Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan 49242 March 1988 Volume 17, No. 3

world: South Africa. And they seem to sug­ "Can Democracy Defend Itself?" gest, moreover, that if only we were to treat the USSR, Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, By Arnaud de Borchgrave Angola and Ethiopia with a little respect, these countries would start behaving the way democracies behave. The members of Editor's Preview: In this issue, Arnaud de the liberal community also choose not to Borchgrave, one of the world's most recognize that the international peace intrepid and well-known journalists, asks, movement is used as a mere ploy in the "Can democracy defend itself?" low-intensity, low-risk warfare practiced by This presentation was originally our adversaries. In recent days with the delivered during the August 1987 Shavano Central American peace treaty proposals, Institute for National Leadership's seminar, this reality has been pointedly ignored. "Can Democracy Preserve Our Freedom? I have covered 17 wars as a journalist Constitutional Government and the Politics and I fought in World War II for four years of Self Interest" before an audience of 300 in the British Royal Navy. My first trip to business, government, media and com­ the Soviet Union was while on convoy duty munity leaders from around the country when I was 16 years old. Since then, I have at the historic Henry Ford Museum in been a peace activist, but not in the con­ Dearborn. ventional sense, for I happen to be what used to be called a "hawk." Why? Because ouglas Edwards, the senior anchor­ the lesson of the past is that world peace man at CBS, has called censorship was never more secure than when the crossed my mind that a journalist was sup­ United States was most powerful. Now, Done of the greatest threats to posed to make history. And that, sadly, is obviously, the Soviet leadership does not democracy, but in his various pro­ what the profession is intent upon. jour­ nouncements on this subject, he fails to want war. Their goal is, quite simply, vic­ nalists today are no longer spectators; they tory without war. Years ago, the Kremlin mention the most pernicious form of cen­ have become players in national politics sorship practiced by the media: censorship hit upon the brilliant strategy of using the and international relations, the game of slogan "peace" as if it were a weapon of by omission. Stories of vital concern to nations. And how they report events has national and international security are war. What the Soviets counted upon was a very important impact on the course of the West's gullible acceptance of the peace sometimes deliberately suppressed, ignored world affairs. Characteristically, however, or buried on the inside pages of movement as a genuine impetus for reform. journalists are unwilling to admit how Current negotiations could lead to the newspapers, for example, because they much influence they wield, displaying such might change perceptions in a way that denuclearization of Western Europe we are reluctance that their attitude is reminiscent told. But we keep forgetting that it is not the self-appointed opinion molders of the of Niccolo Machiavelli in the old tale which dominant media culture would disapprove nuclear weapons that killed two million says that on his deathbed his confessor Cambodians or one million Afghans, or of. This is not an unsubstantiated charge; pleaded with him to at long last renounce there are many well-known instances turned one-third of Afghanistan's popula­ the devil. According to the story, the Italian tion into refugees, or killed 12 million which are a matter of public record, and, philosopher leaned forward and with his of course, many which remain inside people in the 145 major conflicts since the last breath said, ''Please, Father, this is no end of World War II. Some civil wars in stories in the field of journalism. I can time to be making enemies.'' recite them from memory for at least an Africa since then have killed as many as hour. The Peace Ploy 250,000 people in a few days. A When I first joined this profession, right denuclearized Europe, in my judgment, after World War II, I thought that if I were o listen to them, you would think would make war once again thinkable and successful I might, with luck, get a ringside that today's liberals believe there leave the Soviet Union as the world's para­ seat to history in the making. It never Tis only one truly evil system in the mount military power. It is only the nuclear deterrent that has given Europe the longest featured a cover story on what we con­ invariably cast in the role of the villain on period of peace that it has known in its sider to be the book of the year. Simon the wrong side of history. America, history - 42 consecutive years. and Schuster, the publisher, originally according to them , is the imperialist, the estimated that this book might sell five or racist, the exploiter, the warmonger, and The Media and ''The Closing of the six thousand copies, but it topped the on it goes. American Mind'' bestseller list for months. The book is Openness as it was inculcated in this University of Chicago Professor Allan country in the '60s and '70s became he sum total of all the knowledge Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind. synonymous with ''doing your own accumulated throughout recorded His provocative thesis is that in the name thing.'' Students were encouraged to Thistory is now doubling every 10 of openness, American minds have actually repudiate everything that did not jibe with years or less. Yet extraordinarily few people become closed. Millions of readers want to their own interests while at the same time seem to understand that one of the most significant events of our era is the often­ successful seizure of popular cultural ''Years ago, the Kremlin hit upon the brilliant institutions- the press, radio, television, strategy of using the slogan ''peace'' as if it were a the theater and the film industry - by the Left. The battle is by no means decided, weapon of war.'' but its outcome will determine whether we succumb once and for all to the "totalitarian temptation ," in the words of know how and why this happened. Bloom remaining ''value-free.'' This is the genera­ French journalist Jean-Francois Revel, or suggests some serious answers, and one tion that is teaching, making movies, run­ whether we will continue to expand the of them is the reason for my own continu­ ning TV news programs, editing frontiers of freedom and live as free people. ing involvement in journalism. Our great newspapers and magazines. And these are Sidney Hook's latest book, Out of Step: open society tolerates an incredible the people who believe that they liberated An Unquiet Life in the 20th Century, "Johnny-one-note" quality in its media. the blacks, and women and the poor documents how intellectuals have con­ Although there are 25,000 media outlets misunderstood Soviet Union. To lecture on sistently taken the line of least resistance in this country including 1, 700 daily the need for discipline; on the restraints in this century. All the totalitarian regimes newspapers, 4,000 television stations and liberty must impose on itself; on the need which have been led in my own lifetime approximately 10,000 radio stations, these to defend democracy, with blood if by the likes of Lenin , Stalin , Hitler, Mao are rarely in competition when it comes necessary, against communist-sponsored Tse Tung and Pol Pot were to a very large to differing viewpoints and they seem to wars of "national liberation"; to talk about extent intellectual constructions designed, exhibit an extraordinary lack of balance in family and country ; all this is still con­ shaped and served by intellectuals. And the their reportage. In any Western European demned as right-wing and reactionary. capital one will find many contending dominant liberal media community to Our Weakening which I have belonged for 41 years often newspapers, for example: nine in Paris, blindly follows the pilot fish of the eleven in London, four or five in Brussels Foreign Policy Resolve academic community. and so on. All espouse different views. And A few months ago, Insight, the weekly yet our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., iding and abetting these new and magazine which I serve as Editor-in-Chief, the center of the free world, was for some questionable leaders of our society time a one-newspaper town until The Aare the old devices of semantic Washington Times was established (and this infiltration and historical revisionism . About the Author was possible only with foreign backing). According to the latter, we drove the As Newsweek 's chief foreign Openness, as Professor Bloom points National Liberation Front of South Vietnam correspondent and a senior editor for out, is no longer considered to be the into Hanoi's arms, just as we drove Castro 25 of his years there, Arnaud de means to exploring different answers to the into Moscow 's and Ortega into Cuba's. This Borchgrave covered most of the world's great questions of our time but is, rather, is an intentional distortion of events, but major news events from 1950-1980. The an excuse not to answer them at all. We who can find an influential challenge to recipient of numerous journalism face this same problem particularly in the it in the media or the university? Such awards, in 1980 he turned to fiction , media. On American campuses, a new myths paralyze the intellect just as effec­ co -au tho ring two international generation of teachers, many of them tively as nerve gas, making it all too easy bestsellers with Robert Moss: The Spike, former anti-Vietnam war activists with of to sell out the Contra resistance in course, academic tenure, do not seem' to Nicaragua or to leak the nation's most sen­ on the KGB and the western media ' and , Monimbo, a novel about Cuban- believe that the old books have anything sitive secrets, or to trash the CIA , or to give sponsored terrorism. Mr. de Borchgrave to teach other than the values of the our adversaries the ''benefit of the doubt'' is a director of the Georgetown Univer­ individual writers. They have worn their for the umpteenth time. These actions are sity Center for Strategic and Interna­ cynicism and their pseudo-moralistic just as popular today as they were ten, tional Studies and an adjunct fellow at liberalism on their sleeves ever since they twenty, or thirty years ago. American University as well as the were youths, and they never tire of con­ The men in the Kremlin, who consider editor-in-chief of Insight Magazine and juring up the illusion that the world is a themselves to be in a permanent state of the Washington Times. gigantic stage for some sort of morality war with Western democracies ' recognize , melodrama in which the United States is as they always have, that their principal

2 strategic objective is the seizure of our sibility of President Reagan was, however, .growing surge of neutralism in Europe, a cultural institutions. The Art of War, a little to thwart the Soviet-Cuban enterprise in rekindling of isolationism in the United book written 25 centuries ago by the Central America. It was Congress that drove States and our imminent descent upon Chinese philosopher of war, Sun Tsu , noted the administration underground. As long denuclearization in Europe are all extremely that the supreme goal in warfare is not to as he was prevented from openly supply­ dangerous developments. win 100 victories on 100 different ing the Nicaraguan freedom fighters, any The Iran-Contra hearings were only the battlefields, but to subdue the armies of president, in my judgment, would have most recent attack on the democratic one's enemies without ever having to fight been derelict had he not gone the extra process with a daily unveiling of the most them . In Central America some of our key mile, stretching the law to its limits, to head sensitive information involving activities congressmen who have invoked human off what could still be a major geopolitical in which the U.S. had engaged. Often , the rights considerations as a pretext for retreat debacle for the United States in Central information was divulged without regard and surrender are playing a role written , to the welfare of those who participated directed and produced by the Soviet Union or offered aid in covert operations. as surely as if they were given the script The Arias Plan for peace in Central to follow. And today we have video America is another classic case of how vital superstars whose loyalty is beyond ques­ national security interests have become tion , but whose collective geopolitical I.Q. subordinate to partisan domestic politics. probably wouldn't break 100 , busily The House of Representatives ' irresponsi­ stampeding public opinion into a very ble foray into the forbidden terrain of dangerous policy of appeasement and America. And what do these Boland treaty-making portends a constitutional accommodation. By ditching the amendments really say? Well, the bottom crisis of major proportions. The War Powers democratic resistance in Nicaragua and giv­ line was that, from here on out, fighting Act of 1973, like the Neutrality Act of the ing the Sandinistas the breathing spell they the Sandinistas is prohibited by Congress. 1930s and a spate of congressional amend­ need to consolidate another Cuba in our The Boland amendments, like several key ments over the last 12 years, have also own backyard, we are undeniably courting amendments since 1975, reinforced, seriously undermined America's role as the disaster and dealing a serious blow to our wittingly or unwittingly, the Brezhnev world's principal countervailing democratic democracy's ability to defend itself. Doctrine that once a country goes com­ power. In Congress, in the name of prevent­ The recently concluded Iran-Contra munist, there is no turning back. Anti­ ing future Vietnams, our politicians have hearings produced 250 hours of testimony communism is not only a crime punishable enacted one resolution after another from 29 witnesses, a quarter-of-a-million in the USSR, but now apparently in designed to erode the executive's authority pages of documents, 1,059 pages of official America as well. However, it is no crime in the exercise of its primary responsibility, exhibits, many of them dealing with some to raise money for the Sandinistas; in fact, which is national and international of our most sensitive secrets, and yet most such fund-raising goes largely unreported security. Congress has made it increasingly of our distinguished congressmen , with in our media, and it is no crime to difficult, if not impossible, to conduct very few exceptions, still do not seem volunteer one's services for the Marxist foreign policy in anything but a defensive capable of coming to grips with the forces in Nicaragua at the invitation of the and reactive manner. Specifically, Congress fundamental issue. The clear purpose of ruling government. has voted down arms sales to foreign the Boland amendments was to scuttle the If the United States cannot prevail, we countries; proposed and, indeed, imposed democratic resistance in Nicaragua and will be handing the Soviet Union its prin­ arms-control negotiating positions which betray yet another set of pro-American, cipal strategic objective on a silver platter. automatically weaken the administration's anti-communist friends. The clear respon- The decoupling of the Western alliance, the bargaining leverage; tied strings to foreign ,------1 0 Enclosed is my tax-deductible contribution to help Hillsdale College continue to provide seminars, I IMPRIMIS, and other publications to an international audience and to help Hillsdale maintain its independent stand in the field of liberal arts education , free of government funds.

D Please begin a free subscription to IMPRIMIS for the name(s) enclosed. 0 Please send me information about: IMPRIMIS REPRINT PRICES 0 Center for Constructive Alternative seminars (postpaid): 0 Shavano Institute for National Leadership seminars 0 Family Business Institute Programs _l-10 copies S .75 each 0 Hillsdale College Press (catalog and price list) _ 25 copies $10.00 0 Admissions Procedures 0 Pooled Income and Planned Giving Program _ 50 copies $15.00 0 Enclosed is my check (payable to Hillsdale College) for : _100 copies S30.00 IMPRIMIS reprints Vol. __ No.__ Author ______PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO ENCLOSE THIS ORDER FORM. (Indicate any address changes next to your mailing label on the reverse side of the order form.) 3 -Please enclose order form inside envelope provided- aid; curtailed and then sharply circum­ quick fixes at summit meetings can alter, when Jimmy Carter "buzzed" him on both scribed covert intelligence operations; and evade or attenuate the harsh political cheeks.) Upon this occasion , I didn't have so on and so on, gradually emasculating realities of our world. As Zbigniew to wait a whole year to find out what was presidential authority in a flagrant fashion Brzezinski remarked recently, if America going on, because six months later I which the founding fathers surely never were truly feared, not a single warship interrupted my Christmas vacation to cover intended. would have been necessary in the Persian the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Constitution of the United States Gulf; an American flag alone would have When we begin to equate the motives provides for a strong executive, coupled sufficed. Our capacity for effective deter­ and objectives of the Soviet Union with with a strong system of accountability. But rence has certainly been badly eroded. those of the United States and even our 535 lawmakers, all with their hands There is a great deal of talk about describe, as some of our media pundits do, on the foreign policy steering wheel, and glasnost, but although reforms may be American intentions as more threatening a sprawling congressional bureaucracy of under way in the Soviet bloc, this is no than Soviet intentions, we are in serious some 19,000 staffers, lobbyists, and assorted substitute for a strong foreign policy trouble. And when we begin to confuse the hangers-on, and whose perceptions are still posture on the part of the U.S. I remember external principles of the American Revolu- largely derived from the dominant liberal media culture, are engaged in the kind of parliamentary games that brought France's ''Current negotiations could lead to the Fourth Republic to its knees. denuclearization of Western Europe we are told. Meanwhile, the liberals are competing among themselves in order to lengthen the But we keep forgetting that it is not nuclear list of countries from which they feel we should withdraw. (Witness the reaction in weapons that killed two million Cambodians or Congress over the reflagging of ships in the one million Afghans . '' Persian Gulf.) Democracy's Vulnerability feeling very enthusiastic as a young jour­ tion with those of a Marxist-Leninst dic­ opular mythology is also contribut­ nalist about the spirit of Geneva - not tatorship, the trouble worsens. Are most ing to a foreign policy gridlock. The in 1985, but 30 years before, in 1955 . My Americans still willing to fight and die to Pliberal article of faith now seems to ardor was quickly dampened because a year preserve our freedoms? Right now, our own be that the principal foreign policy objec­ later I found myself in Hungary covering Congress is reluctant to put up a few tives for our country are avoiding another the Soviet invasion. In 1967, I covered the million dollars for people who are willing Vietnam and negotiating an arms control meetings between Prime Minister Kosygin to fight and to die for principles that I think agreement with the Soviets. Well , nothing and President Johnson, but a year later I we should all share and cherish. We, like is easier than arms control agreements. found myself interrupting my honeymoon those freedom fighters , have been offered They can be had, as Henry Kissinger to cover the Soviet invasion of instead appeasement, accommodation and reported when he came back from Moscow Czechoslovakia. In 1979 I covered the sign­ surrender on the installment plan . a few months ago, for the asking. But these ing of Salt II in Vienna. Some of you may Inevitably, this is the fate that awaits agreements are absolutely meaningless. No remember watching it on television. (Even democracies that take the line of least amount of pious pleas for arms control and Mr. Brezhnev seemed a little taken aback resistance. n

Editor, Joseph s. McNamara, Managing Editor, Lissa Roche, Assistant, Patricia A. DuBois. The opinions IMPRIMIS (im!pri-mes), taking its name from the Latin term for expressed in IMPRIMIS may be, but are not necessarily, the views of Hillsdale College and its External Affairs " in the first place,'' is the publication of Hillsdale College's Center division. Copyright © 1987. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided a version it for Constructive Alternatives and the Shavano Institute for Na­ of the following credit line is used: " Reprinted by permission from IMPRIMIS, the monthly journal of Hillsdale tional Leadership. Circulation 137,000 worldwide, established College, featuring presentations at Hillsdale's Center for Constructive Alternatives and at its Shavano Institute 1972. Complimentary subscriptions available. • for National Leadership." ISSN 0277-8432.

BULK RATE U.S. POSTAGE IMPRIMIS PAID VOLUME 17 • NUMBER 3 PERMIT NO. 87 Ann Arbor, Ml 48103 RETURN POSTAGE GUARANTEED POSTMASTER: Send address changes to IMPRIMIS, Hillsdale College Hillsdale, Michigan 49242