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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, SEPTEMBER 9, 1983
PAGE 11
have been trying to project as part of their peace offensive�
block deployment of U.S. cruise and Pershing II missiles in
Europe. For a natfon so profoundly"""Insecure as theSoviet Unio�
the public relations debacle resulting from someone's decision to
shoot to kill was a terrible setback.•..
Thus, the NATO plan to begin deploying the first nine Pershing II's in West
Germany this December will probably be held to schedule, regardless of what
peace activists--who have promised a "hot October" of protest--are able to
do in the streets and at missile sites. Either that, or there will be a
serious break between "hawkish" America and "dovish" Europe.
The Soviets, paranoically concerned about security, are extremely fearful
of the new NATO weapons. The Pershing II's will be able to reach Soviet
soil in only seven or eight minutes flying time. The cruise missiles, while
taking about two hours, will be extremely difficult, well-nigh impossible,
to detect, flying low under radar detection.
Moscow also doesn't like utterances from high officials in Western Europe
(Mrs. Thatcher and Franz Josef Strauss, to name two) that European host
nations should have a dual key on the new U.S.-made weapons, in contradis
tinction to past policy whereby there was only a U.S. ha.nd on NATO's older
generation nuclear weapons. The very thought of Germany having such access
inspires dread in the Kremlin-
.- --
--
Should the missiles indeed be deployed, the whole rationale of the Soviet
defense network in Eastern Europe would begin to fade.
The East Bloc
"buffer zone" would be virtually rendered null-and-void by advanced nuclear
technology. With this in mind, here again are the chief paragraphs of the
article, "Russia May Opt for Unity of Germany," published in the PASTOR
GENERAL'S REPORT of August 19, 1983. It came from the July 31, 1983 issue
of THE OBSERVER in London. These words bear repeating.
Sources here [ in Budapest, Hungary ] say that the Russians are now
working on a long-range strategic plan which will entail funda
mental changes in their policies towards Eastern Europe and the
West, including their past opposition to German reunification.
The reason for this rethink, they say, is the recognition by the
Soviet Union that the development of nuclear missiles has
destroyed the rationale for maintaining the states of Eastern
Europe as� "buffer
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between Russia and� West. However loyal
Poland and Hungary and the rest might be in a nuclear war, they
could do nothing to prevent the annihilation of the Soviet
Union...•
Faced with the missile threat and more serious long-term risk of
a hostile China, the Soviet leadership sees its security as lying
in a combination of arms control agreements with the United
States and political stabilization in Europe...•
The Hungarians would not be surprised if among the offers from
Moscow would be a striking one:
the withdrawal of military
forces from Eastern Europe in exchangeof [ sic] AmerTcan forces
withdrawirig from Western Eu£ope.
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Thus, amazingly, the Korean airliner tragedy may well prove to be the
"trigger" to propel a series of future events that will lead to the freeing-