Jun.e 9, 1980 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS 13777 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS INNOCENCE ABROAD-JIMMY in the Carter Administration, was not that MISCONCEPTION NO. 2: MILITARY SPENDING CAN CARTER'S FOUR MISCONCEP- he did not understand foreign affairs, but AND SHOULD BE REDUCED TIONS that he did not understand that he did not When Carter pledged in his 1976 cam­ understand. paign that "we can reduce present defense Jimmy Carter is by no means the solitary expenditures by about $5 billion to $7 bil­ HON. ROBERT J. LAGOMARSINO author of the present weakened state of lion annually," he was merely registering OF CALIFORNIA U.S. foreign policy. Toward the end of the the Democratic Party's post-Vietnam con­ IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Vietnam war and in the years that followed, sensus of "reordering priorities." That con­ Democratic Congresses began slashing away sensus, in turn, reflected the loathing of all Monday, June 9, 1980 at the defense budget. Republic Presidents things military that grew out of Vietnam. e Mr. LAGOMARSINO. Mr. Speaker, timidly accepted this. Nevertheless, our in­ By deed, though not by word, Carter soon an article in the most recent issue of creasing vulnerability derives very substan­ began to accept the argument of many ad­ tially from the steady reinforcement of four visers that a nation's arsenal could become Reader's Digest by Rowland Evans basic misconceptions that Carter carried too great for its own good. and Robert Novak describes four sig­ into office with him: Although a cutback of $5 to $7 billion a nificant misconceptions perpetuated MISCONCEPTION NO. 1: THE COLD WAR IS OVER y~ar in " present" defense spending was pat­ by the Carter administration in for­ ently impossible, Carter moved in that di­ eign policy. The pronouncement was made four rection. On June 30, 1977, he announced· op­ The four misconceptions are that: months after the inauguration in Carter's position to the new B-1 bomber. On April 3, commencement address at Notre Dame Uni­ 1978, he deferred production of the neutron First, the cold war is over; second, versity: "Confident of our own future, we military spending can and should be warhead. On August 17, 1978, he vetoed are now free of that inordinate fear of com­ Congressional authorization of a nuclear reduced; third, human rights must be munism, which once led us to embrace any aircraft carrier. In 1979, he delayed produc­ the cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy; dictator who joined us in our fear." tion on the cruise-missile, the Trident-sub­ and fourth, there is no need for covert In giving voice to this innocence he was marine and the SSN-688 attack-submarine intelligence activity. merely endorsing the then popular senti­ programs. The Trident II missile system was I call to the attention of my col­ ment that ideological conflict between postponed. leagues this article and urge that they democratic America and totalitarian Russia In his first three years in the White not be misled into the same trap of be­ was no longer relevant. That view prevailed House, he cut $38 billion from spending lieving that the four misconceptions among such foreign-policy advisers as Secre­ called for by President Gerald Ford's last tary of State Cyrus Vance, chief disarma­ five-year defense program. Naval shipbuild­ are valid. ment negotiator Paul Warnke and Marshall ing languished. Development was delayed of The article follows: Shulman, Vance's resident Soviet expert. a mobile-basing system for the MX missile INNOCENCE ABROAD-JIMMY CARTER'S FOUR The only dissenter within the Administra­ to protect the U.S. land-based deterrent MISCONCEPTIONS tion was National Security Adviser Zbigniew from the dramatically improved accuracy of <By Rowland Evans and Robert Novak) Brzezinski, who harbored no illusions about the big Soviet missiles. Aircraft production On January 12, 1977, eight days before his the Cold War being ended. But he was sur­ did not even cover attrition. Morale declined inauguration as President, Jimmy Carter rounded by adversaries, and he lacked both as pay for experienced technicians and offi­ was briefed by Washington's leading mili­ bureaucratic skill and Oval Office backing. cers lagged well behind inflation. tary and national-security experts. Carter Brzezinski did not even control the critical All of this overlooked two hard facts of asked if studies had been made on how a function of naming his own National Secu­ life: first, that ever since Russia's humili­ major reduction of long-range missiles rity Council staff. ation in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the would affect the U.S.-Soviet military bal­ Meanwhile, Carter was developing a pecu­ Soviet Union had been carrying on the ance. liar empathy for Soviet President Leonid greatest peacetime arms buildup in the his­ Gen. George Brown, chairman of the Brezhnev. He seemed to view Brezhnev as a tory of man; second, that U.S. military Joint Chiefs of Staff, quickly responded, fellow politician harassed by pressure might had suffered by financing the Viet­ "Oh, yes, Governor." He referred to studies groups, rather than as the master of Russia nam war through the deferral of vital weap­ that analyzed a reduction of long-range mis­ who · had sent his legions rolling into ons modernization. siles from the proposed SALT II level of Czechoslovakia a decade earlier. Not until defense-oriented Senators tied about 2,400 to perhaps 2,000 or so. This was Nor was he prepared to dwell on Soviet their support for ratification of Salt II to considered a radical cutback. "I'm not talk­ violations of detente. When a military junta higher defense spending did Carter change ing about 2,000, General," Carter replied in seized power in Afghanistan in April 1978, his public tune-a change now dramatically his soft Georgia accent. "I'm talking about one of the President's national-security accelerated by the Afghanistan invasion. 200 or 300." aides handed a reporter highly confidential Even so, Carter's new proposals cannot pos­ Silence followed. Finally Harold Brown, information about close ties between the sibly catch up with original military plans Carter's incoming Secretary of Defense, Soviet Union and the leaders of the junta. It until 1985 at the earliest and, given Soviet pointed out that such an immense reduction proved that rivers of blood had flowed in weapons progress, even then we will fall far in America's strategic arsenal would pose a their seizure of power. The reporter's ques­ short of attaining parity with the Russians. fundamental risk to the nation's security, tion was obvious: "Why doesn't the State Moreover, danger persists that the mixture all but destroying the U.S. nuclear "shield." Department publicly reveal these facts?" of rising inflation and rising pressure to bal­ It would also expose Europe to the Soviet "Because," the bureaucrat replied with ance the 1981 budget will reverse Carter's Union's vast superiority in conventional bitter sarcasm, "it is afraid the Soviets pledge to increase defense spending, despite arms. might not accept our next concession." all the bold talk. Carter's pre-inaugural interest in radically Those "concessions" were being made in MISCONCEPTION NO. 3: HUMAN RIGHTS MUST BE reducing the U.S. arsenal set a pattern that the SALT negotiations. Nobody pretended THE CORNERSTONE OF U.S. FOREIGN POLICY persisted until the Soviet military takeover that this was an equitable step toward arms Carter made clear from the start that his of Afghanistan last December. It was born control, but key Carter aides insisted that crusade for human rights was directed not of a peculiar innocence, coupled with genu­ the "process" must be maintained. "I would just at the Soviet Union but against "any ine self-confidence. His experience as a like to say to you," Carter told a joint ses­ dictator who joined us" in our "inordinate junior Naval officer, Carter felt, established sion of Congress on June 18, 1979, following fear of communism." That inevitably led his military expertise; in the two years after the signing of SALT II, "that President him into a policy of maximum U.S. pressure his single term as governor of Georgia, his Brezhnev and I developed a better sellSe of against friendly tyrants. At the same time, membership on the newly formed Trilateral each other as leaders and as men . I be­ Soviet experts in the State Department Commission convinced him that his agile lieve that together we laid a foundation on gradually subdued Carter's human-rights mind had mastered the great game of diplo­ which we can build a more stable relation­ pressure against Moscow, for the sake of de­ macy. ship between our two countries." tente. Others were not so sure. The trouble with The Soviet sweep into Afghanistan was The damage to long-standing U.S. rela­ Carter, Henry Kissinger told a friend early only six months away. tionships came quickly. Brazil canceled a 25- e This "bullet" symbol identifies statements or insertions which are not spoken by the Member on the floor. 13778 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS June 9, 1980 year-old military assistance treaty with the policies had been wrong and now appear Disclosure can also be good for your firm. United States. American relations with Ar­ rejected? Take the topic of pay, which is not public gentina and Chile deteriorated. And, finally, can a rational person explain, information in most firms. There are many The peak of human-rights zealotry came much less excuse, the incompetence demon­ reasons given for keeping salaries secret in­ last year in Nicaragua and Iran. The result strated when Carter disavowed the recorded cluding the risk of dissatisfaction, hard feel­ in Nicaragua is a pro-Marxist regime that U.S.