European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - January 31, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 columns the stars and stripes saturday. January 3f, 1987 George will Haig launches verbal assault on presidency Alexander a 1c is a lean aerobic instructor for the English language making it twist and stretch. He the Only presidential candidate who could accuse the slate department of that enchanting participle suggests that the department is re ceding smiling from the scene of president Reagan s distress. Haig certainly is not running an an uncritical Raga nit. Most people with an Eye cocked toward lie presi Dency try to be As agreeable As puppies. Haig however it a Bull terrier. Even As puppies Bull terriers Are not Puppy like and sensible people hink twice before pet Ling them. Haig says the Lack of discipline in foreign policy that produced the Iran debacle is becoming worse As the stale department pursues its own Agenda which includes any obtainable arms control agreement Haig worries he is the bad news Bear of american politics thai a dangerous agreement May be made 10 seem palatable by cosmetic soviet accommodation on Afghanistan and a trivial soviet Concession about space weapons letting. President Reagan says Haig is a utopian but not foolish he listens to advisers. But Haig thinks George Shutlz and Paul nil arc dangerously ardent for an agreement. Haig describes As naive in the extreme Reagan s idea or eliminating nuclear weapons the discussion at Iceland of a world devoid of nuclear weapons and there was such a discussion despite the equivocation that followed the postmortem May be the most serious misjudgment by a president since world War ii. We Are Only at the threshold of the consequences of some of the pie in the ski rhetoric that Carl Rowan emerged in the dialogue of the his Memoir of his Stormy is months As Reagan s Secretary of state caveat is he says especially Good if you read it he then characteristically goes too far i think you la see 1 predicted All however he did de scribe the White House As mysterious As a ghost ship you Beard the creak of the rigging and the groan of the Timber and sometime glimpsed the Crew on deck but which of the Crew had the Helm today he he Caius i d say Why did you Send me this memo and he Reagan would look at stand say what memo i never saw it before " Haig said Reagan s optimism May be taking on surrealistic Haig sees fiscal flab Biness in reagan1 reluctance to use the veto. Clearly Haig goes further than any prospective Republican presidential candidate in criticizing the president. His Confidence is grounded in experience Gen Douglas Macarthur s Headquarters in Tokyo nato s staff in the 1950s Pentagon and Vietnam combat in the 1960s Deputy to Henry Kissinger and then chief of staff in the Nixon White House five years As supreme Allied commander in Europe president of unite technologies Secretary of state. Haig is a serious Man with his mind on the mos serious matters. However As he tries to become Only the fifth Man to make the presidency his first elected office the others were Grant Taft Hoover and Eisen Howerde faces among other problems the fact that his expertise is in foreign policy. Elections almost never turn on thai and it is hard to imagine Hai waxing eloquent about soybeans. Furthermore after examining the Handiwork of vice adm. John Poindexte Rand Marine i coi. Oliver North americans Are Apt to be even More eager than usual to keep politic and the military in separate spheres. The last military Man to seek the presidency Dwight Eisenhower was disarmingly civilian in Bis Demeanour Haig in say no More not. However Ai he prepares to run he it not As height say and hoping. Hit political action committee has disbursed $600,000 since july. His name recognition is High. He gives speeches that touch Mosi Republican erogenous zones although he thinks conscription and higher taxes probably will be necessary. He says a Republican candidate Mast win non re publican votes which is a banality. Then he says some thing startling the teamsters have told me they la Back me and won t Back any other Hedi Smi vice president George Bush � a do Noth ing lacklustre wherever he sat. He says of Bush sup porters they say they re for him then apologize for it of he other candidates he says ill Lake on any of them in a debate. Now i Don t want to sound too although he is impeccably tailored he always Teer Aito be wearing a suit a size too smell such is his intensity he seems to be bursting the seams. This Day he u wearing a Natty Neo Nathan Detroit suit boldly Chalk striped Damon Runyon does Wal Street his breast pocket handkerchief is a reproach to the Ink stained wretch who marvels at the workout the English language is going to get in the candidacy of a Man who has said "1 do believe the Field is wide Vopni but i think it s premature now for such posturing in a definitive Way. Thirst for Freedom leaves 3 nations parched Freedom is an insidious Force. It is More Addic Tive than cocaine or heroin when people in any place or class gel a Little Freedom they want More and More and More. China s Deng Xiaoping has seen the truth of this during six weeks of chinese students taking to the streets to demand More democracy and Freedom. The Botha regime in South Africa has wiped out the Small measure of press Freedom the right of dissent thai once existed and it now imprisons and kills peo ple callously out of a fearful belief that if the Black majority is Given a Little Freedom it will demand More freedoms and then political control. The soviet Union has dealt brutally with dissidents committing same to psychiatric prisons and banishing others to Remote outposts because soviet Leaden have Felt that Freedom or religion and political expression threatens communism s survival. But Freedom has myriad powerful qualities. Dicta tors May know that they can t Rule in coexistence with Freedom but they soon Sec that their societies cannot Prosper without it. During the last years of Rule by Mao tsp Tung and the oppressive cultural revolution China was Wal lowing in xenophobia and poverty with no real eco nomic and social development in sight. Deng preached against a fear of strangers and brought about an open ing to the Deng thought that he could admit enough Western businesses enough Western culture and ideas to pro Mote socialist modernisation but that he could limit demands for capitalism Freedom of speech democracy things lumped under the title Bourgeois liberalisation to � Point where the communist part 1 would not be endangered. Now Deng has Learned that people who Laste the wine of Freedom grow thirsty for a quenching drink and he is in a dilemma of having 10 spill a Little blood of the Young protesters to keep them from Rushing closer to the West that China needs desperately to snuggle up to. Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev has taken Tome Steps recently that promote the improbable nation that he senses that the soviet Union must allow More individual freedoms if Russia Ever is to attain sufficiency of food a Standard of living equal to that of the United states and other and be Able to match the United states Ruble for Dollar in expenditures for Star wars and other defensive and offensive weapons syst fans. Gorbachev let Andrei d. Sakharov return to mos cow after almost seven years of exile in Gorky for criticizing soviet policies. Sakharov 65, resumed his human rights advocacy for political and religious prisoners in the soviet Union and has t yet been hustled Back to Gorky. It seems too much to Hope for but could Gorbachev really have a vision of a soviet society in which individual in italic a free press religious Freedom and even measures of capitalism can flourish the conces Sions to Freedom so far Are so smal As o support the View Phil he is cynically courting pubic opinion in the United states and we urn Europe do1iia and of Lucri in South Africa s apartheid re Gime Are moving recklessly away from All manners of Freedom. But they Are finding that they Are becoming paria Jis and that the world great corporations refuse to operate in the absence of Freedom. Thus the mar Velous lifestyle that while South africans have Lon enjoyed is in peril. But Botha and co. Could t care Jess since they Feu Freedom for Blacks far More than they worry about poverty. So Iii insidious Force called Freedom has produced political and economic crises in three major countries whose dictatorial leaders Aren t sure How much Freedom if any. They can tolerate
