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INBRIEF
WORLDWAR 111
By
Stanley
R.
Rader
T
HE WORLD
is a drastically
different place now than it
was justa few years ago. It
is far more dangerous.
It
is far
more unstable. The ofd "balance
of power" which kept the world
from going over the brink into
nuclear annihilation is gone.
After World War JI , the cen–
tral fact in world politics was that
American military power reigned
supreme. While the American
monopoly on nuclear weapons
!asted for only a short time, it was
clear that no one would dare
threaten a nuclear war on the
Western democracies because
there would be a a massive
response. In the harsh arena of
global politics, this fact worked to
preserve peace.
Now, however, all that has
changed, and the possibility of
actual nuclear war is greater than
any time since Hiroshima.
These thoughts are prompted
by the appearance of former Pres–
ident Richard Nixon's latest liter–
ary effort entitled
The R eal War,
excerpts of which were called
"World War III" when they were
published in Europe. Tbe book
examines the state of the world
since bis resignation from office
in 1974. One of the book's key
points is that America in the
1980s confronts two realities
which it has never befare encoun–
tered:
"The first is, if war were to
come, we might lose. The second
is we might be defeated without
war." Mr. Nixon believes that
American military power has up
to now restrained the Soviet
Union- which he believes seeks
nothing less than global domina–
ton- from risking nuclear war.
That restraint is now gone. Thus,
"the danger facing the West,"
according to Mr. Nixon's analy-
sis, "is that the Western world
could find itself confronted with a
choice between ¡¡urrender or sui–
cide." At the very least, this new
situation in world affairs means
the Soviet Union will befar more
assertive in waging "local aggres–
sion" around the globe.
It is unfortunate that President
Nixon did not have this view of
the world when he was President
from 1969 until August 1974
when he was forced to resign. It is
unfortunate that not having held
such views, or not having held
them seriously, he did not seize
the opportunity as the President
to act in a manner to prevent the
Soviet Union from gaining all its
objectives throughout the world
during the past 12 years.
Unfortunately, in 1973, Presi–
dent Nixon was working very
hard to end the Vietnam War
"with honor," to reach a general
condition of detente with the
Soviets, to reach agreement con–
cerning arms limitations and to
defend himself f rom the conse–
quences of the unfortunate Wa–
tergate affair. During that time,
we did not hear enough, if any–
thing, from Mr. Nixon concern–
ing the tapies of bis curr!!nt
book.
Plain Truth
readers, on the
other hand, will recall that Mr.
Armstrong and 1 visited Saigon in
South
Vietn~m
in September of
1973, shortly after Mr. Nixon left
office. In a one-hour meeting
with President Ngoyen Van
Thieu, he poured out his heart to
us and clearly predicted the fall
of his nation to the armed forces
of North Vietnam. He bitterly
condemned the withdrawal of
American forces and failure of
the American government to hon–
or its commitment to the freedom
and integrity of his nation . At the
same time, be warned Mr. Arm–
strong and me that the Third
World War had been going on
since 1945 and that the Western
world, and the United States in
particular, had not realized
it
because the war was not being
fought in accordance with the
conventional or traditional modes.
Yet, he declared, the Soviet
Union was waging all-out war,
continent to continent, by agents
or proxies. President Thieu boldly
asserted that another hot war
could break out at any moment–
in Korea between North Korea
and South Korea; in the Middle
East between Israel and its neigh–
bors; or right there in South Viet–
nam where the Viet Cong and the
North Vietnamese were simply
marshaling their forces for what
would be a final push when
American support was with–
drawn.
These things were all crystal
clear to President Thieu and, as I
commented in
The Plain Truth
two months later, these things
have always been self-evident to
Mr. Armstrong, who has been a
consistent, aggressive and far-see–
ing anticommunist since the early
1930s.
Less than 24 hours after our
visit with President Thieu in
Saigon, his prediction about an–
other hot spot carne true with the
eruption of the 1973 Middle East
War. Within that 24 hours, the
Russians had in fact acted again,
this time through their then prox–
ies- Egypt and Syria. Egyptian
forces had crossed the Suez with
the aid of their Russian advisers
(and probably actual combatants)
while Syrian forces had pushed
from the Golan Heights in the
north of Israel. And, as we all
learned within a
f~w
days, the
world was at the brink of all-out
nuclear war as Soviet forces and
American forces went on nuclear
alert.
Advance News
Readers of
The Plain Truth,
on
the other hand, have been warned
for five decades about the danger
of Soviet aggression by proxy, or
Tf>e-
Pl M'l TRUTH