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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JANUARY 21, 1983
PAGE 9
balance-of-power relationship between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. has tipped
in Moscow's favor.
America's Post-War Cycles
The two visits described above give� evidence�� promises to be�
watershed year in modern history. In fact, 1t is s1gn1ficant to note that
the summer of 1983 will complete 38 years (19 x 2} since the end of World
War II and the sudden emergence of the United States as the predominant
world power. Looking back, we certainly can see two distinct "political
time cycles," (if we may coin a phrase} within that span of time.
The years 1945-1964 marked the highwater mark of U.S. power and prestige in
the world. On August 6, 1945, an American B-29
11
Superfortress
11
dropped the
atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Japan's fate was sealed. In
quick succession followed bomb number two on Nagasaki (August 9}, the
Japanese offer of surrender (August 10), the U.S. acceptance {August 14)
and the formal surrender (September 2}.
On August 5, 1964, 19 years after Hiroshima, almost to the day, the U.S.
Congress overwhelmingly approved, at President Lyndon B. Johnson's request,
the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. (On August 2 and 4 North Vietnamese naval craft
attacked U.S. vessels
in
international waters off the Vietnamese coast.)
The resolution authorized the President to "take all necessary measures to
repel any armed attack against forces of the United States and to prevent
further aggression." Congress also approved the use of American military
forces to come to the aid of allied states in southeast Asia requesting
assistance.
Thus the way was paved for an ultimately disastrous full-scale military
involvement on the part of the United States in southeast Asia. This was
the true beginning of the process in the decline of U.S. power and prestige
in the world. The years 1964 to the present have witnessed this steady
erosion in U.S. power.
The frustrating no-win war in Vietnam led to America's ignominious depar
ture in 1975. After that date, the Soviet Union, capitalizing on America's
fear-ridden (Leviticus 26: 19) "Vietnam syndrome" stepped up subversive
activity on all parts of the global compass, especially in Africa and Cen
tral America, the latter right under Washington's nose.
Politically the 1972 Watergate scandal sapped the power of the U.S.
Presidency, forcing out a strong head-of-state, Richard Nixon, in 1974 and
ushering in, in 1977, the disastrous (in terms of foreign prestige) four
year tenure of Jimmy Carter.
The year 1964 was also significant in other regards. It was a turning point
for the United States in the United Nations, when the balance-of-power be
gan to shift from the U.S.-led West to the Third World, influenced by the
Communist bloc. America's current Ambassador to the United Nations, Jeane
K. Kirkpatrick took note of this power shift--and the "watershed year" of
1964, as she called it--in a speech she delivered before the Heritage
Foundation Conference in New York City on June 7, 1982:
Eighteen months is long enough for me to have observed at first
hand the relative powerlessness of the United States at the