European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 16, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes wednesday april 16, 1986columns comments James Reston Reagan Gorbachev fake More moderate approach the approach to a possible second Reagan Gorba Chev meeting later this year is different in two respects from the first. In recent Days the statements of both the president and the general Secretary have been More tem Perate and the private discussion of objectives More mod crate and realistic. The propagandists on both sides keep blowing off about the past but the two principals Are talking More about discussing the future without preconditions. I think his Gorbachev s communication directly to me the president said at his latest news conference has certainly been in the spirit of Geneva and my responses to him have been  Gorbachev took much the same line in a speech in the soviet Industrial City of Togliatti. To make the matter absolutely Clear i will repeat anew he said. "1 stand for holding such a meeting. We make no preconditions for it. But we want it to pass in accordance with what the president and i agreed to namely it should Mark a step Forward that is produce practical results toward ending the arms  it is this question of practical results that seems to be changing and apparently was emphasized in the conversations Between Anatoly Dobrynio the departing soviet ambassador and president Reagan and Secretary of state Shultz. Officials in Washington arc still divided on some major Points but they Are talking less about drama tic breakthroughs and linking arms control to the settlement of regional disputes such As Afghanistan and Nicaragua. They Are however at least in some influential quarters of the administration talking More about linking economic cooperation to arms control in the belief that a less expensive balance of Power would Benefit both sides. At the latest soviet party Congress Gorbachev gave an even Grimmer report on the soviet Economy than experts expected and since then the Steep fall in the Price of Oil has Cut Moscow s hard currency earnings by Between Quarter and a third. The soviet Leader s formula for dealing with this dilemma was to improve machinery and planning and Cut Down on the Vodka but there was no indication that like China he was willing to go for Market growth not much Hope that his minor adjustments would make much of a change in serious internal problems. Should the Reagan administration offer economic assistance to Gorbachev in return for practical and verifiable cuts in nuclear weapons this is still a bitterly disputed question within the administration. Some of the president s aides Are said to favor Dis cussing such a Compromise in the pre Summit negotiations. Others however argue that Gorbachev must solve George will diplomacy 1r tub 1980 be his own economic problems and even that the . Should use its economic Power to demonstrate the failure of the soviet system. It will take some time before this controversy is resolved. Meanwhile the economist of London suggests word of caution the West needs to be Clear it says what it cannot get out of this linkage As Well As what it can. The rus sians will not be squeezed into any Large amount of uni lateral disarmament they Are not Likely to make big cuts in their military budget unless there Are some cuts on the Western Side. The West cannot expect to control the flow of credit and Loans to Russia with any precision because it does not control its Bankers and industrialists the Way Gorba Chev controls his. And Russia could stagger along without any Western Trade at All. Nevertheless if they act together the governments of the West have in Gorbachev s self imposed dilemma the Means of persuading Russia to accept a fairer As Well As a cheaper balance of  Washington officials Are conscious of the passage of time As they approach congressional elections in novem Ber and then the Start of the race for succession to Rea Gan the following year. Accordingly they would prefer to try to reach a com Promise agreement on the practical issues this year. For example Shultz will meet on May 14-16 with the soviet foreign minister. The two countries have also agreed to Send delegations to Geneva next month to discuss ways to reduce the danger of War and have agreed to other meet Ings sometime before the end of june to evaluate the situations in Afghanistan Central America and the mid dle East. So at least there is some movement the tone of the Summit preparations is a Little better and the goals More modest and realistic. C new York times americans religious about pursuing their lawsuits i a u if a my a d it o a i i or nnllir�n1fl. 1 \ a _ t ,1 1.americans Are about equally religious and litigious so they have made a cottage Industry of litigation concerning the first 16 words of the first amendment Congress shall make no Law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof those two topics establishment and free exercise can become interestingly tangled. In 1981 s. Simcha Goldman an orthodox jew and ordained rabbi and air Force officer decided to fight air Force restrictions on the wearing of Yarmulke. The regulation restricts the wearing of headgear indoors. Goldman did what any real not to mention devout american would do. He sued. He said the regulation infringed his right to free exer Cise of his beliefs. A . District court agreed and permanently enjoined the air Force from enforcing its regulation against him. But permanence is a sometime thing in this rollicking Republic and a . Court of appeals held for the air Force. In the supreme court Gold Man had four justices with him but that was one Brick shy of a Load. Justice Rehnquist joined by Burger White Powell and Stevens reiterated the court s View that the military is a specialized society and that judicial review of military regulations should be far More deferential than review of similar Laws or regulations in civilian society. The essence of military service is subordination of the individual s desires and interests to the needs of the collective Enterprise. Standardized uniforms Are Means to a valid end a sense of hierarchical Unity. Goldman said studies might show that More Liberal regulations regarding religious apparel would enhance mor ale a thought that Cut no ice with Rehnquist who said judicial deference is at its apogee when dealing with decisions of the armed services. But Justice Brennan s Dander reaches an impressive apogee when such deference is mentioned. He joined by Justice Marshall dissented. O Connor and Blackmun also dissented mildly but Brennan understands that if you Are going to dissent break some crockery. The court he thundered has abdicated its role As Exposi Tor of the Constitution and protector of individual Liberty in favor of credulous deference to unsupported assertions of military  All is fair in love and War and constitutional Law and Brennan never met a Straw Man he did t like. He said the court had affirmed the air Force s Conten Tion that a More Liberal policy regarding Yarmulke would mean our fighting forces slip Down the treacherous slope toward unkempt appearance anarchy and ultimately de feat at the hands of our  that caricature is Jolly fun but the court was saying something More temperate. It was talking Only about the allocation of discretion within particular agencies of government concerning particular spheres of individual autonomy. However a fascinating facet of Brennan s pas7 Sio lateness is that he is equally passionate about guaranteeing free exercise and preventing establish ment of religion. Whenever government action can imaginatively be construed As establishment Brennan so construes it using the court s baroque tripartite  under that test government action touching religion is presumptively unconstitutional unless 1 it has secular purpose 2 its Pri Mary effect neither advances nor inhibits religion and 3 it does not Foster excessive entanglement of government with religion. However in 1972, about the time the tripartite test was concocted Brennan joined in a ruling that in effect established a religion and did so in the name of free  Jonas Yoder an adherent of the old order Amish disobeyed the Wisconsin Law requiring parents to Send their children to school until age 16. The Validity of the Law was not questioned. Yet the court upheld Yoder s exemption from that Law. Walter Berris a distinguished constitutional scholar argues that in a sense old order Amish is now established religion of the United states because its members enjoy Spe Cial exemption from a valid Law. The tripartite Rule for detecting establishment expresses the court s View that the establishment clause re quires government to be scrupulously Neutral not merely Between religious sects but also Between religion and secularism. However Brennan s sensitivity to the slightest Trace of establishment the most minute departure from governmental neutrality illustrates a problem. Such punctilious concern for free exercise a concern expressed in exemptions from state Laws and military regulations violates the spirit of the tripartite test. Government in the form of the court becomes entangled with religion in ways that suggest government favors policies that Advance religion. Under Brennan s sort of passionate Fine tuning extremism in defense of free exercise and in opposition to establishment produces an incoherence that keeps the cottage Industry of litigation humming. C Washington Post