FEATURE 0c now as the S lage to th around the world. Sfound-breaking report issued some years ago by Z Wig okings Institution, (Blechman and Keplan: Force ut War: U.S. Armed Forces as a Political Instru- 2 hington, 1978), has detailed 215 occasions “yeu 1946 and 1976 in which the United States used, atened to use, military power in order to achieve 80als. At least 14 of these instances involved a ment, Was Politica} News Analysis ———— Fred Weir | Record shows U.S. went to _ the brink in each decade The nuclear arms buildup, which a White House ae leaked in August 1981 admitted was ‘‘in- : superi to enable the United States to regain nuclear Hority over the Soviet Union within this decade,”’ is well underway. Nations of the Third World, as well 5 th a Union and its allies have understood since ee e function of U.S. nuclear superiority is to ail and intimidate, to hold whole populations hos- € success of U.S. foreign policy objectives Pyongyang and other cities of the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea. Truman confided to his diary that he intended to put a ‘‘ten day ultimatum”’ to the leaders of the USSR. ‘‘Now, do you want an end to hostilities in Korea,’ wrote Truman, ‘‘or do you want China and Siberia destroyed?”’ t hreat to use nuclear weapons. hes ice the Brookings report was published, research ; Tought to light a number of similar examples, dicatin & that U.S. policymakers never regarded nu- Weapons as unthinkable weapons of mass destruc- Sti | ~~, but rather as useful tools of diplomacy. S 6e@ In 4H *om-bom 4 SUpport fo a8 not e Ini ets. Ic began t A brief list of U.S. nuclear threats: March, 1946 President Truman threatened to b the USSR unless the Soviets withdrew their a: Wh, t ‘‘Kurdish separatists” in northern Iran; by Yu en a U.S. reconnaissance plane was shot down 80slavia in November, 1946, Truman threatened _.. U80slavs with atomic reprisals if the captured crew 1, Instantly released. Yugoslavia complied; With ato ebruary, 1947, Truman sent seven B-29’s armed Meo Phas bombs to Uruguay in a show of force at the z.. , © mauguration of the president of that country; 9'¢ 948, during the Berlin Blockade, nuclear-armed Ae ‘were flown to bases in Germany and were several Sov; Sent aloft in order to send a clear signal to the ee) December, 1950, despite President Truman’s Msistence that the U.S. would never use nuclear a Pons in Korea, atomic bombs were deployed aboard Carriers in the Sea of Japan, and U.S. planes © make simulated nuclear bombing raids over ! TELLYOU ALL THEM RUSKIES UN isremRD SN WELL,THIS SHOULD MAKE THEIRHAIR STAND ONEND!! . } ; | tT Po tuck, United States | FUNNY, YOU DON'T LOOK RUSSIAN. iM e In May, 1953, President Eisenhower decided that Chinese movement at the bargaining table was too slow. He resolved to make the Chinese more co-operative by initiating air and naval operations ‘‘directly against China and Manchuria’’ including ‘‘extensive strategic and tactical use of atomic bombs’’. Later, according to the recently released minutes of a National Security Council meeting on December 3, 1953, ‘‘The President expressed with great emphasis the opinion that if the Chinese Communists attacked us again, we should cer- tainly respond by hitting them hard and wherever it would hurt most, including Peking itself. This, said the President, would mean all-out war against Communist China’’. e In the early 1950’s the U.S. Air Force prepared a plan for a pre-emptive strike that would turn the USSR into a “smoking, radiating ruin in two hours’’. During these years, U.S. strategic doctrine held that any exam- ple of Soviet ‘“‘misbehavior’’ around the world could be considered grounds for ‘‘massive retaliation’? by the U.S. against the Soviet homeland. e In 1954, President Eisenhower offered to extricate French forces from the trap of Dien Bien Phu by drop- ping atomic bombs on the surrounding Viet Minh armies. The French commander-in-chief, Henri Navarre, de- clined the offer out of fear that his own troops would be incinerated in the process. e In 1954 U.S. strategic bombers were flown to Nic- aragua as part of the background to the CIA operation that overthrew the elected Arbenz government of Guatemala. e When U.S. Marines invaded Lebanon in 1958, they brought with them nuclear-tipped ‘‘Honest John’’ mis- siles to signal U.S. ‘‘readiness and determination”’ to the Soviet Union. e In 1958, Eisenhower threatened China with nuclear holocaust over the Taiwan issue. e In 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy threatened nuclear war in order to coerce the Soviets into withdrawing their missiles from Cuba. e Several times between 1969 and 1972, Henry Kis- singer delivered nuclear threats to North Vietnamese leaders in an effort to force them to agree to U.S. terms. (Nixon has admitted in his memoirs, however, that the Newscaster: ‘‘A limited nuclear war was held today in Europe ..’”’ strength of the anti-war movement convinced him that he would not be able to muster enough public support to carry out these threats.) e In 1973, during the October War in the Middle East, President Nixon placed U.S. strategic forces on global red alert. e In 1980, President Carter threatened to use “‘any means necessary’, including nuclear weapons, in order to keep oil flowing through the Persian Gulf. There is also evidence that nuclear weapons were deployed to support the abortive Iran hostage rescue in 1980. This is by no means an exhaustive list. What it de- monstrates is that, in the past, whenever U.S. leaders wanted to intervene in the affairs of other nations, or prevent any change in the status quo, they invoked American nuclear superiority in order to facilitate their demands. ; However, the Brookings study found that the inci- — dence of U.S. nuclear blackmail “‘was more common in earlier years — when the U.S. strategic position vis-a-vis the Soviet Union was dominant — than more recently’’. In other words, as the USSR began to achieve nuclear parity in the early 1970’s, the number of nuclear threats declined and the world became a safer place. __ Now the Reagan drive for renewed nuclear superiority is aiming to change all that. There is ample evidence that Washington is attempting to construct a nuclear war- fighting capability — Star Wars linked to first-strike of- fensive systems — that can once again be employed coercively, in support of U.S. foreign policy objectives. As Reagan’s top arms adviser, Eugene Rostow, as- serted in 1982, ‘‘Our nuclear forces must provide a nu- clear guarantee for our interests in many parts of the world and make it possible for us to defend those in- terests by- diplomacy or by the use of theater military forces wherever such action becomes necessary”’. Under Reagan, America is “‘sitting tall in the saddle” _ again, and apparently hell-bent on nuclear annihilation. . ByMIk M E DAVIDOW < OsScow — The Soviet Union to the plan, he said, “We are not organic connection” with the Referring to the Soviet morato- rium on nuclear testing, Kornie- ‘Soviet Union ‘ready to go far’ at summit and seeks a situation where no nation will do so.” Nady to 80 far” at the second he Us ting, to take place in yatin ccording to Leonid f Interna}; ead of the Department Central Ceonal Information of the omm, -Ommittee of the Soviet Bape Party. Teade, tin, One of three Soviet a Press conference here eee Teferred to the plan for © ~ 2 Of all nuclear weapons Mikahit eS , proposed by lary of 4, Orbachev, general secre- OViet Un ommunist Party of the SES ©n. “So now it is up to Ve co, vot Just to study it, but to om Second summit cannot Rep, ution of the first.” te answers,” Zamyatin - “ng Washington’s reponse ; totally negative. We want to be very optimistic, but our optimism is opposed by a number of state- ments from White House offi- cials.” He noted that Weinberger said there was no change in the U.S. position on Star Wars and that a moratorium on nuclear test- ing is unacceptable. Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, chief of the general staff of Soviet Armed Forces observed that U.S. sources, including the International Herald Tribune (Jan. 13) agreed that “laser weapons could destroy cities?” as Georgy Kornienko, first deputy minister of foreign affairs, stated that Soviet stress on preventing militarization of space, is “not lin- kage but an expression of an danger of nuclear catastrophe. Zamayatin rejected attempts to compare Gorbachev’s comprehen- sive plan for disarmament with President Reagan’s “zero” option plan. Reagan’s plan, he pointed out, was vague and generalized. Gorbachev calls for stage-by-stage cutbacks of nuclear and chemical. weapons, leading to their complete elimination. Kornienko noted that Larry Speakes, White House press secre- tary, sneered that “SS-20s could be moved in again from the East.” He said, “We can raise that question also in respect to the U.S. Pershing 2 missiles. They could be moved quickly from the U.S. to Europe. You can find any pretext to refuse to negotiate.” kno said, “We extended it three months, though it was not easy in view of continued testing by the U.S. We decided to give it another chance because it is so important. However, we can’t extend it end- lessly.” Kornienko attributed the absence of a ban on chemical weapons to “lack of political will on the part of the U.S. and its allies.” He noted that in 1980, the U.S. broke off bilateral negotiations on banning chemical wepaons when the nego- tiations were proceeding with some success.” Marshal Akromeyev affirmed that the USSR has never deve- loped, tested or deployed chemical weapons, “is not going to do so Gorbachev's plan accepts inter- national on-site inspection of chemical and nuclear weapons. Kornienko said research cannot be discussed in the abstract. “It is legitimate to ask what kind of research. We do not say ban all basic research. Take lasers, there can be basic research for lasers in general. But research especially designed to develop laser weapons is another matter. “We are not pessimistic,” he added. “there have been good examples in U.S.-USSR relations, among them the adoption of a treaty prohibiting nuclear testing in most areas. We are for keeping trea’ ies irrespective of administra- tion. A PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 26, 1986 ¢ 5