European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 25, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes april columns comments William Safire which Vietnam lesson will shape Nicaragua policy the remarkable thing about the 10th anniversary of the fall of Saigon is this we celebrate the occasion by deciding whether or not to heed its lesson in Central the Basic difference Between the president and the Congress is about what that lesson if you believe that Vietnam was an exercise in Amer ican doomed from the Start and needlessly then you come Down on the Side of the democratic leadership in Congress you equate the contras with the corrupt dictatorship in Saigon and refuse them the guns they need to defeat their communist if you believe that our attempt to save South Viet Nam from communist takeover was nobly and failed Only because a defeatist Media and water Gate emboldened doves in Congress were Able to strip South Vietnam of our then you stand with president Reagan you see the Managua communists As the puppets of Havana and and you Are eager to Supply the contras with the ammunition needed to help the anticommunist nicaraguans bring Down the Moscow backed that is looking at the Issue in its starkest let us Grant that there Are shades of Gray that doves and Hawks do not like to think for there must be plenty of doves who derided talk 10 years ago of incipient blood and who sincerely believed that life would be better for the people of Southeast Asia after our involvement was who now feel a personal guilt for the genocide that not for them the easy out of the Shaw Cross which turns truth on its head and blames the americans for somehow transforming the gentle Khmer Rouge into murderers of defenceless for an example on the other i know there Are Hawks who cannot go along with president Nixon judgment that Congress alone was the cause of Saigon downfall we think that Congress did not but that the South vietnamese government did not have the stamina to withstand for Long the continual pressure from the but mindsets on which great decisions turn do not lend themselves to shades of doves do not concern themselves with the fact that this communist threat is near our within our sphere of and not half a world away nor do Hawks trouble themselves that our vigorous response to the Export of revolution is surely an attempt to help Over throw a government in and As in Vietnam decade to prevent its those Are Debat ing and such Points do not decide great what does determine whether american foreign policy leans toward isolation or leans toward intervention Strid ency is a shrillness in advocacy turns the general Public the doves attacks on the contras As fascist or their mean spirited charge that Rea Gan is spoiling to use troops in a Good Little will present the Hawks with a target of extremist America in the same the presidents Elevation of the anticommunist to the moral equivalent of our found ing fathers invites mockery More the misuse of the Fri by the Cia to harass citizens returning from Nicaragua will turn Public opinion against the presidential priority is a a recently elected president who considers this Issue to be of utmost importance can bring even an opposition Congress in november Richard Nixon mobilized the silent majority in a television speech that knocked the doves Back for years later he let the soviet Leader know that Vietnam had priority Over Summit Reagan is unwilling to expend political capital on what is said to be a losing that Means he does not consider this sufficiently or it Means he is fearful of legislative a radio spot on the eve of a great decision is a joke better to lose than to run from a the president could come before us to plead for a Cut in Domestic and triumphant isolationists could Send a few bandages to the contras through the let the vote be and let the president consider recovering by recognizing a nicaraguan government in this vote goes far beyond a Rebuff to the contras it is each congressman expression of his understanding of the lesson of c 1985 new York times Syndicate id like to speak to prime minister nnw5qneoh  Tow put on vol for two hours b a sign of was on James Kilpatrick genocide convention should be pronounced dead for the past 36 through the administrations of eight the Senate foreign relations committee has been tossing around the genocide convention in the same Way that a bored child plays with a broken it is time for the committee either to approve this generally useless and potentially dangerous or to vote it Down so decisively that we will be done with the matter for at least another two the general Assembly adopted the genocide convention in december Harry Truman sent it to the Senate for ratification the following the thing has been languishing in committee Ever the Wisest course would be to pronounce it dead and get on to legislative business that truly who needs this treaty since 1967 Wisconsin William Proxmire has made speeches in support of the genocide but if the gentleman has provided a convincing explanation of How this would Benefit the United it has escaped the notice of this the senator was on his feet just the other speaking to the plight of andean villagers in Peru who Are the victims of political killings by both government and guerrilla the owing to the objections of the soviet Union Back in does not cover political it is the United states ranks As a pariah in the family of almost 100 other countries have among them West the soviet Union and the soviet we Are left in the miserable company of ugh South Africa As the Only two nations of consequence yet to go if everybody else is agreeable to so High minded an Why should the United states stay aloof one answer lies in the nature of our constitutional once this treaty would become part of the supreme Law of the certain of its having potential to do with the extradition of american citizens and their trial by foreign would deny an accused person All the protections of due process of Law that lie at the heart of the convention is worded so ambiguously that its provisions could mean As or As As judges might read into for the document de fines genocide not Only As killing members of a racial or religious but also As causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of such a what is what is meant by mental genocide is further defined As deliberately inflicting on a group conditions calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in what is ordinarily genocide is thought of in terms of governmental action nazi Germany and the but this treaty is not so it would punish acts committed by Public officials or private under article disputes relating to application of the convention would not be settled in our own disputes would be submitted to the inter National court of justices at the request of any of the Jesse has prepared eight statements of reservation or understanding that would cure other his Resolution would make it among other that crime of genocide can be committed by governments Only that the convention would not override other provisions of the Constitution that in part Means in substantial that mental harm Means deliberate and permanent impairment of the brain and that the jurisdiction of the world court May be invoked Only if All parties to a dispute several of these reservations have received committee approval in times All of them Are my own thought is that the Senate would do poorly to write so murky a treaty into our supreme Law in the name of International Public the Helms Resolution would make the thing barely with these the committee might defensible vote without o1985 Universal press Syndicate