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MILLIONS OF POLES cheered John
Paul 11 on his return to Poland in June.
The pope called for the "spiritual unity
of Europe" in order to surmount the
political division of the continent.
Carter of the United S tates and Soviet
President and Communist Party chief
Leonid Brezhnev held their long–
awaited strategic arms limitation sum–
mit here in Vienna, Austria.
To the Russians, the SALT 11
treaty (which the two leaders signed
on June 18) ratifies the Soviet
Union's equality with the United
States- at least in the military field.
They know full well also that mo–
mentum is on their side. The United
S tates, they are firmly convinced, is a
nation on the decline.
Worst of all, from the European
point of view, the Soviets, feeling
stronger than ever, still hold within
their grip the eastern half of Europe,
which they carved out as a buffer
zone at the end of the Second World
War. Certainly the United States,
declining in relative strength, isn't
about to push them out. That point
was proved in the Hungarian upris–
ing 23 years ago. And it's even a
question in many European minds as
to whether the U.S. has the will to
continue a firm commitment to the
defense of the free half of Europe.
The Strategic Arms Limitation
Treaty, of course, is not a stepping–
stone toward either disarmament or
peace. Far from it, for SALT II ac–
tually provides for a sizable increase
in various segments of the U.S. and
Soviet arsenals. SALT ll- if it is
approved by a highly suspicious U.S.
Senate-is intended merely to regu–
late and discipline arms competition,
acting as
a
check on the speed of the
arms race.
Nevertheless, the SALT 11 treaty
represents the capstone of Brezhnev's
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S
years in office.
In October 1962, the Soviets were
humiliated by President John F.
Kennedy in the Cuban missile crisis.
Lacking the power at that time to
challenge the military superiority of
the United States, they had no choice
but to back down.
This was a particularly bitter blow
for then party boss Nikita Khrus–
chev, who only one year earlier (at
The
PLAIN TRUTH August 1979
the only other U.S.-Soviet summit
hete in Yienna) openly despised the
youthful Kennedy.
Ever since the Cuban fiasco, how–
ever, the determined Soviets have un–
dertaken a feverish military build–
up-with America by no means sit–
ting still in the meantime-to close
the military gap.
Just in the past decade alone, the
Soviet leaders have poured in $104
billion more than the U.S. on strate–
gic arms, severely straining their
economy and sacrificing the needs of
their citizens in the meantime.
Additional billions have bought
the Soviets a powerful blue-ocean
navy with which to project that
power anywhere in the world and to
avoid any embarrassing "Cubas" in
the future.
The result today is that a rough
one-to-one situation now exists- and
with a definite momentum residing
in Moscow's corner, especially in the
conventional weapons field. As one
Soviet scholar told
Newsweek
maga–
zine (June 25, 1979): "We cannot
match the U.S.A. in industry or agri–
culture, but we can overtake you in
military power."
Moscow's Biggest Challenger
Now-The Vatican
At SALT 11, President Carter was
totally unsuccessful in attempting, as
he put it, to "broaden the relation–
ship" between the two powers in
fields other than nuclear weapons.
Brezhnev turned a deaf ear to U.S.
complaints of Soviet mischief-mak–
ing in Africa (especially through the
use of Cuban proxy forces) and other
parts of the world. The Soviet chief
simply hammered away at the inevi–
tability of revolution and the "objec–
tive course of history" which, from
Soviet perspective, runs in their fa–
vor-and which, of course, they ably
assist.
The Kremlin leadership, while
conservatively cautious as ever, does
not fear the United States as muchas
before. lt feels it has the power to
disregard future American demands
to back off from meddling in trou–
bled areas of the world.
However, the Soviets are presently
confronting their biggest challenge of
all- from a source their historians
long ago dismissed as irrelevant.
Noted
New York Times
columnist
J ames Reston, writing on the eve of
the SALT 11 summit, said this: " In a
mocking question about the pope
near the .end of World War ll, Josef
Stalin asked, 'How many divisions
does he have?' Now, after theraptu–
rous reception of Pope John Paul 11
in Poland, Brezhnev knows the an–
swer: 'Quite a few! '
" In fact, the pontiff's meeting with
ON JUNE 18 tN VIENNA, President Jimmy Carter of the United States and President
Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union signed the SAL T 11 nuclear arms treaty. Many
Europeans fear the
U.
S. wi/1 continue to decline in relative strength to Moscow.
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