In a recent address in Washington, D.C., the world-famous journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave listed what he called the objectives of the current Soviet “peace” offensive: the acquisition of Western technology and resources, the scrapping or relaxation of the new COCOM (Coordinating Committee for Export to Communist Areas) restrictions on strategic trade, a cutback in deployment of Euromissiles, and the abandonment or postponement of Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative.
How could the Soviets possibly believe that all this is doable, since the West has been burned so often before with Soviet-style “peaceful coexistence” that turned out to be a trap? De Borchgrave said the Soviets believe they can rely on the biased media (whom he labels the “mediacrats”) to give prominent coverage to selected Western experts who will pooh-pooh Soviet strategic goals as “right-wing paranoia” while at the same time gushing over the new Kremlin rulers as though they were cut from a cloth different from Stalin/Khrushchev/Brezhnev.
Each time a new man moves into the top slots, the liberals go through a season of silliness. De Borchgrave shook his head over recent “euphoria generated by Gorbachev’s ability to handle a knife and fork and over the discovery that his wife didn’t look like a misbegotten frump.”
The liberals manifest a desperate desire to believe that the Kremlin bosses are no different from U.S. Senators and Fortune 500 CEOs. A couple of years ago, we were told that Yuri Andropov was a closet liberal, a fan of Jacqueline Susann’s “Valley of the Dolls,” a good tango dancer who loved Scotch highballs and was sympathetic to Russia’s dissidents.
In fact, Andropov was the official who devised the diabolical scheme of psychiatric wards for political dissidents. He gave up his command of the KGB in order to position himself to succeed Brezhnev (who died six months later).
France’s leading media voice, Jean-Francois Revel, wrote in his new book “How Democracies Perish,” “Detente was not a dream; it was a trap.” Yet, hope springs eternal in the breasts of the American liberals for an arms-control agreement that will “ease tensions” and “promote peaceful coexistence.”
De Borchgrave explained how this happens: “A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.”
The Soviet disinformation apparatus was working overtime before the 1984 election, apparently believing that the defeat of Ronald Reagan could be engineered by portraying him as a cold warrior unwilling to meet with the Russians, and thereby turning a cold shoulder on prospects for world peace. The American people have too much common sense to buy such nonsense.
Now that the urgency of the election is well behind us, the American people should face the reality of our internal and external problems which originate in the Kremlin. Webster warns that “we have more people charged with espionage right now than ever before in history,” and Attorney General William French Smith warns that “we have lost control of our own borders.”
On the other hand, the Soviets are faced with the spreading phenomena of anti-Communist liberation movements that cannot be quashed — in Nicaragua, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Cambodia, and Poland. The Soviets cannot feed themselves, solve their gargantuan economic problems, or conceal the economic failure of Communism.
Unlike knee-jerk critics in the West, the Soviets know that Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative is viable. Russian scientists have devoted intensive research to the application of laser and particle beam weapons for the last 15 years.
History is shaped by political and military leaders who boldly seize the high frontier — not by the timid who can’t make decisions until after they read the New York Times editorials and the Gallup and Harris polls. That’s why America rejected Jimmy Carter and chose Ronald Reagan.
