WORLD

The Reagan administration’s propa-
ganda charade, played out over the Soviet
offer to negotiate a ban on space weapons,
appears to have put an end to the last best
hope of forestalling a new arms race in
outerspace. It is, however, only the latest
victim in a three and a half-year Reagan
spree which has seen virtually every existing
arms control agreement undermined, and
all ongoing negotiations cancelled.

The Reagan administration came into
office with the aim of achieving absolute
military superiority for the U.S. The scope
of the arms build-up they launched can be
~ seen from figures recently released by the
Pentagon: U.S. military budgets for 1982-
1989, a period of just eight years, will total
$2.6 trillion. By contrast, defence spending
for the previous 35 years — an interval
which includes the Korean and Vietnam
wars — amounted to $2.3 trillion.

As for arms control, Reagan considered
the structure of existing agreements to be a
nuisance, and said so. He put off engaging
in any new talks for nearly two years. As

: p SS

DEFENDING DEFENSE

Budget Battles and Star Wars -

Time’s 1983 cover as Reagan unveiled
space wars plan.

Space weapons talks:

Backgrounder |

Congressman Tom Downey remarked, the
Reagan administration “knows in its bones
that real men don’t control arms, they build
them.”

When finally forced by public pressure
and the rise of the peace movement to open
new talks with the Soviets, such as the
Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) talks
concerning missiles in Europe, and the Stra-
tegic Arms Reduction Talks (START),
Reagan brought to bear a set of propaganda
manoeuvres and stalling tactics which have
by now wrecked any hope of agreement in
the foreseeable future.

All of the Reagan administration’s deve-
loped talents were employed recently to
sabotage the possibilty of meaningful nego-
tiations to halt the arms race in space, pro-
posed by the USSR to be held in Vienna this
September. :

The Soviets have been urging negotia-
tions on the demilitarization of space for
more than a year now. They want a com-
plete ban on all types of space weaponry
— not the partial ban that some of the more,
“moderate” elements in Washington say
they might be willing to consider — and
they feel that such an agreement is feasible
at this point because the arms race in space
has not yet begun in earnest. To this end, the
USSR unilaterally imposed a mortorium on
anti-satellite weapons’ testing last August,
and tabled a draft treaty on the military uses
of space at the 35th General Assembly of
the UN.

After a year of refusing.to negotiate, of
complaining that such an agreement “can’t
be verified,” the Reagan administration
suddenly about-faced last month and

7 Fred Weir

agreed to talk. But, they said, they would go
to Vienna to discuss arms control issues in
general, such as the failure of INF and
START, rather than space weapons in
particular.

Said White House spokesman Larry
Speakes, “If the Soviets do not choose to
listen to our views on these subjects, they
need not. But for us, and for mankind, these
subjects are too important to ignore.”

In this way, the U.S. proposed to drown
substantive and specific talk on space wea-
-pons in a flood of rhetoric. It is perfectly
clear that Reagan has no intention of bar-
gaining away his big plans for the military
development of space, but with an election
coming, he does want to be seen to be talk-
ing to the Soviets, failing that, for the
Soviets to be seen “refusing” to negotiate.

Recently, Time’ magazine’s resident
defence expert, Strobe Talbott, analyzed the
main lines of Reagan’s arms control policy
in an unprecedented, highly critical, article
and concluded that it was all propaganda
and no substance. Reagan’s guiding precept
toward arms talks, he said, could be stated
this way: .

“If forced by political expediency to make
proposals and engage in negotiations the U.S,
must insist on drastic cutbacks in the most
modern, potent Soviet weapons already
deployed; no comparable reductions are
required, nor should they be considered in
existing U.S. forces.”

That is precisely what happend to the
most critical nuclear arms talks of our time,
INF and START.

At INF, Reagan proposed the “zero
option”, a gambit which even former eS:

lies and deception

Secretary of State Alexander Haig has
characterized as “‘absurd” and “not negot-
able”. Reagan clung to the basic “zero
option” formula, until Pershing and cruise
missiles began arriving in Europe, and the
Soviets, furious at the decision, walked out
of the talks.

The START negotiations fared similarly:
There the Reagan “offer” was that the
USSR should cut its force of land-based
strategic missiles by two-thirds, in exchange
for possibl e future reductions in the rate O°
increase of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Predic-
tably, the talks broke up last December with
no progress in sight. :

In other negotiations, the Reagan admin-
istration has cited “verification problems”

- to justify its refusal to come to agreement.

Since. coming into office, Reagan has con
sistently refused to place the already neg
tiated Threshold Test Ban Treaty before the
U.S. Senate for ratification, because
“cannot be adequately verified.” Likewis¢
his administration has blocked negotiations
on a Comprehensive Test Ban, chemica!
and bacteriological weapons, and ant
satellite weapons, in each case claiming
“verification difficulties” as the maim
reason.

Yet Strobe Talbott writes: “comprehen
sive, intrusive on-site inspection is not only
non-negotiable, it is unnecessary. The pre
vailing view of experts on verification §
that, thanks to recent technical advances in
the U.S.’s ability to monitor Soviet activities
from space and from around the periphery

of the USSR, those remote means need only
. be supplemented by the sort of limited “CO

operative measures’ that the USSR noW
seems willing to consider.”
The Reagan term of office has bee?
marked by a propaganda assault of Hiltet
esque proportions, the largest military.
build-up in history, and the corrosio?,
through lies and deception, of the basi
fabric of international relations upon which
rests the peace of our world. It is literally,
horrifying to think what another four yea!
might bring. ;

International Focus

Tom Morris

How votes can
mean action

The recent Labor Party vic-
tory in New Zeland over the
long-standing conservatives has
prompted complaints by the
U.S. because the new govern-
ment intends to carry out its
election promises.

To date, despite extreme
pressure from Washington,

That’s one important example
of how progressive, pro-peace
policies can happen with a de-
cent government in office.

Another example, one
which I have not found in
western reports on the New
Zealand vote, is the new
government's intention to kick
out South Africa’s diplomatic
mission.

It has been a consistent
Labor Party policy that New
Zealand honor the United Na-
tions’ call for complete diplo-
matic isolation of the Pretoria:
regime, and now they’re doing
it. =

As Canadians contemplate’
their vote Sept. 4, here’s but
two issues to consider: If you _
want steps toward peace and

6 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, AUGUST 15, 1984 |

_ KGB.
~ -.Such a categorical statement
-- could only come if the Klan
“told Smith they didn’t do it —
“and if Smith believed them.
When pressed by reporters,
Smith declined to reveal how
he came to his conclusion on
the grounds it would give away

disarmament,

Clearly,

Premier David Lange is stick- Pretoria line.

ing to his position that New Keeping the
Zealand will bar U.S. nuclear t boili
carrying ships from its harbors. po Hing

vote for can-
didates who will do something _
concrete if elected.

If you oppose apartheid,
vote for candidates who will
take action against the South
African regime if elected.
if on this basis
alone, a vote for either the-Lib-
erals or Tories means a con-
tinued pro-Washington, pro-

Once again the U.S. says it
was the USSR which sent
KKK hate mail to some 20
Asian and African states
containing threats should they
attend the Los
Olympics.

The charges this time cam
from U.S. Attorney General
William French Smith who
told the press the letters ‘“‘were

Angeles

‘national and

trade secrets.

It’s all very convenient.

On the same day, Aug. 9, the
U.S. State Department issued
a ‘‘travel advisory’’, warning
U.S. citizens they could run
into trouble if they visited
Leningrad. This claim was _
based on the alleged roughing
up of a U.S. off duty Marine by
Soviet police there.

I’ve no idea what the Marine
did to get police attention, but
based on off duty behavior of
U.S. troops in other countries
it could have been anything.

The point is, however, put-
ting out these stories over the
international
wires gets plenty of press at-_
tention and keeps the anti-
Soviet pot bubbling.

That, in turn, keeps the
money pouring in for weapons
and, they reason, the votes
pouring in for Reagan.

not produced or sent by the Ku
Klux Klan’, but by the Soviet Let them eat
ticker tape

Last week Anne Burford |
resigned again. A Reagan ap-
pointee as Environmental Pro-
tection Agency head, Burford
all but destroyed that body in
her eagerness to carry out the
president’s pro-business poli-
cy. She was forced to resign.

Undaunted, Reagan re-
appointed Burford as Chair-
person of the National Ad-
visory Commission on Oceans
and Atmosphere. This was the
last straw for environmental-
ists (and others) and the en-
suing howl forced Burford to
resign once more. .

Reagan appointees have
been remarkable for two
things: their personal ties to
Reagan and the abject ignor-
ance of their fields. They’ ve
come and gone with the
seasons»

Another Reagan hack is in
the news.
A UN-sponsored confer-

: fet Seas:
3 st =

‘logue for Reagan’s ‘‘Bort

portance of fostering condi-

ence on world population has
drawn 100 nations to Mexico
City and the high powered
U.S. group is headed by 4—
Reagan appointee who fits the
two criterea perfectly.

James Buckley, brother of
right-wing columnist William
Buckley, is the leader. He's
also head of Radio Free
Europe, and a perfect ideo-

Again”’ friends. He immediate-
ly set to his task of lecturing
third world nations on the evils
of family planning.
‘Free Enterprise’’, mouths
Buckley, is the answer to pov”
erty, malnutrition, under
development, disease an
starvation. And just to show he |
and Reagan aren’t kidding, thé
U.S. threatened to stop finane
ing multinational programs 10
states which sanction abor
tions. “
Buckley spoke of ‘‘the im

tions where the human entre
preneurial and. commerci®
spirit can flourish freely with-
out unreasonable government
restraint.”
In short he offered more
capitalism to states which hav@
been decimated by that rapa
ious system.
That’s vintage Reagan. |