. j SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT

brought the Russians to the talks in
Geneva and then to Reykjavik. A third
is that SDI alone will save America

great technological lead compared with
the Soviet Union and other countries,
and so on, and so forth.

Knowing the problem, I can say now
only one thing: the continuation of the
SDI programme will sweep the world
into a new stage of the arms race and
will destabilize the strategic situation.

The rest of what is being ascribed to
SDI is rather dubious in many respects

_and is being done in order to sell the
suspicious and dangerous commodity
in an attractive wrapping.

The president, in upholding his posi-
tion that thwarted the reaching of
agreement in Reykjavik, asks rhetoric-
al questions: why do the Russians so
stubbornly demand that America for
ever remain vulnerable to a Soviet mis-
sile strike? Why does the Soviet Union
insist that we remain defenceless for
ever?

I’m surprised by such questions, I
must say. They have the air of indicat-
ing that the American president has an
opportunity to make his country
invulnerable, to give it secure protec-
tion against a nuclear strike.

As long as there exist nuclear weap-

ons and the arms race is continuing, he.
does not have such an opportunity. The .

same, naturally, applies to ourselves.
If the president counts on SDI in this

respect, it is in vain. The system would.

be effective only if all missiles were
eliminated. But then, one might ask,
why the anti-missile defence al-
together? Why build it? I don’t mention
the money wasted, the cost of the sys-
tem — according to some estimates, it
} will run into several trillion dollars.

' So far, we have been trying to per-
Suade America to give up the dangerous
undertaking. We are urging the Ameri-
can administration to look for invulner-
ability and for protection along another
way — along the way of the total elim-
ination of nuclear weapons and estab-
lishment of a comprehensive system of
international security that would pre-

| clude any wars — nuclear and
| conventional.

The SDI programme remains so far
an integral part of the US military
doctrine.
| The now operating defence directive
_ for 1984-1988, produced at the Penta-
 gonat the beginning of Reagan’s term in

Office, directly provides for developing

Space-based systems, including means
| to destroy Soviet satellites, and boost-
| ing systems of the anti-missile defence
| of US territory with the possible US
| pull-out from the ABM Treaty.

_ That document emphasized that
military rivalry with the USSR should
| be channelled into new areas to make

‘Senseless all previous Soviet expen-
| ditures on defence and make all Soviet
| Weapons obsolete. Once again, as you
| See, is the hunt for the ghost, as former

sident Nixon put it, once again are.

| the calculations to wear out the Soviet
Union. It is hard for the current admin-
| ‘stration to learn lessons.

It is not the answer to the question
| Why its commitment to SDI is so stub-
born? The ‘*Star Wars” plans have be-
Come the chief obstacle to an agree-
Ment on averting the nuclear threat. It is
- 0 vain that Washington is now claiming
that we are moving towards an

agreement.

To eliminate nuclear weapons as a
Means of deterring American aggres-
_ Slon, and to get the threat from outer
Space in return — only politically naive
People can accept that. There are none
the Soviet leadership.

It is hard to r-concile oneself to the
loss of the unique chance — that of
Ving mankind from the nuclear

from the ‘‘Soviet threat’. A fourth is
that SDI will give the United States a

Below: The session at Reykjavik’s famed Hofdi
house. Despite American claims to the contrary,
Reagan brought nothing new or constructive to the
summit, and in fact prevented a historic nuclear arms

agreement by stubbornly refusing to give up any part of

SDI.

threat. Bearing precisely this in mind, I
told the press conference in Reykjavik

that we did not regard the dialogue as ,

closed and hoped that President
Reagan, on returning home, would
consult U.S. Congress and the Ameri-
can people and adopt decisions logical-
ly necessitated by what had been
achieved in Reykjavik.

Quite a different thing has happened.
Besides distorting the entire picture of
the Reykjavik negotiations — I will
speak about that later — they adopted
in recent days actions that look simply
wild in the normal human view after
such an important meeting bettween
the two countries’ top leaders.

I mean the expulsion of another
fifty-five Soviet embassy and consular
staff from the United States. We will
adopt measures in response, of course,
very tough measures on an equal foot-
ing, so to say. We are not going to put
up with such outrageous practices. But
now, I would like to say the following.

What .kind of government is that,
what can one expect from it in other
affairs in the international arena? To
what limits does the unpredictability of
its actions go?

It turns out that it has no constructive
proposals on key matters of disarma-
ment and that it does not even have a
desire to maintain the atmosphere
which is essential for a normal con-

tinuation of the dialogue. It appears that
Washington is not prepared for any of
these.

A conclusion suggests itself. It is
confirmed by a considerable experi-
ence which has already been gained by
now. Every time when a gleam of hope
appears in approaches to big matters of
Soviet-American relations and to a
settlement of issues involving the inter-
ests of the whole of mankind, a pro-
vocation is immediately staged with an
eye to frustrating the possibility of a
positive solution and to poisoning the
atmosphere.

Where is the true visage of the U.S.
administration? Is it for a search for
unravelment and solutions or does it
finally want to destroy everything that
may serve as a basis for headway and
deliberately to rule out any normalisa-
tion?

Coming into view is quite an unat-
tractive portrait of the administration of
the great country, an administration
which is quick in taking disruptive ac-
tions. Either the president is unable to
cope with the entourage which literally
breathes hatred for the Soviet Union
and for everything that may lead inter-
national affairs into a calm channel or
he himself wants that. At all events,
there is no keeping the ‘‘hawks”’ in the
White House in check. And this is very
dangerous.

As far as informing the Americans
about the Reykjavik meeting is con-

am fi

cerned, the following has taken place,
quite in the spirit of the above-men-
tioned: facts have been concealed from
them. They were told the half-truth
which I spoke of earlier. Matters were
portrayed so as to show that the United
States, acting from the position of
strength, almost wrested consent from
the Soviet Union to reach agreement on
US terms.

And the day is not far off when the
United States will ostensibly attain its
goal: it is essential, they say, not to
slacken the peace of military prepara-
tions, and to speed up the “*Star Wars”
programme, and to increase pressure in
all directions.

These days have witnessed a great
cause being drowned in petty politick-
ing, and the vital interests of the Ameri-
can people, allies, and international
security as a whole being sacrificed to
the arms manufacturers.

A good deal has been said about the
openness of American society, free-
com of information, the pluralism of
opinions, and that everyone can both
see and hear what he or she wants.

In Reykjavik, when pointing out the
difference between our two systems,
the president told me: *‘We recognise
the freedom of the press and the right to
listen to any point of view’’ I am quot-
ing his words. But how do things stand
in actual fact?

Here is the most fresh fact.

I have been told that our public
organisation, the Novosti Press Agen-
cy, has published in English the texts of
my press conference in Reykjavik and
my speeches on Soviet television and
sent them out to many countries, in-
cluding the United States.

Well, I can tell you that the pamphlet -
with these texts has been detained at
the US customs house for several days
now. It is being prevented from reach-
ing the American reader. That’s a nice
“right to hear any point of view’’.

Or take this example: when touching
upon humanitarian affairs I told the
president: take, for example, cinema-
tography. A great number of American
films are shown on the Soviet screen.
Soviet people have an opportunity
through them to get an idea of both the
way of life and the way of thinking of
Americans.

Whereas Soviet films are practically
not shown in “‘free America’’. The
president evaded an answer and, as
usual in such cases, pleaded free enter-
prise under which everyone does what-
ever one wants.

I also told him about the publication
of American books in this country and
of our books in the United States: the
ratio is approximately twenty to one.

I put the question of radio informa-
tion before the president as well. I said
“in this field, too, we are in an unequal

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 26, 1986 e S3