European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - July 31, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes thursday. July 31.1986 Jim Fain it s time to realize trickle Down in t working Welcome to the third world  super Rich in America Are getting so fabulously wealthy they re out of sight. As for the rest of us Well you know How it is. The Middle class is being squeezed. A study by the democratic staff of Congress join economic committee shows that the top half percent of the population increased its percentage of the nation s wealth from 21 to is Between 197 and 83. These Are people with s2.j million and up in the  other segments lost. The share of 90 percent of the population declined from 34.9 to 28.2. This reversal of a 40-year trend toward More eve distribution came just As we seem to be creating a permanent underclass much of it Black and hispanic. According to the census Bureau an average White household in 1984 had 12 limes the net Worth of Ablack family and eight times that of hispanics. Such bloodless numbers Don t Tell the human  have to walk City streets looking into he Blank James Reston despair of the homeless to understand. You need to go into welfare area and talk to mothers and children. New York now Thorn the extremes of misery and wealth once associated with latin America. Be jewelled Beautiful people of both sexes step fro their stretch Limo in Gerry to at not to stumble Over the homeless on their Way to dinner. Meanwhile incomes of Young people tag behind the Cost of living. Despite the bum rap Given yuppies baby Boomers Are resigned to a lower living Standar than their Parent enjoyed. What happened first the world shrank to a global Village in which no National Economy stands in Isola Tion. We compete in a global Market from which no Tariff can insulate us. And Al least temporarily we have lost our competitive Edge. We got fat and Lazy. Al the same time the Reagan administration indulged its fantasy of Supply Side economics assuming we could spend ourselves into Prosperity by running up a giant debt. Then came Reagan s but policies reducing the to bracket from 70 percent to so percent with new cuts proposed to 27. Earlier Congress created loophole permitting Many to escape taxation altogether. While some miseries of the underclass Are self inflicted there is no escaping the poverty Cycle without programs Reagan  to do first adopt a policy that squeezing the Middle class and impoverishing people at the Bottomore in american. Then search for innovative ways combining education Al the earliest Ages with family support to give Hope to the hopeless. Recognize that tax policy distributes wealth Tike Tor not and restore progressivity so the wealthiest pay a fair share. The current tax Reform freeing 6 million on the Bottom i a Start. It wipes out most loophole. Unfortunately with Only two rates ii lets the Richand super Rich off cheaply it s Best logo on and pass it now without further complications but next Yea should see higher top rates. Harriman represented Best in Public service Averell Harriman lived Long enough tonight the Central political Battles of the age Ana still retain the respect and admiration of Boih his col leagues and his critics. For More than half a Century As governor of Newyork Secretary a Commerce ambassador to great Britain and the soviet Union to mention Only a few of his responsibilities he was a Model of the Public servant ranking in the memory of Washington with George Callett Marshall Dean Acheson George Ken Nan and a few others who have devoted their lives tothe ideals of the Republic. He was both a politician and a statesman with qualities of character that enabled him to fight for his party without losing sight of the larger interests of the nation. Unlike so Many of his contemporaries he knew that simplicity and concentration produce Lucidi. To and decision. Thus he devoted most of his Public life to the great struggle of the economic depression the fight against fascism in world War ii and the tangles of  in the postwar atomic age the Issue of soviet american relation was his enduring concern Over the last 40 years and even at the end he established a Center for soviet stud ies at Columbia University to keep the cold War As he saw it in historical perspective. It should probably be noted that he did not follow Carl Rowan the prevailing fashions of his class and time. He came out of a great conservative Railroad tradition but joined Franklin Roosevelt s new Deal in what he regarded As an essential crusade to modify and preserve the capitalist , he came out of his stewardship in mos cow As Kennan did with a dear determination to contain the spread of soviet Power and influence though always with the conviction that War betwee these two giants must and could be avoided. He worried about the tendency among his fellow countrymen to think of the soviet leaders As comparable to the nazis. Even in his declining years he was presiding with his wife Over seminars in his George town House where men and women of different Politi Cal and philosophical persuasions debated the issues of the arms  Long before he died his wife Pamela formerly the daughter in Law of , published one of Nis favorite churchillian passages in which Churchill had proposed that communism should be strangled in its Cradle and had warned the world against Moscow s imperialistic designs and materialistic philosophy. Nevertheless like Tocqueville Hani Man believed that the United slates and the soviet Union had emerged As the presiding giants of the world and had to keep negotiating until they found some common ground in their common interest. If Harriman s eloquence had matched his thought he might have been chosen to represent his party in its bid for the presidency. But it would be mistake to say that he was a Pioneer in the ideas of bit age. He was a servant and a collector of the Best thought he could find. Though fiercely partisan whenever forgot that alter the political Battles were Over those engaged in them would have to go on working and living  is a rare Quality in Washington. For All Loo often officials cannot Bear Public criticism without private resentment. Harriman was not like hat bespoke his mind and when his Dander was up he could be almost recklessly Frank but his storms of Thunder and lightning soon passed and he could forgive even the press for what he often regarded As its impudent condemnation of his idea. In Short he was a gentleman who did not apologize for his old fashioned concept of noblesse oblige. He was particularly fond of Walter lip Pramann s definition of the Ideal standards of a Public Man and tried to live by them. Those in High places Lippmann wrote shortly before Harriman came to Washington Are More than the administrators of government bureaus. They Are More than the writers of Laws. They Are the custodian of a nation s ideals of the beliefs it cherishes of it permanent Hopes of the Faith which makes a nation out of a Mere aggregation of  Weinberger waging War that does t exist you sit Down for lunch with defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger As i did recently and quickly learn anew Why he holds such a permanent and powerful place within the Reagan administration. Weinberger is one of the few officials in town who can Tell you with a straight face that no War exists Between him and Secretary of state George Shultz an then go on to wage that War with charming skill. Weinberger has a great Knack for telling you that Behas no Agenda no propaganda motive for asking six new people to lunch even As he goes about defending Star wars the Pentagon budget the sending of Mili tary men into Bolivia id fight a War against drugs in soft words that Are not strident and Donot reek of far right ideology Weinberger lays out a hard line that says the Salt i Salt ii and abm anti ballistic missile treaties were All contrary to . Security interests in important ways and that the Sovi ets Are cheats who violated every one of these treaties. Weinberger admitted Only to an occasional Dis agreement with Shultz and to institutional differences Between the state department and the Penta gon. Then with pleasant shrewdness he went about making sure that the Media give president Reagan another dose of his views about dealing with the soviet Union. This Man who has presided Over what he admits Isan unprecedented five and a half years of peacetime military buildup in this country says Salt ii no ratified but honoured until now is against . Inter ests because it allows for expansion of the soviet Mili tary it is not verifiable and it has been violated by the russians. He says the abm treaty was bad for the United states because it got in the Way of efforts to develop a defensive strategy such As Star wars. Weinberger says thai an obligation to Mankind re quires that the . Refrain from making any arms Deal that involves halting the strategic defense initiative the Pentagon s Effort to deploy a system to destroy soviet missiles in outer space Long before they might reach and destroy parts of the United states. He says that a Tot of Progress is being made on this system Lorender soviet offensive missiles obsolete. But what if ski did Render their missiles obsolete if the soviets could t destroy our missiles in outer space would t they be in fear bordering on panic and perhaps try to go to War in desperation no Weinberger says because president Reagan has promised that once we have the technology to Render their missiles obsolete Well give the Ujj Ritli Lulli infill ology so they can Render our missiles worthless. The nuclear War will become not just unthinkable but impossible. Nobody around Washington but Weinberger could then ease in so unobtrusively the fear Factor of assert ing that the soviets have been working on their Sta wars program for 17 years and they Are Well ahead of us in some areas even where they be stolen some four  it is impossible for me to imagine president Reagan listening to Weinberger on these issues and then Choos ing to believe someone with a viewpoint More accommodating to the soviets. Does this make Weinberger the great wheel chum ing up a never ending arms race he would never accept such a characterization. The soviets want an need an arms agreement he says. I want one too. 1 just Don t want the pressures of time and american Public opinion to push us Inlo a bad  the Bottom line i think is that Reagan is Likely to leave office without any meaningful Arras control Deal with the soviets because his Friend Weinberger is going to win the War with Schuliz thai of course does t really exist. La attn Anfu synd Iuli