ANOTHER VOICE
Time to think straight as the world's leaders prepare for war
AUBERON WAUGH
Ido not suppose that I am alone in facing the Christmas season with an icy chill on the heart, haunted by those terrible photo- graphs of a grinning Gorbachev and a grinning Reagan as they sign a treaty promising not to bomb each other with intermediate range weapons. Reagan has nothing much to grin about, as he is out of reach of any intermediate range weapons in Washington, but he grins just the same. Nearly all Americans are ultimately des- troyed by sentimentality. Look at Woody Allen. Reagan, who has been a necessary and rather wonderful corrective after the terrible Carter years, when people much saner than Enoch started wondering whether it was not time for Britain to reach some sort of independent accommodation with the Soviet Union, now threatens to throw the whole thing away in his anxiety to be remembered as a Man of Peace.
But it is the grin on the face of Gor- bachev which really casts a chill. This is not because the Soviet Union derives a greater advantage than the Unite tates from this limited agreement, althou I feel that it probably does. Moscow is threatened by intermediate range weapons sited all over Europe. What is frightening about the Soviet leader's evident satisfaction is the reflection that as we retreat from the politics of deterrence and nuclear con- frontation, so the chance of our political leaders being able to wage war without endangering themselves increases. I am convinced that what has deterred the politicians from starting a major war in the nuclear age was the certainty of their own extinction. As soon as the nuclear threat has been removed, they will be waging war like nobody's business, making speeches from their underground bunkers about how we must fight them on the beaches, etcetera.
The nation's madwomen seem to have lost all sight of how unpleasant a conven- tional war with the Soviet Union will be, quite apart from the inexorable fact that we will lose it and they will all be raped. But only those who see government as an international conspiracy of power-seekers will recognise the danger in even the present proposals for a limited form of arms control.
Did nobody think it at all odd during the last war when, in the new and horrible concept of total engagement, whole cities like Leipzig were reduced to rubble, that Hitler never took any steps to have Chur- chill assassinated, and Churchill refused to countenance, let alone assist, schemes to assassinate Hitler? It is true that Reagan may have made a few gestures towards bumping off Colonel Gaddafi, but only, I suspect, because he feels that the Libyan cannot be trusted to observe the rules himself.
No, it is all a great conspiracy, just as they help each other get elected, or streng- then their political bases at home, regard- less of ideological colour or national advantage. Kinnock is humiliated in Washington and Thatcher is feted in Mos- cow, not because of their politics but because of who is in power; Khrushchev, when he visited Britain, said that if he were British he would vote Conservative. They were his hosts. But underneath this irrres- istible urge to pat each other on the back, as I maintain, there lies a recognition of the power urges which they all share, and an unspoken promise not to interfere with each other's exercise of these urges.
The greatest breach of this gentlemanly agreement would be if they actually blew each other up. They have no compunction whatever about waging cruel and beastly wars in distant countries like Afghanistan, Vietnam and the Falklands. That is all part of the fun of being in power, so long as they can get away with it. But there can be no possible fun in the ultimate self- indulgence of a major world war, if it also involves being blown up oneself.
That, at any rate, is why I have always supported the nuclear deterrent, while fully accepting that there are no circum- stances whatever in which the use of nuclear weapons would be morally justi- fied. I can quite understand why politicians nowadays feel they would like to get rid of them, and regard it as a matter of some importance that they should be prevented from doing so. It was for this reason that I read with alarm in the Guardian recently of a new and formalised system of giving Members of Parliament and Ministers exemption from the laws which they themselves have passed. One was always aware that Minis- ters like Mr Peter Bottomley were unlikely to fall foul of their own campaign against drivers, since they are driven around by chauffeurs wherever they go in their brief moment of power and glory.
Now I learn that even MPs are liable to be exempt from prosecution for a wide range of offences, which include drinking and driving. A two-tier system has been introduced by the Crown Prosecution Service which allows for special consideration for MPs, and other vital public figures: local councillors, police officers, magistrates, judges and employees of the prosecution service.
The criterion is whether or not it would be in the public interest for such people to be prosecuted for a range of offences which includes theft, burglary, hit-and-run acci- dents, drunken driving and street prostitu- tion. I suppose the consideration must be that if such people, who are universally admired for their rectitude, are shown to have feet of clay, we will lose all respect for the law and refuse to believe a word any of them say about the wickedness of driving a motor car after luncheon.
So the result is that these people can go on striking attitudes and demanding or imposing heavier penalties without any danger (or with a greatly reduced danger) that they will suffer the same fate. My abiding terror is that one day someone will invent a bomb which kills everyone but leaves the nation's leaders unscathed: its politicians, local councillors, police offic- ers, magistrates, judges etc. I imagine it would be a matter of minutes between the invention of such a bomb and the outbreak of the third world war. But there is quite enough to be worried about in the specta- cle of these world leaders signing agree- ments to reduce the stockpile of nuclear weapons.
One can see what they are up to. I just wish that the world press did not play along with them by talking of 'peace initiatives', when we all know that what they are really doing is preparing the way for an almighty new world war. Perhaps it is time we had one. The younger genera- tion seems unsatisfactory in many ways; religion and vocations for the priesthood are in decline; all the repulsive buildings put up by British architects in the past 50 years will have to be cleared away some- how.
But at least let us think straight on this important subject, and think it through, as we listen to Mr Peter Bottom- ley blanketing the world with lies about drink-driving this Christmas.
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