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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, NOVEMBER 6, 1981
PAGE 8
helpless in Vietnam, or more currently in El Salvador and other Third World
nations.
Much of the movement, though naive, seems genuine, based largely on a
growing fear of Europe's future. It has suddenly dawned on many Europeans
that a "nuclear exchange" between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. just might not
conveniently pass Europe overhead, but that Europe itself could become a
nuclear battlefield, perhaps even the main battlefield. President Reagan,
in fact, disturbed many in Europe when he expressed the belief, on October
16, that a nuclear war might in fact be confined to Europe, without spread
ing to the superpowers themselves.
Regardless of the actual genesis of the widespread movement, the Soviets,
with their organs of propaganda and "dis-information," are making the most
of it. Moscow helped foment the fear psychosis in the first place with its
massive buildup of weapons {SS-20 missiles equipped with three nuclear
warheads each) targeted on every major West European city. Now the Kremlin
is carefully cultivating public fear by launching "peace offensives" aimed
at preventing the U.S.-NATO counterforce from being deployed.
This "peace offensive" reached an almost embarrassing plateau {to all but
committed neutralists) on October 31 when Soviet President Leonid I.
Brezhnev promised West Germans that their country would be spared from a
nuclear attack if they refuse to deploy U.S. medium-range missiles on their
soil.
"I declare with full responsibility," said Brezhnev,
under no circumstances will use nuclear weapons
renounce the production and acquisition of such
stationed them on their territory."
"that the Soviet Union
against states that
weapons and have not
The Soviet leader made his remarks via an interview from Moscow with the
influential liberal West German magazine DER SPIEGEL which is increasingly
sympathetic to the neutralist cause. Brezhnev further warned in the inter
view that the people of Western Europe will face "colossal dangers" if the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization deploys u.s.-made cruise and Pershing II
missiles to counter Soviet multiple-warhead SS-20 missiles.
Brezhnev said he would sign treaties with West Germany and other nations
pledging that the Soviet union would not use nuclear weapons against na
tions not equipped with nuclear arsenals.
The combined pressures of the neutralist surge and Soviet "peace offen
sives" are bearing heavily on Europe's political leaders.
West German
Chancellor Helmut Schmidt called the recent 250,000-person demonstration in
Bonn a "declaration of war" against his government. Yet later, betraying
the heavy pressure he is under from the strident left-wing of his Socialist
party, Schmidt contradicted his own admittedly-dominant role in the
December 1979 decision by inferring that the impetus for the new NATO mis
siles force came primarily from then President Jimmy Carter.
The surging neutralist/pacifist tide is producing a great deal of concern
in Communist China. Peking's leaders are warning European visiting diplo
mats of the dangers of the peace movement. One West European official said,
after his delegation met China's powerful Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping and
other top leaders:
"'Naive,' 'simple-minded,' 'foolish' were the words