European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 23, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 columns the stars and stripes saturday May 23,1987 Tom Wicker White House always has a Fallback defense from the top Down officials of the Reagan administration seem id think he american people arc either such Gullible fools or so trusting of those in Power or both thai icy will believe anything no matter How contradictory or implausible the Story. Call it the Hollywood touch. As testimony in the congressional hearings on the shadowy Iran con Ira Enterprise unfolded for exam ple it became Clear hat president Reagan had known far More about it than he had admitted publicly. As a consequence Reagan dropped his insistence that he knew nothing of what his staff was doing and claims instead thai Aid to the contras was his idea and instill that congressional restrictions did not apply to him or to White House aides. The reason the president executed a flip Flop officials told Stephen Engelbert of the new York times was that the old defense who me left them and Reagan Loo Little room to Man Euver. So they confided they decided to shift he terms of Public debate and set up a new defense that allowed for some faster foal work. In other words that did t work they said so now Well run this up the flagpole and see How Long we can keep it and if the new line won t Fly either what will they do just move on to some other Fallback defense perhaps insisting next time As congressional investigators expect that the president simply does t remember what he did or did t do. Vice president George Bush must have been studying the techniques of the master. His office for which he presumably is responsible has now revised for the second time a chronology issued supposedly to effect full disclosure of his and his staffs meetings with Felix Rodriguez alias Max Gomez. Rodriguez is up to his neck in the privately financed but administration directed Contra Supply program having been recruited into it by it. Col. Oliver North in september 1985. After the chronology was published last Decem Ber Bush i office conceded that it had omitted two trips to Contra Camps in Honduras by col Samuel j. Watson the vice president s Deputy National Security adviser. Now Bush s counsel c. Boyden Cray has disclosed that the full disclosure chronology also omitted a meeting last june 5 Between Rodriguez and Wilson. Just an oversight of course although Gray said Rodriguez visited Watson s office with col. Robert Dulton who had worked on Contra Supply Mission for n onh and Mai Gen. Richard v. Accord. Gray said the Watson Rodriguez meet William Buckley ing was about Al Salvador not Nicaragua Al though Rodriguez went to Watson s office directly from the office of North. Thai squares naturally with the insistence of Don Ald p. Gregg Bush s National Security adviser that he and his staff never discussed Contra Supply with Rodriguez before aug. A 1986, but Gregg used to claim thai he had never discussed the Contra Supply program with Rodriguez at All. They can play this game elsewhere in the administration too. At the stale department Abraham so Faer the Legal adviser continues to declare that the anti ballistic missile abm treaty has been wrongly interpreted for 15 years by All administrations Andriy All nations on both sides of the Iron curtain and that the treaty Only now has revealed its True meaning to the seers of the Reagan administration. Softer insists that the negotiating record con firms this newly revealed truth though All but one of the negotiators who compiled that record say he is Pally wrong and the Lone dissenter Paul nine now works for the administration. Sen. Sam Nunn d-ga., the leading congressional authority i so has demolished sofar s revelations in detailed Senate speeches. But the Pentagon no Slouch at Flim Flam and special effects has reported that the United states can deploy a missile defense system two years sooner than planned and save s3 billion in the process. How just by adopting sofar s remarkable discovery 15 years after the fact of the real True genuine magical never a forc disposed absolutely Eye opening truth about the abm treaty thai its words mean the Reagan administration chooses them to mean neither More nor less. Now Yahk Tunas a few service despite the polls Jackson s no real contender every now and then 1 feel unconstitutional impulses and i try to sup press them. But the one i try to suppress least would bar polls. Why because polls can drive you crazy and can encourage irrational conduct. I give you what comes out of West Germany where one National poll re ports that slightly More germans believe that Ronald Reagan is a threat to the peace than that soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev is a threat la the peace. A second poll asks germans to rate the two on a sympathy scale going from minus 5 to plus 5. Reagan comes in at 0.1 plus. Gorbachev is j .2 plus. The trouble with such a poll is that it causes that Little voice deep inside you to say to hell with the Damn krauts let Gorbachev have them and see How they like come to think of it they prac tired on Hitler. Maybe they would like Gorbachev Fine. But of course one should not tolerate such sentiments. The germans Are Lovely people and we Musi be patient with them. And now the pest Ferous polls Tell us that Jesse Jackson is the front runner in the democratic race for president. And everyone who knows anything a All about politics knows what is going to happen now i Jackson will cease being the front runner after the first state Pri Mary and 2 Jackson and his backers will say hat once again there is evidence of America s deep racism Ilia he was clearly the leading candidate until americans faced up to the fact that they Sim ply could not Vole for u Black Man for president. About 15 years ago 1 wrote an essay for look Magazine anthologized in a collection subsequently published in which i called for the election of a Black president by 1980. I was not making a silly affirmative action Point. Rather the Point was thai a Well qualified Black president could do much to wipe away a traditional memory of racism dating Back to slavery even As the Cleslian of a roman Catholic president wiped away the stigma of the vote against Ai Smith which in 1918, was substantially motivated by bigotry. It is one thing to desire that a Good president be also Black quite another to decide that a contender for the presidency should be nominated and elected Sim ply because he is Black. It needs to be observed about Jackson that he is a wonderfully galvanizing orator a shrewd but limited politician and that his Suc Cess is almost exclusively the result of his being Black. If he were White he would be just an other populist with dangerous views on foreign policy views like the worst of Henry Wallace and George Mcgovey. And he would be the candidate of the crazies in new York and san Francisco and a few Hundred thousand of the chronically disgruntled. The Point respecting foreign policy needs to be stressed. In i9s4, Jackson was sharply scored for association with an Ami semite and for desultory references 10 new York City As Zyrnie town. Less remarked upon was his behaviour in Havana where he toasted Fidel Castro and even the dead Che Guevara. His enthusiasm for the most brutal totalitarian Ever to govern in the Western Hemi sphere strips him of any of the Basic moral credentials on which one builds coherent humanitarian policies. One cannot Praise Hitler and Hin Imler and speak with True resonance at the Aliar of civil rights. Jackson argues logically from his enthusiasm for Castro when he deplores our spending on military defense. In deed if life under Castro i a life to be envied then there is hardly any Point in arming against the possibility of life under Gorbachev. A a matter of fact life under Gorbachev is preferable to life under Castro. But sigh the racist question in going to come up. Perhaps we should t be surprised. Every time Reagan comes out against racial quotas he is denounced As a racist by the a act. It will be so in the months ahead when the democratic party declines to lie Down and nominate Jackson for president Well it could t have happened to a More deserving party. The democrats Are overwhelmingly men and women of Phil biotic and humanitarian inclination but they have tolerated such As Jackson in pan because political Ruitu Linaria ism is fashionable but in part also be cause of the fear of being called racist and having declined to a Down rules of excommunication now they Are up against in h yes. The polls Tell us that Jackson is the democratic front runner. I have a wonderful idea. Run Jackson for presi Dent of West German v
