: alks draw to end after six years

7 MOSCOW (APN) — The draft-
of the second Soviet-
Merican Agreement to Limit
‘ategic Offensive Armaments is
vé but completed. Most of the
Pints which were still outstand-
ofm& had been cleared up during the
(Nt round of the SALT-2 talks at
neva between Soviet Foreign
)Anister Andrei Gromyko and the
S. Secretary of State, Cyrus
nce.
here is still a certain amount
work left to be done to put the
ishing touches to the draft, but
ce both sides have expressed
ir determination to travel the
aining part of the road in the
ar future, this diplomatic
athon of six years’ dyration
y now be tentatively estimated
have at least drawn to a finish.
Nobody, indeed, ever expected
~otiations on such a sophisti-
ted military and technological
€Mblem to be short. Yet it was
Mcult to predict that they
M\izid have dragged out for so
M\ >. At times, the talks seemed
al danger of losing the very sub-
under consideration, because
he emergence of some novel-
AS; in nuclear weapons threaten-
to slip out of the bounds of the
W\itations discussed.
Such misgivings grew each
e when the American side had
n advised to lay aside some
Margaining chips’’ in the Shape
qi the above mentioned novelties.

iM, mote its current political ob-
WMrives in disregard for each
M\.°s equal interest in curbing the
‘ns race. This was a waste of
me.

4S ALT-2 has acquired a sym-
©%ic significance apart from the
WYely pragmatic one. The talks
a a prospective agreement have
Med out to be a centerpiece of
ma\jet-American relations, serv-
WN like a barometer, as an indi-
€or of the state of détente as a
Wole. The signing of such an
‘A\cement at an appropriately

ORs Iso tried to exploit the talks to -

SALT-2 lends aid to detente

aes.

“Sure, we can blow up the world, but if the
Russians can blow up the world twice, we're goners”

high level will certainly help re-
solve other important problems in
a mood of increased understand-
ing of each other’s positions and,
let us hope, increased confidence.

In this way, SALT-2 will lend
political aid and assistance to
détente.

The agreement is important
also as a sign of acknowledge-
ment by the parties that it is in
their common interest to agree to
strategic nuclear parity instead of
hopelessly chasing the will-the-
wisp of military superiority and
address themselves, instead, to
the job of promoting national sec-

_urity through the limitation of
nuclear armaments to be eventu-
ally followed up by disarmament.
Incidentally the Soviet side has
been the runner-up in the arms
race, starting from the atom bomb
all the way to independently

~targetable warheads.

On this question, the American
side has had to travel the uneasy
road of a re-assessment of the old
concepts of ‘‘peace through
strength’ typical of cold war
times. Many will still remember

the words of ex-president Lyndon’

Johnson: ‘‘we are number one
and we intend to remain number
one!’’ What he referred to was the

size of the U.S. military machine,*

not its economy, nor its culture,
nor its human rights record.

By JIM SAVAGE
ORK, Ireland — As the coun-

i\mbers of the National Bus-
n’s Union, about 200 workers
Cork’s biggest bakery are ex-
acted to be laid off because of
loft deadlocked Irish Shell Oil
\mpany strike. Irish Dunlop
|tNbber has served notice on its
rkers of a closing which will
M\an a loss of jobs to some 1,000
tiople.

1 Some 600 workers, members of

4+ Automobile General En-
“\eering and Mechanical Opera-
wes Union have rejected the
lest offer in their two-month
pute with the Roadstone Com-
ny and some 150 members of

Ve confirmed their decision to
pwike. ;

al The strike at the Arigna Coal
PO\ne is now inits sixth month and
se Public Service Union in Dub-
and Cork have served strike
‘Mice to back up their work-to-
We which has affected garbage
Uection since last October.

eh faces a nationwide strike by —

radio and television union.

2 Labor fights lreland’s
arowing economic Crisis

This strike will involve some
11,000 workers.

The Marina Ford assembly
plant in Cork ceased production
arising out of a dispute at the Ford
plant in Britain, this strike involv-
ing 900 workers. The country’s
telecommunication services will
be hit in January as post office
workers have just rejected a
settlement by nation-wide ballot.
This will affect 6,500 technicians
and postmen.

The country’s 10,000 civil ser-
vants are considering strike ac-
tion over pay disputes: clerical
assistants demanding a 33% pay
hike and have been offered 6%.

Hospital and public health nurses. .

are threatening to resign in March
if their pay demands are not met.
In Ireland 52% of the workforce
are organized into 88 trade unions
and the capitalist press has been
calling for government action
with headlines such as: ‘‘ Wildcat
Strikes’”’ and calling strikes the
‘Cancer of Society’’. Govern-
ment is considering something
like the U.S. Taft-Hartley
“‘cooling-off period’’, but this will
not work in the present climate.

It is difficult to part with one’s
old notions and so we saw the
Washington Pest writing edito-
rially that security was largely
guaranteed by unmatched
strength rather than by arms con-
trol ... The Senate, it claimed to
predict, would give preference to

strength, not to strategic arms-

limitation.
All this looks like reverting to
the pre-nuclear military logic

RIGHTIST VIOLENCE BRING MARTIAL LAW IN TURKEY

ANKARA — Thirteen Turkish cities, including Ankara and Istan-
bul, are under martial law as the result of three days of fascist-inspired
violence. The fighting which began Dec. 28 left 101 dead and over 1,000
wounded. Some political observers warn of the danger of Turkish
militarists intervention in Iran in order to shore up the Shah. The
Turkish Miners Union warned of the danger that Turkey’s fascists and
rightsts may use the martial law to overthrow the present Ecevit
government and establish a fascist regime.

UENS SCORES VICTORIES IN KAMPUCHEA

The United Front for National Salvation, the recently formed or-
ganization of Kampuchean patriots opposed to the reactionary Pol Pot
regime, has scored major victories in its efforts to liberate the country.
It was reported that the key town of Kratie on the Mekong River was
now under control-of the UFNS. The local population participated in
‘the liberation of the town. At press time, reports indicate the spreading
of the liberation struggle in Kampuchea. The UFNS advocates a policy
of peace, friendship and non-alignment. It has called for ‘‘the restora-
tion of our old traditions of solidarity and friendship with the Viet-
namese people’’.

MANY SOVIET WORKERS GET WAGE HIKES THIS YEAR

MOSCOW — Large numbers of Soviet workers will have their
wages raised 23-30%, as of January 1979. Those getting raises will be
teachers and workers in education, health and medical services and
workers in retail trade and community services. The raise will be a real
one as there is no inflation and price stability is the rule in the USSR.

whereby the more elephants, gg,»

lances, swords and guns the gen-
erals had, the more chances were
open to them to win their battle.
SALT-2 offered a different ap-
proach to solving security prob-
lems in line with the logic of the
nuclear age, which says that it is
wiser to give up the ruinous
‘“‘more! more!’’ argument and
stick to parity and reduce it little
by little.

While diplomats were engaged

-in long, drawn-out talks in pursuit

of an arms limitation concept, the
partisans’ of “‘‘unmatched
strength’? were pushing ahead
with large-scale modernization of
the nuclear arsenals.

Ten years ago a former U.S.
Secretary of Defence, Robert
McNamara, declared that 400
warheads, each of one megaton
power, were ‘‘an adequate deter-
rent to general war’’. In 1972 the
then U.S. President Richard
Nixon arrived at the conclusion
that the existing American nuc-
lear arsenal was sufficient for the
foreseeable future. This arsenal
has since been growing steadily,
with warheads being now counted
by the thousands, rather than by
the hundreds ... :

All this indicates that the re-
maining part of the SALT-2 road
will have to be traversed by the
United States in a context of polit-
ical tussle.and controversy. The
latest opinion polls have shown
that three-quarters of Americans
are in favor of the agreement.

But in American political
mathematics these three quarters
are not yet equal to the two-thirds
majority in the Senate required
for SALT-2 to be ratified. There

are quite a few Senators who want a

this ratification ‘‘linked up”’ with
other foreign policy issues having
nothing to do with the agreement
itself. They presume the Soviet
Union is prepared to pay ‘‘a high
price’’ and so SALT-2 has to be
“sold at its dearest”.

The American side may dislike
some particular event in Africa or
somewhere else, but that has no-
thing to do with SALT-2 which is
a major issue in its own right, one
of great political implications,
which requires a full sense of re-
sponsibility on the part of both
sides.

Be ws

Turkish troops take over on the streets of Ankara.

GDR WORKERS BUILD PLOWS FOR ETHIOPIA

LEIPZIG — Some 200 disc plows for Ethiopia have been delivered
six weeks ahead of schedule. The 3,500 workers of the Leipzig plant
did their utmost for the heavy plows to arrive in Ethiopia before the
rainy season. To provide the Ethiopian state farms with machines for
optimal use, engineers and other experts of the Leipzig Agricultural
machine works had tested plows for months under-the complicated
conditions of African high mountains.

NATIONALIZING OIL INDUSTRY BRINGS GOOD RESULTS

CARACAS — The President of the Venezuelan State Petroleum
Sector (PDVSA) said the complete operational efficiency of the
nationalized industry is the greatest achievement in the three year
history of the operation. Another achievement, he said, has been the
streamlining of the public sector where’ 14 original companies have
been merged into four large public ones. Exploratory activity he an-
nounced, was three times the amount in 1976. In 1978, 30 of the 45
exploratory drillings have been successful.

HAWKS IN U.S. MAY DELAY ‘SALT’? AGREEMENT

WASHINGTON — A SALT agreement between the United States
and the Soviet Union has not been signed and will be delayed until at
least February, but the warhawks have launched a campaign against it.
The drive of the warhawks is spearheaded by the ultra-rightst Com-
mitte on the Present Danger, the American Conservative Union and
others. At a press conference sponsored by the ACU, Lt. Gen. Daniel
Graham, former deputy director of the CIA, warned that U.S. spy
satellites lack the capability to detect possible Soviet cheating. Denials
by the Pentagon of the accuracy and truth of Graham’s statement have
not prevented their use.

oad send 9 ond eed

TOKYO — Workers at the Oki Electric Industry plant here mobilize to
meet management's plan to “rationalize” with the resulting increase in
profits and layoffs. This trend toward cutting back on the labor force is
being felt more and more in the country...

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 412, 1979—Page 5