Washington Report: Down in Flames

...Although the United States would prefer that democratic governments persist in the Western European nations, he said, he believed that Communist party election victories in that region might ultimately create more problems for the Soviet bloc than for the Atlantic alliance...

...After Greece won independence in 1830 a king was imported from Bavaria, since there was no one political leader, and the Church assumed many civic functions, particularly those relating to family matters such as marriage and divorce...

...After the split between Constantinople and Rome in 1054 the Greek Patriarch ruled in the Byzantine Empire as first among equals in the Orthodox hierarchy...

...It's like burning down the house every time you want roast pig---or lamb, as the case may be...

...Granted the soundness of the theory behind that, building the B-1 is still an awfully cumbersome way to give congressmen and -women handouts to hand out to their constituents...

...Church and state grew up together, at least in part, because of the 400 years of Turkish occupation...

...Stalinism--as a conception of the state, the dictatorship of one group----is still very much alive in the Soviet Union...

...The shovel has been hung back up on the Treasury wall and there'll be slim pickings at the military chuck wagon in the long cold winter ahead...

...Anyhow the working theory behind Commonweal: 485 that distribution was, of course, the corralling of the Congress: would you vote against new jobs in your district...

...It's a safe bet they won't do that again...

...What the hell...

...FRANK GETLEIN 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 CHURCH-STATE IN GREECE CHSHNO VH 'S WV The Greek Parliament might soon enact a divorce bill which could cause deep fissures between the government and the Orthodox Church...

...At that point, the unemployed lobbyists get back in the picture, shoveling out $20 bills from B-52s flying regular routes across the country, each bill tied to a label: You can thank your senator or congressman for this, you lucky stiff...

...Even as recently as the period following the German occupation in World War II the archbishop served as regent for a year...

...Archbishop Makarios in Cyprus serves as a 'living holdover from that traditionmas the patriarch of the Cypriot Church he was the natural selection as the new nation's first president in 1960...

...Eventually, Members of Congress are going to choose, most of them at least, the obvious, easy and practical way to get the money into the hands of their constituents, namely put it in those hands...

...I never expected to see in my lifetime an American President say No to the military on anything more important than a duck-hunting trip at the expense of the arms merchants...

...Emotionally involved as we must inevitably be, common sense demands that in this matter the United States maintain a calm distance and a low profile...

...COMING: Margo Hammond writes from Rome on the possibilities of revising the Concordat of 1929 between the Vatican and Italy...

...On the other hand, the congressman will be entirely free to make a loan or gift to his brotherin-law's dry cleaning business if that seems to him the most sensible and equitable way to increase jobs and spending power in the district...

...Why don't we wait until they invade us because we didn't build the B-1 before we worry too much about what they'll do if we don't build the ZIP-14...

...Granted the Joint Chiefs will take their measures to avoid similar disasters in the future, what should the rest of us do to avoid being anymore the victims of the Joint Chiefs than is absolutely inescapable...

...Everybody's doing it...

...Yet here was the alltime centerpiece of government military handouts scrapped with a single word at a brief press conference: Nope, we're not gonna make the B-1...

...That realization is what distinguishes Jimmy Carter from Henry I~ssinger, thank God...

...It's not supposed to work that way at all...

...Unthinkable...

...And these are merely outward manifestations of the tradition of unity-- religious customs thread their way through the pattern of everyday life...

...Magical miracles of weaponry are going to happen one at a time from here on and don't you forget it...

...Supporters of the bill, some of whom are government ministers talking about their own marital status, say the current situation leads to social prob5 Augu~ 1977:486...

...it never occurred to them that, given a choice, the normal purchaser of anything tends toward the cheaper...

...All the same, admit it or not, he proved that Americans can lose a war and in so doing set us all free from the compulsion to keep on fighting, anywhere, any time, all the time, because we can lick any man in the house...

...Once we grant that we can lose a war, we don't have to keep running down the street, tire irons in hand, whenever we hear the thunk of fist on jaw...

...The reaction by these parties is therefore significant...

...So divisions caused by the divorce bill strike at deeply rooted elements of Greek society...

...Costs too much and we don't need it...

...How could that have happened...

...We should remember that if Mr...

...No one knows, of course, whether the Communist parties of Western Europe would in fact live up to their present democratic pledges once they were in powermmore particularly, once it looked as if they might lose that power...

...The Chiefs did their number with the B-l, but Carter didn't have his lines down, blew them completely and ended up talking common sense...

...Actually, of course, nothing could be more appropriate, since we are fighting a war of the fifties, the one in which we scared ourselves silly with our own shadows...

...A real possibility exists that a further break-up in the once monolithic Communist structure is imminent, and this is too hopeful an opportunity for any rash interference on our part to be allowed to imperil it...

...The other reason for Carter's curious bout of common sense in arms spending is more interesting, fraught with hope for all of us save those of us who are major generals hoping for the second yardman, the weekend bartender...

...Personally I prefer 49 and am dying to find out which state the big buck boys thought they could safely ignore...

...Traditionally church and state have been virtually inseparable and many Greeks believe that Orthodoxy and Hellenism are one...

...If they'd had a brain in their heads, they'd have brought in the B-1 first and only after the fleet was built, the overruns met, the duck-hunting trips taken and reprimanded, the assistant secretaries for procurement moved back into the companies they gave the big bucks to, only then have announced the Cruise...

...What can have happened...

...Simply that of an outside observer man interested observer, of course, but no more than that...

...Brushing aside the Soviet attack, Spanish party leader Carrillo compared it to "excommunication by the Holy Office...

...There remains the problem, and there's no use pretending it's easy, of what to do with the hundreds of potentially unemployed, perhaps otherwise unemployable, Pentagon lobbyists who traditionally spend their days prowling the halls of Congress signing up members and important aides for free trips in those flying saloons the Air Force keeps for that purpose...

...Questioned about Soviet motives, he said: "I think it is due to the fact that Stalinism is still very much alive...

...Brezhnev views President Carter's stress on human rights as antiSoviet psychological warfare, as he obviously does, the rise of Eurocommunism will seem even more of a threat to the continuance of the Soviet system...

...Poor old Herman...

...When the Turks captured Constantinople in 1453 the patriarch became "ethnarch," the political as well as religious leader of the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire...

...Religion is taught in public schools, priests are civil servants paid out of taxes, the archbishop administers oaths of political office and the President presides at every major religious feast...

...They can't all become travel agents without making the country even more footloose than it is now, which is plenty...

...As for Spanish Communist leader Santiago Carrillo, the New Times said he "has lately spoken of our country and our party in terms that even the most reactionary writers do not often venture to use...

...Similar statements appeared in Italy and France, while the already independent Yugoslav party said that attacks on the Communist parties in Western Europe were inspired by "Stalinist conceptions...

...With flight pay, of course...

...It is easy to see his reasoning...

...In addition to its many military virtues, that plane's program was so exquisitely orchestrated, as we say in Congressional lobbies, that bits and pieces of it were scheduled to be built in either 47 or 49 states, depending on your source...

...Naturally, the member will be free to give the money to any military supplier in the neighborhood and at first, no doubt, many will do that simply from habit...

...It just doesn't have the old-time wallop to ask, Do you want to be the sixth American President to lose a war...

...Thus Moscow signaled what seems destined to be a major new campaign to tighten ideological controls and compel total subservience by the Western parties...

...It was against this background that Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance recently discussed the question of possible Communist electoral advances in Western Europe...

...Civilization lies straight ahead if we can just keep creeping...

...They'd been spoiled rotten and clearly expected to keep on being spoiled...

...What happens is that very soon after the inauguration of any American President, the Joint Chiefs of Staff show up at the Oval Office and do their number: I visualize it as an off-to-Buffalo entrance, the Chiefs handling their swagger sticks like bamboo canes, rolling their eyes, coming dramatically to a halt and chanting, "Do you want to be the first American President to lose a war...

...The thought obviously was that they could have anything, all they had to do was name it...

...The USSR cannot like the idea of a whole series of new Titos across the face of Europe, independent of Soviet control...

...Since in this society that almost always means the woman, there are hundreds of cases of women refusing to give their husbands divorces because they fear the economic consequences...

...That's supposed to hypnotize the occupant of the office who is then supposed to cry, "Yowsah, yowsah, how much do you want, will you take a check or does it have to be cash, I've got the wheelbarrow right here and the Treasury's next door, pick up the shovel and let's get at it...

...The Pardoner was first into print bemoaning the loss 5 August 1977:484 of all those megabucks for his friends and golfing companions in the death-merchant game and a curious bemoan it was: Carter, said Ford, was going to arm for war in the eighties, nineties and beyond with the weapons of the fifties, namely the B-52...

...In this growing controversy between the USSR and the Western Communist parties, what should be the role of the United States...

...The new law would make it possible for couples who have been separated for six years or more to obtain a divorce no matter which partner seeks it...

...Even then it would not be an "automatic" divorce, as the Church claims, but each case would be decided individually and women and children in need of support would be protected...

...For two reasons, I think...

...Divorce and remarriage are permitted up to three times in the Greek Church, but the "wronged" party must request the dissolution of the marriage...

...For the first time since the arms race began in earnest, way back there with ole Dot: Teller, the really unthinkable thought has been not merely thought but spoken, acted upon...

...The Constitution of 1974, implemented after the overthrow of the military regime, guarantees freedom of religion and safeguards the self-government of the Orthodox Church but church and state remain firmly intertwined...

...Whenever the new Dec Teller or the new Herman Kahn arises to say, Wow, wow, wow, the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming, if you don't feed the kitty and I mean Big, baby, the rest of us can say, Well, Herman baby, it is now three years, five months, eighteen days and six and a half hours since the Russians were supposed to land on Stalen Island if we didn't build the B-1 and By George, they haven't made it out of the marge yet...

...No matter what he does, Carter cannot be the first American President to lose a war, at best only the sixth...

...For Spain and for other capitalist societies'with similar characteristics, the way called Eurocommunism offers the only valid alternative for the advance to socialism," said the official party reaction...

...Although 98 percent of the Greek populace adheres to Orthodoxy, the pressures of modem life are driving a wedge between the people and their spiritual leaders...

...When its ideological supremacy is threatened, the Soviet regime itself is bound to feel threatened--and rightly so...

...Soviet claims to legitimacy as far as the countries of Eastern Europe are concerned, and even at home, are dependent on its being the great Motherland of socialism and the ultimate fount of socialist truth for all other Communist parties and countries throughout the world...

...obviously it didn't work...

...It may be a small advance, but it is an advance...

...Not if you knew what was good for you...

...The obvious reason it didn't work is that it isn't true anymore...

...Well, the first thing we ought to do is set up a Commie-Watch at Ambrose Light, Nag's Head, the Golden Gate and places like that...

...That lost inhibition is the one genuine service to his country performed by Richard Nixon, who, typically, didn't even recognize it, didn't even admit it...

...WASHIHGTOH REPORT llll DOWN IN FLAMES You could have knocked me down with a ten-billiondollar cost-overrun...

...What we need instead is a recognized sliding scale, based on seniority, chairmanships held and the size of the state or district, each Member of Congress to receive annually the sum so arrived at as a personal discretionary fund...

...Where are they, those godless atheists, are they trying to confuse us by not landing, attacking and seizing the country as they were supposed to do if we didn't decide to bankrupt ourselves on the B-l...

...Why not...

...In the first place, the Air Force really was deep into hubris when they came up with two magical mystery weapons at the same time, the B-I and the Cruise missile, the latter cheap as these things go, the former a ceiling buster even without the overruns inescapable in military spending...

...A Frenchman, Italian or Spaniard under a Communist regime might be no more free than a Russian today...

...And in a defiant counterattack, the official statement of the Spanish Communist party flatly rejected the Soviet criticisms and pledged itself to continue its Eurocommunism line of independence...

...The stakes are high...

...What we ought to do is keep announcing that so many days, weeks, months, years, have gone by since Carter Killed the B-1 and still the Soviet fleet hasn't hoved into view...

...But there is no doubt that a series of nationalistic Communist schisms would be highly embarrassing and dangerous to the USSR...

...Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford all lost a war, the same war as it happens, the American War Against the Indochinese...

...One final aspect of the B-1 cries out for consideration...

...Fortunately, problems often bring their solutions with them and so it is here...

...Unquestionably, the Joint Chiefs did their number...

...The Commie-Watch can conceivably be the best thing to happen to the country since ole Doe Teller...