REVIEWS

U.S. nuclear policy: 40 years of aggression

ON THE EDGE OF AN ABYSS: By Alex-
ander Yakoviev. Progress Publishers.
1987.

The resurgence of the right in the United
States, which culminated in the 1980 elec-
tion of Reagan, began in the mid-70s. The
new cold warriors were reacting to detente,
a reality forced on the U.S. by the loss of
Vietnam, the growing strength and inde-
pendence of the developing world, and the
Soviet attainment of nuclear parity. The
right was impatient to regain armed supre-
macy and economic hegemony. Prom-
inent in these circles was the Committee on
the Present Danger, formed in 1976, many
of whose members were to enter the Reagan
administration. Typical views were expressed
by Richard Pipes, who said “there is no
alternative to war with the Soviet Union if
the Russians do not abandon communism”
and Colin Grey, who theorized about an
“inevitable” U.S. nuclear “victory.”

Alexander Yakovlev was formerly Soviet
ambassador to Canada. He is now an
influential member of his country’s govern-
ment. His purpose in this devastating cri-
tique of American policy is to show that,

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10 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 1, 1987

since Truman, the aim has in fact not
changed. It has consistently attempted to
defeat the Soviet Union and impose its dik-
tat on the world.

Nuclear attack was planned as early as
1945, and approved by Truman. Twenty
Soviet cities were then targeted. In 1947 the
number had grown to 100. Yakovlev quotes
extensively from National Security Council
scenarios, which wrestled with the options
of what, at the time, would not result in a

complete victory. A typical general won-
dered whether “our purpose (is) to destroy
the Russian people, industry, the Commu-
nist Party ... or a combination of these.” A
successful Soviet atomic test in 1949 gave
the warriors more doubts, although the
devastation was planned as late as 1957. It
was only the prospect of incomplete success
which preserved an uneasy peace. -
Accurrent theory — which might help to
explain much recent history — envisages an

attack on Siberia, to be launched from
South Korea, Japan, Alaska and the Phi-
lippines. -

This, in brief, is the main aim of Ameri-
can foreign policy, the ‘realities.’ Yakovlev,
however, is equally interested in the ‘doc-
trines’ that lie behind it, the theoretical justi-
fications provided by political scientists and
others for the extension of U.S power. Two
themes are consistently present: the glorifi-

cation of violence and the evocation of
Christianity, often together, as expressed by
a colonel, who asked: ‘“‘Why did the Heav-
enly Father ... give us the atomic bomb?...
To use it judiciously to destroy commu-
nism.”

The more subtle analysts, whom Yako-
vlev analyzes in detail, cloak their destruc-
tive moralizing in soothing phrases such as
“containment,” “the national interest” and
“flexible response.’ Common to virtually all

Outrageous Fortune

OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE. Directed by
Arthur Hiller. Written by Leslie Dixon.
Starring Bette Midler, Shelley Long, Peter
Coyote. Touchstone Pictures.

Here is the kind of movie, all too com-
mon in Hollywood, that sounds promising
and could have had a lot going for it in the
idea department. But unfortunately, with
one eye fixed on the box office cash box,
Outrageous Fortune picks up a lot of taste-
less and offensive stuff on its way to the tidy
formula ending.

The script, which was written by a
woman about women, starts out strongly
with a theme about female bonding
between two women that develops beyond
their class differences and beyond their
mutual hostility over competition for the
same man.

Along the way to becoming an actual

- movie, however, there is a descent into

degrading caricatures and stereotypes of the
usual sexual, racial, and political varieties,
which neutralizes any imaginativeness,
novelty and energy the story generates dur-
ing its highest points.

Shelley Long, as an aspiring actress from

Along the way to. becoming an actual movie Outrageous Fortune descends into degrad-
ing caricatures and stereotypes of the usual sexual, racial, and political variety.

Yale who longs to play Hamlet one day,
and Bette Midler as an aspiring actress from
Brooklyn who never heard of Hamlet,
become a reluctant team in cross-country
pursuit, over mountains and deserts and

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es

(its foremost idea about feminism is utiliz-

is the assumption of an American right to
dominate the world. A typical theory, the
justification of American empire, pointed
out that the U.S. possessed the qualities of
previous empires: elevation of the executive

: principle of government; accommodation |
** of domestic policy to foreign policy; ascen-

dancy of the military mind; a system of
satellite nations for ‘collective seccurity’;
and an emotional complex of vanity and
fear. Its author suggests that ‘freedom and
democracy’ is the natural successor to Eng-
land’s slogan of ‘the white man’s burden.’

Yakovlev believes that the U.S. ‘has been —
far removed from reality. The nature of this
state is chauvinistic and messianic ... the
nations of the world have been paying a
high price for this. Perhaps it will take time
for American imperialism to rid itself of its
historical blindness and come to realize the
realities of the nuclear age.

‘Instead of being a realistic policy, the
Pax Americana chimera is becoming a
serious disease capable of thrusting human-
kind into a disaster. American imperialism —
is still able to drive the world toward the

edge of an abyss.’
— Jeremy Agar

through baggage chutes and washing —
machines — on spin cycle — in pursuit of
aman whom they discover, to their dismay,
has jilted both of them simultaneously.
The women work at menial jobs while —
they take up acting classes with a Russian
drama teacher-villain. He’s really a spy who
gets to prove just how demented Russians
really are by nearly strangling a student
during a training session murder scene!
Other assorted villains here include Black
and Hispanic characters whom the women
encounter on their death-defying expedition
through a New York ghetto where Midler
predicts they’ll both surely be raped and
murdered, and Long balks at having to
converse with a menacing Black taxi driver,
because she “‘went to private school.”
Outrageous Fortune shows. women
“overcoming” class differences and divisive
sexual competition over worthless men to
discover more worthwhile friendship and
unity among themselves. At its worst, the
film fails to go beyond feminist stereotypes

ing jewelry as a deadly weapon). It trivial _
izes the potentials, strengths and innef
resources of women in their search for
unity.
— Prairie Farkas
Peoples Daily World

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