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PAGE
20
PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, DECEMBER
30, 1986
For
Europeans, who attach supreme importance to stability and
predictability, all this was uncertain enough. But worse came
with the [Iran-contra revelationsl.... They recall the pattern
of the Johnson administration (over Vietnam)
,
the Nixon
administration (over Watergate), and the Carter administration
then you have no policy at
all," a West German official summarized.
As
the foregoing article stressed, the West Europeans are as much
disturbed over Reykjavik and what could have happened, as they are
dismayed over what
is
yet to occur as Iran-contra unfolds. Neither issue
inspires confidence in Washington, as noted by Robert E. Hunter in the
December
15
LOS
ANGELES TIMES:
It is natural to expect that our allies share the angst over
the muddle and misfeasance at the top of the
U . S .
government.
Yet Western Europe remains far more concerned about something
that seems to be ancient history here: What Ronald Reagan did
two months ago at his summit meeting with Mikhail
S.
Gorbachev
in Iceland..
.
.
The .most obvious issue at Reykjavik was the
so-
called Euromissiles-Soviet
SS-20s
and
U.S.
Pershing
2
and
cruise missiles. Before the summit, Gorbachev made significant
concessions, and agreement seemed likely to reduce the weapons
to 100 warheads on each side.... At Reykjavik, it seemed
possible to scrap them altogether....
Far more significant, however, was President Reagan's apparent
willingness to trade away major portions of the
U . S .
strategic
arsenal, even toying with the idea
of
eliminating all nuclear
weapons. The allies were shocked that an American President
would discuss a step that would cede political dominance over
the Eurasian land
mass
to the Soviet Union with its superiority
in conventional military potential....
After Reykjavik,...both France and Great Britain...reasserted
their
commitment t o y o c e e d w i
t h
t=ode rnization of their
nuclear arsenals.
-+
AS
t e s e T s e n a l s swell
i
n numbTrs-ZiS
accuracy of warheads, they could complicate
U.S.
arms-control
efforts with the Soviets. It is one thing for Paris and London
to retain nuclear weapons as marginal re-insurance; it is quite
another for them to do
so
because of emerging doubts as to
America's strategic purposes....
Despite his current
difficulties, Reagan must show the allies that he is in charge
of
U.S.
strategic policy from doctrine to arms control. It
is
here, not in the Iran-contras scandal, that the credibility of
the
U . S .
presidency is most at risk.
Under a dramatic title in the December 16 WALL
STREET
JOURNAL--'U.S.
Muddle Stirs European Unity and Independence'--Melvin Krause
(who
consistently advocates a
U.S.
military withdrawal from Europe) wrote: