European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 01, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 12 the stars and stripes wednesday june 1, 1977 Anthony Lewis controls halting watergate end at water s Edge in the third of his television inter views. Richard Nixon spoke of the benefits of his foreign policy for Cambodia. For five years he told David Frost from 1970 till 197s. Cambodia enjoyed enjoyed is not the Best word it had what you Call a flawed the actual Impact of american policy was described by rep. Paul Mccloskey. When he visited Cambodia in 1975. As greater evil than we have done to any country in the one of the last West Ern correspondents there Jon Swain of the London sunday times wrote on his Jour Ney out the entire Countryside has been churned up by b52 bomb craters whole towns and villages razed. So far. I have not seen one intact the malign effects of some of the Nixon administration s policies abroad the human damage the harm to True Ameri can interests were immeasurably greater than those caused by the Domestic abuses. Generations will pay for the excesses in Chile the. Four added years of War in Vietnam. Compared to such enormities. Watergate was As Nixon said a Pip squeak the destructive acts abroad were like watergate or worse in manner As Well As substance. They were carried out with crude deception of Congress and the Public with contempt for the Constitution Al system with obsessive Gross example came in the interviews when Nixon was asked about the Savage repression of East Pakistan in 1971. Let s not leave any he said that Wei condoned what pakistani army was but in effective policy terms that is exactly what Nixon and Henry Kissinger did covered up the Slaughter refusing to criticize or even to notice diplomats in Kast Pakistan swat repealed cables to Washington asking for a statement against the killing Sloger Morris a former aide to Kissinger quotes the cables in a Book to be published this summer the diplomats said they were mule and horrified witnesses to a reign by the Pakistan to of a live Kissinger squashed a move in the state department to say something mums concludes in the name of pre serving Pakistan s territorial integrity Washington s silence condoned a reign if terror that made secession of Bangladesh inevitable what is so striking about the arbitrary acts abroad As the interviews remind us. Is that Nixon and his aides were never called to account for them As they were for the Domestic abuses. 1 think the reason for that distinction is Clear and extremely important to understand. The . Is dependent on Law to control the abuse of official Power More so than any other democratic country. While the British rely on parliamentary questions to Correct their leaders or on the club Bish feeling of an intimate governing elite we depend on judges and on the ultimate re Spect for Law that holds a heterogeneous society together. That was the lesson of watergate the sense that he had violated a Leader s Funda mental obligation to obey the Law is what brought Richard Nixon Down. It was be cause the idea was so american that for Eigners had difficulty understanding watergate and still do. But the sense of Law and Legal standards does not apply with the same Force in for eign affairs that is largely because judges have traditionally declined to re solve issues touching on foreign and Mili tary matters deeming themselves incompetent in those areas even As they re solve the most controversial Domestic questions of race and politics and abortion. Without the restraints of Law presidents moved from Primacy to the assertion of unlimited authority in foreign affairs. The extreme was reached with no Jpn. Who treated disagreement with his policy As a form of subversion to be repressed by any method that he declared necessary. He introduced to the White House the Maxim that Boss Frank Hague used to apply in Jersey City Lam the and men otherwise committed to Law did not Challenge lawlessness in foreign affairs. Elliot Richardson insisted that Spiro Agnew be held to account for Graa. But he excused an act infinitely More contemptuous of our constitutional system Nixon s bombing of Cambodia in 1973 without authority in any treaty statute Resolution or need to protect american has Learned from presidential abuses abroad As from watergate. Con Gress began to reassert a role in setting a limits with the War Powers act and it of Law forbidding military action in indic he he a. But in the absence of the judicial restraints that protect us at Home. We Shal a have to rely ultimately on our political1,leaders respect for the constitutional bal Ance the Mutual understanding and restraint that in the larger sense Are Law., William f. Buckley Carter s Fak of ifs awful worst a president Carter s address at notre Dame has caused not a Little confusion among serious readers in Europe who Are accustomed to scrutinizing presiden tial documents carefully on the Assumption that there is something there Worth William Safire has Given us the useful acronym Mego. For my eyes Glaze Over which words limn up before him whenever he is handed a hefty bureaucratic document saying for the most part nothing for the most part at great length the press officer for the White House might for the Relief of world leaders devise a stamp marked doth Don bother to read. It would be appropriate to a distressing number of addresses on for eign policy by president Carter who. At notre Dame last week delivered the worst speech since he addressed the United nations being confident of our own future we Are now free of that inordinate fear of communism which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in our fear " what s wrong with that sentence?1. We Are not confident of our own future whatever that Means exactly during the past four years most american military men who have occupied positions of authority have looked with increasing anxiety at the relative increase in the Tacti Cal and strategic military strength of the soviet Union. Henry Kissinger is on record As using such words As catastrophic to describe communist military and political advances in Indochina in Africa and in Europe. The president s current adviser on Security affairs. Or. Brzezinski. As recently As four years ago described the Western situation As bad and getting worse.2. What is an inordinate fear of communism was the doctrine of containment As formulated by George Kennan an expression of such an inordinate fear is or. Carter saying that soviet appetite to in crease its influence has been overestimated or is he saying that when such an appetite is in fact satisfied things Aren t ail that bad if the former How does he account for it that during very recent times communist or marxist or Neo communist forces have brought the greatest per capita suffering to the people of Cambodia in the history of the world that South Vietnam has been tyrannize that a state that Calls itself marxist Leninist has abolished such freedoms As there were in Mozambique and in Angola?3. To whom did he refer when he Speaks of embracing any dictator who joined us in our fear Franco Franco s fear was As genuine As anybody s could be whose direct experience with communists was during a civil War in which a fair per cent of the National population was slaughtered. Salazar his fear of communism hardly proved inordinate. Not Long after his death the communists made their move there and Only narrowly missed subjugating the portuguese people during which period there was dire to. In nato and m Washington. I. The dictators we Are nowadays i pig to embrace those who preside Afify China. Russia Eastern Europe Mozano que Vietnam Cuba Are not dictation who fear communism but who communism and who show Ansta Dable contempt for Westerner give silly speeches. As if to say that s fearing the communist s sword Point a have the effect of dulling it. What s the matter with Carter speech maker for too Many years 1 have been willing to adopt the flawed Caples and tactics of our adv sometimes abandoning our theirs. We fought fire with fire " thinking that fire is better to now what on Earth does that Long ical gargle mean even As come mint Day prose it Sticks in the Throat we want to fight fire with water then a. The president Call for abolishing the pfc gon and replacing it with a bed of Posi every time we have used water on i soviet Union we have germinated a f soviet principles and tactics of our adv Al Saries May very Well be flawed Butth a Are the men of blood and guts and hair is who control Over half the world Domin isl the military scene intimidate the children and by their awful pre show up presidential rhetoric at Ismen sprately awful worst. Cd
