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IN BRIEF
LET'S NOT BE
DELUDEDABOUT
DETENTE
by
Stanley
R.
Rader
The author accompanies
Plain
Truth
Editor-in-Chief Herbert
W.
Armstrong on his frequent
visits with heads of state and
other leading international
dignitaries.
PARIS,
June
14, 1977:
Two years
ago the Helsinki Conference
ended on a note of enthusiasm
bordering on euphoria. The ac–
cords reached there by 38 Euro–
pean nations plus Ganada and the
United States were heralded by
many in the Western world as the
opening of a new era in the rela–
tions between the West and the
Soviet bloc. Detente was working,
or so we were told; the cold war
was but a relic of the past. or so
the revisiontsts claimed ; and soon
the Soviet-led world would be lib–
eralizad from within as the prom–
ises concerning human rights
were fulfilled.
Today. delegates of these same
nations are meeting again in Bel–
grade, Yugoslavia, to review the
last two years in light of the ac–
cords reached earlier. But even
the most naive observer can
recognize that thus far only
the U.S.S.R. and its satellites
have benefited from the Helsinki
agreements reached two years
ago.
In fact, today ' s headlines
around the world tell of the Soviet
authorities accusing the Moscow
bureau chief of the Los Angeles
Times ot
collecting political and
military secrets. The KGB ínter-
The
PLAIN TRUTH August-September 1977
rogated Robert C. Toth intensely
befare allowing him
to
depart from
the Soviet Union. President Carter
has warned the Soviets that in–
timidation of the press could harm
relations between the Soviet
Union and the United States. The
United States protest, delivered in
Moscow, stated: "The Soviet treat–
ment of Toth is inconsistent with
Soviet pledges in the 1975 Hel–
sinki agreement. ' '
Thus President Carter continues
From Lenln down to
his modern dlsciples,
the Soviets have
not abandoned the
premise that war and
dlplomácy are inter–
changeable means to
the end-world
dominatlon by the
Soviet Union.
to lead the United States and the
free world in a battle to promote
human rights and the dignity of
man throughout the world (see " In
Brief: Presiden! Carter and Human
Rights,"
The Plain Truth,
May
1977). Unfortunately, the U.S.S.R.
continues its battle against the
Western world- for the moment
not by armed warfare, but by other
means-because from Lenin down
to his modern disciples the Soviets
have not abandoned the premise
that war and diplomacy are ínter-
changeable means to the end–
world domination by the Soviet
Union.
Thus detente for the Russians
is only one particular strategy
in their arsenal for use in their un–
ceasing battle to domínate the
world.
When will we, however, in the
Western (free) world realize that
detente means something utterly
different to the Soviets than it
does to us? When will we learn
that the U.S.S.R. intends to domí–
nate the West, to divide and con–
quer, and to rule the world? When
will we learn that concessions
made to the Soviet Union in the
field of armaments or technical
and economic assistance to the
Soviet bloc will not lead to a
change in the Soviet long-term
policy of world domination, nor
will it lead to a liberalization of the
U.S.S.R.'s regime or that of its sat–
ellites?
1
am not advocating a return to
the cold war period that followed
World War
11. 1
am not suggesting
that we stop communicating and
negotiating with the U.S.S.R.
But 1
do urge strongly that we begin to
negotiate better.
We must also begin, once and
for all , to be realists where the
Soviet Union is concerned. We
must stop deceiving ourselves
with our own delusions about de–
tente. We must admit what the his–
tory of the last 60 years should
have taught us: Soviet Commu–
nism is indeed a dire threat to the
Western world; it is a threat that
cannot be minimized or ignored.
The Soviet union will not collapse
of its own weight; tt will not be
overthrown by its enslaved, op–
pressed or frustrated peoples. The
Soviet Union will not abandon its
goal of world domination, and it
will take advantage of every op–
portunity and every weakness
manifested by us in arder to reach
its long-term goals, which have
been unceasingly and openly ad–
vocated and promulgated from the
days of Lenin.
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