European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 26, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 stars and stripes wednesday february 26, 1986 William Buckley Tariff would Fame open Spur . Production the president s opposition to lading foreign Oil imports is unhappily More and More plausible lie should reverse himself on the Point before the plausibility takes hold. 1973 and i9hi, the open Powers were an operating oligopoly with the Power to push up the Price of Oil to Heights undreamed of. Spot Market Oil was Selling for Over $40 during the High color Lionald Point of opus s heyday. There were available to us Al the time a number of responses some of them offensive some of Ihm defensive. President Carter managed to select the worst conceivable Basket of policies. First he attempted in free a the Price of old Oil then he imposed huge Windfall profit taxes on the discovery of fresh Oil then he riddled with various sorts of deregulation then he called for a synthetic fuels Corpora lion which managed to spend $10 billion or so in search of a synthetic Oil. Which Enterprise is now All but Olli scially , he did nothing when the alternative was pretty Clear. If a Bunch of nations make an Alliance the purpose of which is to wage aggressive economic War against other countries Why. Oiler countries retaliate. The most obvious form of retaliation would have been to Clamp Down a whopping lax on Oil that came in from any him a Power. This is not easy to do because Oil is. As inc economists put in. A fungible product and when in flows into a . Refinery from a Tanker there is no Way you can absolutely ascertain us Pedigree. Thus saudi arabian Oil might have sneaked in via a panamanian Tanker that had papers showing thai i Oil belonged to non open great Britain that kind of thing. But in would not have been difficult to exclude from the projected Tariff our two neighbouring Oil Export ers. Mexico and Canada. Nothing was done. It is widely interpreted that saudi Arabia is consciously pushing Down the Price of Oil by its startling overproduction. Its motives Are obvious to Leach a Les son to recalcitrant members of open . Nigeria and Venezuela and to intimidate non members of Opal. Notably great Britain to toe the line. The plan is to drive Oil to the Point where in becomes Only marginally profitable in costs Over $9 per barrel to take Oil out of inc North sea in some areas and Uherc Are pools of Oil off Alaska and Norway that simply can t be exploited at current Oil prices. This is easy for saudi Arabia to do Given that its Oil grows almost like callus on ils Sand requiring a Mere $3 per barrel to pull in out of the ground. Now or. Reagan has an Minlu Itic objection to fresh taxes a lax is a lax is a tax that is extremely healthy added to this the disinclination to gel Inlo the business of tariffs Flora Lewis i know. Its Oil on troubled Waters but what do you throw on troubled Oil which is like passing around junk and before you know in everybody has an excuse for anole or Tariff. But foreign Oil under open management clearly in Vilas corporate retaliation. The Only excuse nol to use a Tariff Al this Point is that open is breaking Down. But what is happening is palpably a Case of Recu or pour Mieux Sauter to draw Back in order to make a better ump on step backward two slips Forward. In to bask in the Victory the free Maricl has won Over the Cartel if just around the Corner we Sec the resurrection of Hal Carlyl perhaps Wilh unprecedented Powers the More so As the consuming Public gets Back to inc old habit of spending Oil like water. Surely there is a third reason to increase the tax on Oil we Are in fact do peeling a National asset and doing so faster than we replenish in. We accept As axiomatic inc obligation to reforest areas of Wood we chop Down. A $10 Rise in the Price of crude would Sci dental by stabilize an Oil Industry on which thanks to our Bankers we Are heavily dependent ii would provide Revenue moreover to revitalize the nuclear Power Industry. A formula could easily be explored seeking to compensate entrepreneurs for Money spent on fighting their Way through the entrenched Luddite bureaucracies Hal make us the laughingstock of Europe in the development of nuclear Power. Harmonious legislation should be enacted. Increase the Price of a barrel of Oil to the level at which it sold a year ago and we would a continue to emasculate open b con linux to encourage husbandry among Consumers and income with which to cultivate sources of Energy on which our children will need to rely. Cd in Werl Prew Syndicate while House in t interested in nuclear test ban without quite admitting it the Reagan administration has turned America s formal policy on nuclear testing on ils head. This could be veiled so Long As the soviets refused verification measures to make sure any cheating could be immediately detected. But now Mikhail Gorbachev has told the 40-nation disarmament conference in Geneva thai the soviet Union is agreeable to the most strict control Over a ban on nuclear weapons tests including on site inspections and the use of All achievements m instead of renewing negotiations with inc soviets on a comprehensive lest ban. Broken off by president Rea Gan Washington has reversed its argument. The official defense depart Mcnol line is no longer that the United suites can t be certain the russians Aren t conducting sneak tests. It is that the United states has to continue us own testing so Long Asil must rely on nuclear deter rence. The position was spelled out in a letter from Deputy assistant secretory Frank j. Gaffney jr., designated to reply to rep. De Markcy d-mass., who had asked defense Secretary Caspar w. Weinberger Why weapons weren t designed to be reliable without continued tests. The Senate has passed a Resolution calling on the administration to resume full test ban negotiations. There arc 207 co sponsors of a similar House Resolution and they arc getting increasingly irritated Wilh the or Wyllian arguments of the administration. Gaffney s letter said a comprehensive test ban that strengthens global stability and enhances Secundy has been a Lon term objective of the . For some but he went on to claim thai a ban in the Forse Cable future would not strengthen stability but rather Lead to a less secure and More dangerous world. The upside Down premise of this assertion was that without testing both the . And the soviets would worry whether their arsenals were still in work ing order and might get edgier. The Long term goal when it might be acceptable to Stop making More and better nuclear weapons was defined As a Lime when a nuclear deterrent is no longer As essential an Clement As currently for internal Security and Weinberger has said about the same that tests to improve weapons and prove they work have to continue until there is either a reliable defense against them Star wars or a vast reduction in arsenals. In other words first demonstrate that the weapons Are obsolete or non existent then Well think about stopping to cols in order to make new ones. Hidden behind this gobbledygook is the administration s desire to keep working on the a Ray laser which requires underground nuclear explosions. Out loud the official stand is that tests have to be conducted on ensling weapons from time to time to Check them out again. This is also a circular argument since weapons could be designed to assure reliability if the designers weren t so keen to keep trying out new types. Markcy wrote to or. Glenn t. Seaborg head of the atomic Energy commission in the Early Days to ask what the policy used to be and whether tests of existing weapons were always considered necessary. They have rarely been conducted. Seaborg replied that our National policy was to seek a comprehensive test ban. J do nol recall that the proof testing of stockpiled nuclear weapons was Ever an Issue in this connection. It is my impression that the same situation prevailed during most of the 1970s." the . Committed itself to seeking the end of test in the preamble to the 1963 limited test ban treaty and in article 6 of the nuclear non proliferation treaty of 1968, which pledges it to achieve the discontinuance of All test explosions of nuclear weapons for All Lime and to continue negotiations to this end the treaty threshold on nuclear tests a 150 Kilotons High enough for Etc Ryling the nuclear weapons builders want to do. In response to the argument that you can never be absolutely certain that Wem Shock Waves were an earthquake and nol a secret test in arc have been proposals to set a Low limit one to five it Lions above which an explosion would be surely delectable. But the administration in t interested. If it continues to refuse negotiations to see How far Ijo Roaches is willing to go to guarantee strict control Washington will be telling the world thai in would Ratic or continue its own tests than Stop the russians that i likes the nuclear arms race. Cd new York times x1?." 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