — confirmed by the U.S. De- .

partment of Energy — are: United
States, 803; Soviet Union, 570.
A ray of light

In recent weeks, tentative hopes for a
new arms control accord have been
badly battered. Not only has the Reagan
administration crushed the surviving
framework of strategic arms limitation —
SALT I & IJ — and brought the ABM
Treaty under attack, its absolute in-
transigence has dashed any possibility of
new agreements and thrown the whole
arms control process into crisis.

In this dismal picture, however, there
are a few rays of light which must have
encouraged the Soviet leadership in their
decision to extend the testing freeze.

The U.S. Congress has at long last

found its voice and begun to oppose the -

more insane elements of the Reagan
administration’s nuclear buildup. Speci-

fically:

e On August 8 the House of Representa-
tives voted, 234 to 155, to impose a one-
year moratorium on U.S. nuclear
weapons tests over one kiloton in yield.
Although this may not seem too dramatic
compared to the year long Soviet freeze
on all atomic explosions, it is highly sig-
nificant that the House voted this mea-
sure overwhelmingly, and framed it as

legislation rather than a non-binding
resolution. On the test ban issue, the

‘Congress is now on a collision course

with the Reagan administration.

e The House of Representatives
voted to impose a U.S. moratorium on
testing anti-satellite weapons — to match
an existing Soviet one — and also voted
to delay the production of binary chemi-
cal weapons.

e On August 12, the House voted, 225
to 186, a resolution that would require
the Reagan administration to adhere to
the strategic limits set by the SALT
treaties.

e Again August 12, the House voted
239 to 176 to chop more than $2-billion
from next year’s Star wars budget.

While these measures face a rough ride
in the Republican-controlled Senate, and
President Reagan will likely veto them,
they are nevertheless clear evidence that
a struggle for sanity has finally begun
within the U.S. establishment.

Dissent grows

Further indication of growing dissent
over Reagan arms policy came last week
with the release of a ‘‘talking paper’’
written by five former presidential ad-
visers urging the Reagan administration
to abide by the SALT treaties and to
adopt a 10-year moratorium on Star
Wars development.

One of the document’s authors,
Harold Brown, who was secretary of de-
fence under President Carter, argued
that the current crop of Soviet proposals
has created a ‘‘negotiators dream’’. The

s for a test ban?

U.S., he says, need only accept a freeze
on Star Wars in order to achieve the most
sweeping and significant agreement on
nuclear weapons in the history of arms
control.

However, such an accord appears un-
likely as long as Reagan & Co. are in the
saddle. How will history judge a U.S.
president who bleats about “going the
extra mile for arms control’’ while sabo-
taging in practice every opportunity to
reach agreement?

Soviet leaders have clearly agonized
over the formidable difficulties involved
in trying to deal with Washington as long
as it is in the grip of extreme right-wing
ideologues and Cold Warriors. And it is
entirely to Mikhail Gorbachev’s credit
that he has been able to summon the
foresight and political will to extend his
testing moratorium despite the torrent of
rejection and ill will coming from the
White House.

Veteran Soviet political analyst and
Izvestia commentator Alexandre Bovin
has summed up the situation with the
farsighted and hopeful view that we must

all learn to adopt in these trying times:

“*] think it is quite possible that we may

fail to come to terms with the current
administration,’ he writes. ‘“But U.S.
history does not end with the Reagan
presidency. Our policy, our proposals
and gestures of goodwill are designed for
a long-term perspective’.
_ At some risk to itself, the USSR has
given the test ban option a new lease on
life. It is now up to all of us to see that this
historic opportunity is not lost.

aS}

Toth
fe.
ah

’

fl
i v
in} *ve
My “We

tT),

the means of monitoring and
“ting nuclear explosions on each
"Sterritory). And, said Speakes, an
au testing is ‘‘not in the security
ty Sts of the United States’’. (That is,
“Ving Prevent development of Star Wars
; big new weapons-systems. The
tiga’ have wrestled with these military
ha Vantages, in their own hearts, and
Come to a completely different

WASSERMAN. LA TIMES SYNDICATE

T WAVE TWo PROPOSALS - FIRST, ELIMINATE
"ALL NUCLEAR WEAPONS BY THE YEAR 2000

THAT SOUNDS LIKE & WILD,

SECOND, STOP ALL NUCLEA2
TESTING RIGHT NOW

UH... WHAT WERE You SAYING

|

INTERNATIONAL FOCUS Tom Morris

ain
| leaks, leakers
|| “akees...
| feyrOUt can tell the U.S. mid- »
) aot congressional elections
| © getting closer. You can just
|

evel the smoke of Reagan’s
supfires and hear shot being
4ded into the breeches.
1 u ibya was strangely out of
| th - news until a couple of
| YS ago. Then, coinciding
|
|

Neatly with joint U.S.-Egyp-
j i Naval exercises right next
' fu .° Libya, the U.S. press is
i of ‘‘Ghaddafi . . . terrorism
de, Preemptive strike ... evi-

Nce ... plot...”

Was, this time, the Wall
€et Journal which broke the
Pe: that the Pentagon was
va Pring strikes against Lib-
“> that the U.S. has intel-
Bence that Ghaddafi is plan-
U8 terrorist attacks and/or
spire violence by others.
he this it quoted ‘‘a senior
. Official’” who ‘insists he
be identified’’.

Wall Street Journal's Deep
eo) Oat needn’t have been so
the » because within hours of

- Story, a State Department
- 8k was on television ‘‘refus-
8 to deny’’ the report. Then

’Me White House press herd-

EAN ie tT ARE ONES Tea NETT

TS Pe

St SR AR a Es ae

er Larry Speakes trying to act
both surprised by the report
and tough at the same time:
“The U.S. is prepared to take
whatever action is necessary
to prevent terrorist activity,”
spoke Speakes.

The circle was completed.
The leak was reported by the
leakee, read by the leaker(s),
responded to by the leaker(s),
reported by the leakee ...

Advice from

a butcher

Twenty-one years ago Indo-
nesia’s Suharto was barely
known outside his own coun-
try. One year, and an esti-
‘mated 500,000 lives later,
everyone had heard of him.
Suharto has been president of
the country since.

In what was surely one of the
bloodiest repressions of this
century, Suharto’s armed
forces killed half a million pro-
gressives, then jailed that
many again, having, it claimed,
found evidence of plans to
overthrow the government of
the day.

Indonesia’s left forces ‘in
1965. were a numerical chal-
lenge in the country and well

organized; the Indonesian
Communist Party was third
largest in the non-socialist
world (after France and Italy).
Oceans of blood later, a pre-
cursor for the Pinochets and
Pol Pots to follow, the left was
decimated, the military ruled
supreme in the name of local
and foreign capital.

All this came to mind last
week during a visit to Indone-
sia by Philippine president
Corazon Aquino who was sub-
jected to advice by Suharto on
dealing with left forces: crush
them before they grow too
strong, he says. ;

Has he run out of Indonesian
blood to spill?

First cops,
then bankers

It used to be said the U.S.
Marines were little other than a
police force for the United
Fruit Company.

And while this is still true,
the vaunted corps which spe-
cializes in beating up little
guys, could now be said to be
the cops for Washington’s
Agency for International De-
velopment.

This is sort of a hyena-like
agency, moving in after the
Marines leave to sell off na-
tionalized assets, provide

funds for local and offshore:

(mainly U.S.) “‘investors’’,
change local tax laws to favor
the rich and squeeze the poor,
and generally make the plac
safe for capital. tee
Poor Grenada, raped by
Reagan, now finds AID-in-
spired and controlled tax laws
have exempted the rich, placed
a new consumer tax on the
poor. And, as if that weren't
galling enough, $2-million was

paid to a U.S. consultant firm
to work out a Reaganomics
plan for the island.

Grenada today has several
things that were absent during
the three years of people’s
power: high unemployment,
more prostitutes, more drugs,
a few very rich, and AID.

* * *

Some comparative figures:
Reagan’s Caribbean Basin Ini-
tiative Plan cost $180-million.
Three years AID to Grenada
cost $70-million. Price tag on
two new Air Force One jets for
the Man: $249.8-million.

~ Marine tanks come first, then the hyenas in striped suits.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 3, 1986 e9