Should We Help Gorbachev?
Nixon, Richard
Richard Nixon SHOULD WE HELP GORBACHEV? Not if you take history seriously. Last December 4, former President Richard Nixon dictated a long analysis of East-West relations, and, in keeping with...
...The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan destroyed- any chance for the Senate to approve SALT II...
...You don't know in advance how they come out...
...Domestic policy served foreign policy...
...Communist policies had produced stagnation rather than progress, and because of the massive advances in communication, the people of Eastern Europe knew it...
...On the other hand, we should not provide credits for food and consumer goods for the purpose of financing perestroika...
...Gorbachev must understand that Central America- is a neuralgic issue for the United States...
...He provides arms to North Korea and Libya, two notoriously aggressive nations that threaten their neighbors and export terrorism all over the world...
...His clients in Cambodia and Angola are still in power...
...Gorbachev had two choices in Eastern Europe...
...But keeping this last issue in context, while some Communist officials lost their positions in recent elections, Gorbachev strengthened his...
...Gorbachev is a Communist, but he is not a fool...
...national security policymaking and to enjoy the most authoritative assessments available of the military, political, diplomatic and economic challenges confronting the United States and its allies...
...But his economic reforms, perestroika, have been a failure in every respect...
...But we must nevertheless be generous with our aid, because we must do everything necessary to see that their efforts to rid themselves of Communist rule do not fail...
...Since we began as "The Pink Sheet on the Left" back in 1971, the best informed Conservatives in America have relied on us as a watchdog of the left wing...
...The Communists have lost the ideological battle...
...Let us examine what he has done...
...Even if the reforms go far enough to work, it is not in our interest to help Gorbachev unless his foreign policy becomes less aggressive...
...In that same five-year period, U.S...
...In Poland, East Germany, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, the opposition forces generally do not yet have that capability...
...In providing help for Gorbachev we should adhere to a fundamental principle...
...A leading East-West analyst concluded bluntly, "We should help those in the Soviet Union who are doing the right thing...
...But again, we must ask ourselves whether Gorbachev really is doing the right thing from our point of view...
...Where there was no freedom to emigrate, there is now some...
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...I am simply suggesting that we should examine his motives just as coldly as he is examining ours...
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...He is so different from the old caricature of the sour, humorless Communist that many naively rush to the other extreme and gush that he is "just like us...
...As Senator Jesse Helms said, "the average American would be appalled if he were suddenly to discover what is being done to his country and its principles by extreme left-wing forces...
...That is why Woemer, then still German Defense Minister, chose Strategic Review for unveiling his important and controversial proposal for a NATO missile defense in 1986...
...Even if he has been sounding to some hopeful ears like a dove, his bristling talons still make him look like a hawk...
...As Gorbachev has learned, giving people the right to vote and choose their leaders is far easier than getting a stagnant economy to move again...
...A chance to psychologically disarm his potential adversaries in the West was worth losing his absolute control of Eastern Europe...
...Gorbachev often speaks of God, as did Brezhnev, and he likes to say that his mother had an icon over her bed...
...Talk about a "Marshall Plan" for Eastern Europe trivializes a complex question...
...The results have been virtually nil...
...It does mean that, as we would with any other master politician, we should look at his deeds as well as his words, the substance as well as the style...
...strategic interests...
...That is why your publication is so valuable...
...But he was getting rid of a loser, and he still supplies his puppet government in Kabul with huge shipments of arms...
...Total Soviet military spending under Gorbachev has increased three percent every year he has been in office...
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...All the Soviets' Third World conquests were enormously 'expensive losers, costing them $12 billion a year in foreign aid...
...Congressman Phil Crane The best intelligence network in Washington for anybody who wants to keep track of the radical left—that's what The American Sentinel has been for 18 years...
...That does not mean, to use a phrase that has become almost meaningless, that he isn't "for real...
...What we are seeing under Gorbachev is a profound shift in Soviet priorities...
...Whoever believes that will believe that Santa Claus is bringing my grandchildren the $150 Nintendo sets I am buying them for Christmas...
...If we subsidize the Soviet economy while it continues to expand and modernize its military machine, the result could be a Soviet Union that is stronger both economically and militarily than when Gorbachev found it and that threatens uS more...
...That he made the smart play and acted in his national interest does not qualify him for sainthood any more than Lenin's separate peace with the Germans during World War I meant that he liked the Kaiser...
...Discover how Liberals in Congress have made their own foreign policy—and how it conflicts with America's...
...In the five years Gorbachev has been in power, all three legs of the Soviet strategic nuclear triad—land, sea, and air—have been modernized...
...He is not in a position to be able to try to stop it and still accomplish his broader goals...
...We should apply different standards in considering what aid to provide to new non-Communist governments in Eastern Europe...
...And yet for two years, he tempoTHE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 1990 19 rized...
...Even more important, Gorbachev has become the darling of Western intellectuals and pundits as well...
...Time magazine has declared that Richard Nixon served as the thirty-seventh President of the United States...
...The nations of Western Europe suffered enormous physical damage in World War II, but they still had governmental and economic structures that enabled them to use the aid they received effectively...
...Let me quote from an editorial in the New York Times: "One week ago Russia came of age...
...For example, President Bush is right to support waiving the Jackson-Vanik provisions on providing Most-Favored Nation treatment for Soviet products if the Soviet Union adopts new liberal emigration laws...
...To continue the reporter's analysis, which was right on target, if Jesse Helms had been elected President last year and had been dragged kicking and screaming to a summit meeting, Gorbachev would probably have tried to win him over by talking about the evils of abortion and pornography...
...American MIAs—still alive in Vietnam • How one defense contractor "lost" over 1,000 classified documents on the Stealth bomber • House Armed Services Committee invites Soviet Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev to testify against the Bush Defense Budget...
...Bailing out the Soviet economy as it exists now does Gorbachev no favor, just as a banker does no favor to a borrower by making him a bad loan...
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...After Malta, President Bush took issue with that statement...
...Among American intellectuals—those with post-graduate training-85 percent view Gorbachev favorably as against 65 percent for Bush...
...Gorbachev wants to "transform the Soviet Union into a more democratic society...
...Massive Western aid now simply permits the Soviets to postpone making the tough decision to adopt reforms that will work...
...His economic reforms have failed, but his political reforms dramatically improved his image abroad, strengthened his political power at home, and earned him the support of an energized Soviet intellectual class...
...B the Malta conference, SecreL P tary Baker said that "this is the first Administration since the war which has been more concerned with the consequences of Communism's demise than with the threat of Communism...
...Even more important, Gorbachev had bigger targets than Eastern Europe—Western Europe and the United States...
...He is a proud Russian nationalist, with goals and ambitions for his country such as Russian leaders have had for centuries before Lenin...
...And rush a copy of Panama: An Assessment...
...Foreign policy serves domestic policy...
...But as the "Spirit of Malta" washes over the West, he may soon find that he is a very lonely member of a virtually silent minority...
...At a time when he is using his head, we should not lose ours...
...To do what was necessary to keep unpopular puppets in power in Eastern Europe, he would have had to abandon his enormously successful efforts to seduce Western Europe and the United States...
...By disarming the West psychologically, he removes fear, the glue that holds the Western affiance together and that provides the rationale for adequate defense budgets in the West...
...The conventional wisdom is that we should help him...
...Strategic Review permits you to share in the strategy debates now underway at the highest levels of U.S...
...He has been bold and courageous in adopting policies at home and abroad that serve that purpose...
...Some say he even encouraged it...
...Eastern Europe is where we haveseen the most spectacular developments...
...Regardless of what he says publicly, Gorbachev cannot be pleased by what is happening in Eastern Europe...
...The idea that Gorbachev is unaware that arms he provides for Cuba are delivered to Nicaragua and then to rebels in El Salvador is ludicrous...
...Gorbachev is making a virtue out of necessity...
...Whether or not that is true, there is still no question but that the Soviet Union's military might is greater now than when Gorbachev came to power...
...The Soviet economic crisis is so great that foreign and defense policies must be managed in a way that will help resolve it...
...Manfred Woemer, Secretary General of NATO, singles out Strategic Review for "its embracive, universal view of strategy, and its focus on the global interplay of political, economic, social and military factors...
...Everywhere he looked he saw Communism in crisis...
...On all sides we hear that Western ideas have won and that Communism has been defeated...
...And one area where his words and deeds diverge dramatically is the one that is the most critical for American policylmakers: Soviet military power...
...Reporting like that made the Washington Post call me "the right wing's answer to Abbie Hoffman...
...They have also produced a less oppressive life for many in the Soviet 18 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 1990 SHARE IN TODAY'S BEST THINKING ON THE STATE OF OUR NATIONAL SECURITY "A very important element of the media for professionals and laymen alike who want to keep abreast of national security affairs is the quarterly journal...
...Soviet superiority in tanks, chemical weapons, and combat aircraft has been maintained and in some cases increased...
...And there is a chance he may have his cake and eat it too if the West fails to see what he is doing and to make him pay a price for it...
...Rather than just applauding what he has done, let us examine why...
...There is only one thing wrong with them...
...Any objective observer must agree that glasnost, Gorbachev's political reforms, has produced less repression for his people at home and enormous popularity for him abroad...
...government of El Salvador could destroy the chances for approval of a START treaty...
...For one thing, he has adopted a tolerant attitude toward religion, as did Stalin during World War II...
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...He continued the policy of his mentor, Yuri Andropov, of trying to get a bad system to work better by eliminating drunkenness, corruption, and inefficiency...
...And at the same time, these countries at least temporarily remain in the Warsaw Pact, and Gorbachev can let the West help foot the bill to keep their failed economies afloat...
...Where there was no freedom to criticize, there is now some...
...He found that all the major industrial nations of the world were aligned against him...
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...Only measures the West takes for granted but that could destroy Gorbachev as swiftly as a raging virus—lifting price controls, encouraging more entrepreneurism, decentralizing economic decision-making...
...Those who make revolution are seldom the best qualified to run a government...
...He announced unilateral cuts in his defense budget and reductions in his Warsaw Pact forces...
...T oday Japan is the second most powerful economy in the world inpart because for a quarter-century the United States relieved it from the responsibility for significant defense spending...
...T his brings us to the central ques- 1 tion in American foreign policy today: Should we help Gorbachev...
...In Eastern Europe any observer could see that the explosive forces of dissent were just beneath the surface...
...He knew he had no choice but to reform at home and retrench abroad...
...Even if we are not sure the reforms will work, we should gamble that these peoples' energy and creativity, suppressed for nearly a half-century, will be enough to finish the peaceful revolution they have begun...
...The defense cuts Gorbachev has announced have had a dramatic effect abroad in reducing Western fear of the threat of Communism...
...And any time you don'tthink The American Sentinel is worth every penny, I'll refund your money—no questions asked...
...The military option was not acceptable because it might not have worked...
...government in the Western Hemisphere is unacceptable...
...Gorbachev's foreign policy has been a brilliant public relations success, particularly in the West...
...His dilemma is that if his reforms go far enough to Gorbachev often speaks of God, as did Brezhnev, and he likes to say that his mother had an icon over her bed...
...She allowed her people all the fun and trappings of a real election—provoked not publicly by show of hands but in private in red curtained booths behind closed doors...
...What they need, in addition to credits in the short term, is expert advice on how to run an economy and how to govern a democracy...
...In these areas, as in his initiative with the Pope, he has shrewdly said what many in the West want to hear...
...Every two weeks we break stories the Establishment media ignore or bury, like...
...As Andrei Sakharov put it, "In the absence of radical reforms in the Soviet system, credits and technological aid will only prop up an ailing system and delay the advent of democracy...
...Governing a democracy is far more difficult than governing a totalitarian system...
...Unlike Stalin,however, he meets with the Pope, because he knows the influence and power of the Pope cannot be measured by the number of military divisions he has...
...A liberal magazine recently editorialized that we should help Gorbachev because of our interest in assuring the "success of an economically and politically liberal regime without any apparent expansionist ambition...
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...Stalin's foreign minister, Molotov, once told an American who was urging him to support the concept of free elections, "I like the idea of free elections...
...He wouldn't be General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union if he weren't...
...Gorbachev is not a Stalinist, but he is also not a Jeffersonian democrat...
...If I don't agree The American Semi. nel is Washington's best watchdog of the radical left, I can get a full refund—no questions asked...
...Most ignore that it was Western ideals, combined with the failure of Communist ideals he still upholds and opposition to Soviet domination he represents, which brought millions into the streets in Poland, East Germany, Prague, and Budapest...
...Whether it is defense, arms control, Eastern Europe, or the Third World, Gorbachev's first priority is to do everything he can to help the Soviet economy...
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...Where there were no free elections, there are now some...
...At home Gorbachev saw that the Soviet economy, plagued with corruption, drunkenness, inefficiency, and shortages, was falling further and further behind the West...
...The rhetoric has been impressive—joint ventures, cooperatives, private businesses, decentralized controls, and even some kind words about free markets...
...One of the finest is Strategic Review, published by the United States Strategic institute, not only because it fo'uses almost exclusively on the most compelling strategic problems of the day, but also for the quality of its writing, the pertinence of its articles, and the depth and clarity of the thinking displayed...
...And yet a Communist, Gorbachev, is the most popular man in Europe...
...While he has only marginally changed the Soviet Union, he has profoundly changed the world...
...The foregoing is the professional judgment of Harry Zubkoff, former Editor of Defense Media Review...
...He also provides arms to Cuba, which in turn are shipped to Communist rebels in El Salvador after being laundered in Nicaragua...
...They are totally inadequate compared to a free, democratic society...
...The headline over a recent lead editorial in the New York Times proclaimed, "The Cold War Is Over...
...Three years ago he adopted bolder political and economic reforms...
...For example, in the ten years of Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms, the per capita income of the Chinese people has doubled...
...Similar testimonials have come from academicians, journalists, legislators, policymakers...
...For these reasons, Gorbachev's critics and friends alike agree that he is the most exciting leader in Soviet history...
...He is the most powerful Soviet leader since Stalin during World War II...
...By accepting membership in the United States Strategic institute, you will receive Strategic Review regularly and you can look forward to other timely analyses and background information — not readily available elsewhere — on vital national security issues...
...Otherwise the Soviet economy would collapse and Marxism-Leninism would suffer total defeat...
...What Cheney undoubtedly meant by his statement was that the likelihood that the Soviets' vast military power would be used against the West had diminished because of events in Eastern Europe...
...But we should not help him if his ultimate goal is to make life more difficult for the West by using Western subsidies to build a more formidable, more dangerous Soviet Union...
...He was right to do so...
...He saw that Deng's economic reforms had produced a better life for the Chinese people...
...But compared to what the Soviets had before, they are breathtaking...
...Even as he issues calls for new thinking in foreign affairs, Soviet power is being applied against American interests in old wars in Afghanistan and El Salvador and for propping up anti-American regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua, North- Korea, and Libya...
...Secretary Cheney has stated that the Soviet military threat is less than at any time in the past fifteen years...
...20 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 1990 work, they would threaten the authority of all those, such as Gorbachev himself, who depend on the Communist party and the central government for their power...
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...Afghanistan was costing lives as well as money...
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...What would be radical enough...
...He is profoundly sincere in wanting to rescue the Soviet system from a terminal illness...
...For seventy years Soviet foreign policy drove domestic policy...
...Last December 4, former President Richard Nixon dictated a long analysis of East-West relations, and, in keeping with his standard practice, distributed copies to a close circle of friends Portions have been reprinted elsewhere but The American Spectator thought readers might be interested in seeing in a complete form what was on RN's mind a few weeks before the appearance of the much noted article in Daedalus by ME Z —Ed...
...He is a leader of great courage and vision who is not afraid to make the bold play...
...He has changed, but it is a change of the head, not the heart...
...Is he a convert to Western ideas of political pluralism, individual rights, and free-market economy...
...When Gorbachev came to power five years ago, he found he was presiding over a military superpower and a Third World economic power...
...Most people would-assume that that editorial had been written about Gorbachev's Russia in 1989...
...Many say he inspired what happened there...
...By projecting a benign image abroad, he increases his ability to get the credits, aid, and technology he needs to revive his sick economy...
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...But it remains to be seen whether his policies will produce what responsible leaders in the West want to see—a truly freer, benign Soviet Union...
...As a master of the PR game, he knows how to project the image that we want to see...
...Before going overboard and giving Gorbachev the aid he desperately needs for his terminally ill economy, we should not lose our historical perspective...
...The Soviet Union can pay for perestroika itself by cutting its budgets for defense and foreign adventures...
...Sending arms to an anti-U.S...
...cc one of the most authoritative and informative newsletters on the activities of our adversaries on the left...
...But the West has not yet won it...
...In a revealing moment, a leading American television commentator said on the last day of the Malta meeting that Gorbachev understood the kind of relationship President Bush wanted to have with him—good-natured, informal, jocular—and had delivered exactly that 'during the meetings...
...The continued use of Soviet arms by Communist rebels trying to overthrow the pro-U.S...
...Now domestic policy drives foreign policy...
...All this produced was longer lines for vodka and acute shortages of everything else...
...Before going along with the conventional Beltway wisdom, let us take a closer look at this exciting new superstar on the world scene...
...We should help Gorbachev—but only if his reforms go far enough to have a chance to succeed and if as a result the Soviet Union becomes less oppressive at home and less aggressive abroad...
...I do not question Gorbachev's sincerity...
...He is equal to Bush in popularity in the United States...
...Please bill me...
...All this is interesting, but it does not make him a closet Christian, just as his economic reforms do not make him a capitalist and his political reforms do not make him a democrat...
...The ideals of freedom and free markets when they are celebrated but not implemented are meaningless...
...His purpose was not to abandon Communism but to save it...
...CIA Director Webster has reported that Soviet intelligence activity is increasing under Gorbachev...
...He withdrew the Red Army from Afghanistan and played a role in getting Vietnamese troops out of Cambodia and Cuban troops out of Angola...
...His predecessors would not have permitted it...
...defense spending has gone down by 11 percent...
...All this is interesting, but it does not make him a closet Christian, just as his economic reforms do not make him a capitalist and his political reforms do not make him a democrat...
...While Gorbachev's deteriorating economy may soon finally force him to cut back, he still spends 20 percent of Soviet GNP on defense, compared with six percent in the United States...
...In fact, it was written about Stalin's Russia in the 1930s...
...His political reforms have been an enormous public relations success abroad...
...He saw that his major potential adversary, the United States, finally recovering from the malaise of the late seventies and the recession of the early eighties, had a booming economy, a strong foreign policy, and a new defense initiative, SDI, that would cost the Soviet Union billions of dollars it didn't have just to keep up...
...Where there was no freedom of press, there is now some...
...He is a brilliant, pragmatic political leader who likes power, knows how to use it, and wants to keep it...
...This we know: • He is a Communist...
...Gorbachev did not have this problem...
...Most important, he has repudiated the Brezhnev doctrine and has even been credited by some for the repudiation of Communism by the people of Poland, East Germany, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia...
...He could have repressed the demonstrations by implementing the Brezhnev doctrine...
...But what does he really believe...
...T he same is true of his foreign 1 policy...
...If his ultimate goal is to make life better for the Soviet people, we should help him...
...Gorbachev has received kudos for withdrawing the Red Army from Afghanistan...
...If so, how...
...in the five years of Gorbachev's rule, including three in which perestroika was in effect, the per capita income of the Russian people went down...
...He knew in advance how the elections would come out as far as any effect on his power was concerned...
...Or he could take credit for developments he could not contain...
...The euphoria of recent weeks aside, it is by no means a sure thing...
...Cuba, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Angola, and Nicaragua all required huge subsidies to avoid bankruptcy...
...First, his economic reforms will not work unless they are radically expanded...
...We should do no such favor for the Soviet Union...
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...We can help Gorbachev only if the Soviet Union becomes less repressive at home and less aggressive abroad...
Vol. 23 • March 1990 • No. 3
