DOWNHILL FROM THE SUMMIT TO DETENTE
Reagan is now supported by Democrats, attacked the INF treaty turns American politics upside down
Washington CLARITY is the word that comes to mind. His step, his gestures, his speech all have clarity. From the moment he stepped out into Washington's crystal air Gorbachev acted like a man who knew exactly what he wanted.
The INF treaty may yet prove to be our undoing, but it is important to stress, in case the lesson is forgotten, that it is our victory. President Reagan proposed the zero-option in 1981. The Soviets dismissed it out of hand. In 1983 we deployed Pershing II and cruise missiles despite massive protests in Europe. Only after the allies showed they would not be intimi- dated has the Soviet Union come around to our position. It is a total vindication of Reagan's strategy of negotiating from strength. Unfortunately the President has not won the credit he deserves. The Iran-Contra affair, his troubles with the Supreme Court, and the stock market crash, have weakened his administration at a stage when Gorbachev, following his own sepa- rate timetable, has chosen to bargain. This has created an impression that Reagan has resorted to arms-control to redeem his CORPS-A- CORPS presidency. But his antipathy to nuclear weapons is moral, even Utopian. He con- templated total nuclear disarmament at Reykjavik, before his fall from grace. There is no reason to suppose that Reagan would be any less receptive to the INF treaty if he were still at the height of his power. He might, however, have prevented the summit from degenerating with expressions like 'true peace'. When he first came to power Reagan was still blasting détente as `a one-way street that the Soviets have used to their advantage'. His new staff is technically competent, but it is not vigilant in the manner of his former se'il-mate, the CIA director William Casey. Over the last three months the three chief hawks at the Pentagon, Caspar Weinberger, Richard Perle, and Frank Gaffney, have all resigned. The militant anti-communists no longer have his ear. His wife has it. The evidence was there in the incantations of 'a new beginning', 'a new era', in the camar- aderie of Gorbachev and Reagan exchang- ing Russian fables and snippets of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Reagan is the one presi- dent who might have achieved cool arms- control 'sans détente'. Instead, through excess of gracious hospi- tality and a keen instinct for putting on a good show, he has brought on détente with alarming speed. This is not in our interest. America is an open society, where rap- prochement creates a political climate that translates directly into The INF treaty should have been signed quietly in Switzerland. Holding a summit in Washington, the capital of political image-making, has given Gorbachev a chance to gain goodwill in the United States that he does not yet deserve. The American media have lent themselves to this with subversive negligence. What did they make of Gorbachev's slippery and mendacious interview with NBC television where he said that emigration from the Soviet Union was an American conspiracy to steal mathematicians? They found him affable, a great communicator. Reagan too was overcome, defending Gorbachev's whoppers on Afghanistan. He then re- proached opponents of the INF treaty for having 'accepted that war is inevitable'.
American politics has been turned up- side down. Liberal Democrats are coyly praising the President while his own sup- porters, conservatives for whom he has been a champion since the mid-1960s, have turned abusive. 'Unfortunately Ronald Reagan is a very weak man, with a strong wife and a strong staff. He's become a useful idiot for Kremlin propaganda,' said a disgusted Howard Phillips, chairman of the Conservative Caucus. On the hard Right are those who argue that the Soviets took advantage of détente in the 1970s to acquire nine more client states around the world, and that they violated or circum- vented the Helsinki accords, the ABM treat, Salt I and Salt II, while America tied its own hands. They are led by Senator Jesse Helms who is expected to submit 'killer amendments' after the treaty begins its passage through the Foreign Relations Committee on 19 January.
More important is a big block of con- servative Republicans whose opposition to the INF treaty is more calibrated. In a curious inversion, they are joined by the former detentists, Richard Nixon and Hen- ry Kissinger, and by the former Nato Commander, General Bernard Rogers, who worries that the treaty 'will make Europe safe for a Warsaw Pact convention- al attack'. They do not see the political will for boosting Nato while there is a budget crunch in Washington. Some have misgiv- ings that the INF treaty will `decouple' America from Europe by taking two rungs out of the ladder of flexible response, making the US threat of nuclear retaliation against a Soviet invasion of, say, Germany even less credible than it had already become. The nuclear strategist Albert Wohlstetter says the Pershing II and cruise missiles serve a military purpose. They are accurate, have low yields, and can be used against Soviet conventional forces without huge collateral damage. It is precisely because they can be used that they are credible. We need a mix of nuclear weapons for the most likely contingencies. Instead, still in the shadow of the obsolete doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction, we are reverting to what he calls 'an apocalyptic nuclear bluff.
However, the treaty is overwhelmingly popular in the United States and in Europe. Most opponents of INF in the Senate consider it too late to stop the treaty. That would give a disastrous im- pression of divided government in Washington. Key Republicans like Senator James McClure, chairman of the Senate Republican steering committee, are ex- pected to be cautious about ratification, deliberately dousing enthusiasm to head off détente, but nevertheless rallying to give the President an ample majority in the final vote. The conservative Senator Orrin Hatch, for example, has hinted his approv- al by praising the verification provisions of the treaty. He seems inclined to accept the assurances of the National Security Advis- er, Colin Powell, that even though Amer- ican inspectors can only visit listed sites which Frank Gaffney calles a 'Potemkin village drill' — and even though the SS-20s could still conceivably be built at SS-25 facilities, 'the incentive for cheating is vastly reduced'.
Conservatives are keeping their powder dry for next year's Start agreement, which would reduce strategic missiles by 50 per cent. Gorbachev's speech at the signing of the INF treaty touched on their fears: 'Its implications go far beyond what has been agreed upon. It is only the beginning of nuclear disarmament . . . the movement has become irreversible.' The American public is not educated to resist this tempta- tion. It does not understand that Nato is more dependent on nuclpar deterrence than the Soviet Union. President Reagan has fed this confusion by calling nuclear weapons immoral — though without offer- ing an alternative Nato strategy — and by encouraging the vision of nuclear disarma- ment. 'I've never been as uneasy as I am now,' says Henry Kissinger. 'I don't know where we're going, and I don't know where we'll be when it's over.'
Pat Buchanan, the former White House communications director, says the INF debate is a 'dinner party discussion' com- pared to the brawl that is coming over Start. Conservative Republicans will sav- age the treaty if it threatens the Strategic Defence Initiative, which they want to see deployed in space as soon as possible to give it enough momentum to carry through deep into the next administration. Moder- ates will not necessarily support Start either. Senator Sam Nunn, a key figure in the ratification defeat of Salt II, will go through the details with a tooth-comb. Verification will also be a thorny issue. Unlike the INF deal, only half the missiles will be destroyed, leaving the support structure intact and making it much harder to detect violations. This can give cover to senators who dislike the treaty but cannot easily justify it to their constituents.
The arms-control debate has already changed the political landscape, though it is not yet clear to whose advantage. All six Democratic presidential candidates have come out in favour of the INF treaty, though none has acknowledged that it was Reagan's policy of strength which brought it about. Four of the six Republicans, on the other hand, are scathing. General Al Haig says it is the 'Ultimate triumph of public relations over strategic sense', but adds that the damage is already done and the treaty should be ratified. The other three, still courting the conservative activ- ist vote in the New Hampshire primary, may give a guarded endorsement later. In the meantime they look churlish. The real nomination fight is between Vice-President George Bush and the Senate Republican leader Robert Dole. They are on the same side over INF. Bush supports it enthusiasti- cally, Dole is expected to fight for ratifica- tion after a sober delay and a look at the fine print. Most likely, one of them will be nominated before the Start debate erupts, perhaps in the summer. Whoever it is may be leading a Republican party that is bitterly divided, while the Democrats are united around Reagan. It is a strange turn for the man who was supposed to be the most conservative President this century.
Previous page
