European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - December 13, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 columns the stars and stripes sunday. December 13. 19b7 James j. Kilpatrick an excess of loyalty is surely a pardonable sin White House chief of staff Howard Haker met Wilh inc press and having nothing be lit r 10 ask a reporter asked if pardons eventually might be granted 1o la. Col. Oliver North and to former National Scheu Rily adviser John i of Dexler. This was Baker s response i have no idea no i of Minuni. No instructions and no the headline in the next Day s Washin Glnn us read possibility of pardons Tor two left thai was enough 1o get the saliva flowing among the pit hulls of the local press. Commentator Martin Jaronsky said thai Washington is buying Wilh re Mari that pardons soon would he granted. Strobe Talbot of time Magazine allowed thai any such action would leave an indelible stain upon the Reagan presidency. Columnist Carl Rowan put on his funereal look. Hey Fellows 1 would ask in t All this a bit Prema tur Enorth and among others arc under investigation by special counsel Lawrence Walsh for possible violations of criminal Law during the Iran Contra affair. Walsh will seek indictments because grand juries arc amenable bodies he probably will gel them Fiul if indictments come easy convictions come hard. There is abundant reason to believe that no irial jury Ever would convict the two of anything More serious than pulling government paper clips on private papers. The general charge against North Poindexter and the others is that hey had contempt for Congress Bui everyone has contempt for Congress. In its Shilly shalling Over Aid 1o the nicaraguan centres Congress behaved contemptible. It is a felony to lie to Congress whether or not a witness is under oath but no one Ever has been convicted on such a charge. A trial jury aware of the lies that Congress tells the people might Well conclude thai turnabout is fair play. In its acc Cal report on inc Iran Contra affair the joint committee engaged in some heavy breathing about inc Rule of the majority after saying it would not express a View on criminal violations went on to express Lusty views on criminal violations. Mem Bers Drew inevitable conclusions that North and Poindexter and others were in violation of the Constitution and of applicable Laws and specifically the joint committee found them guilty of violating the appropriations clause of inc Constitution the anti deficiency act the National Security act. The false statement statute the Boland Amend ment the arms Export control act the presidential records act the Law on obstruction of Justice and the ordinance against parking in a Tow away zone shall we be serious about this Wispy arraignment William f. Buckley before an accused person May be tonic cd on Crimi Nal charges criminal intent must be shown and it must to shown beyond a reasonable doubt. Not one scintilla of evidence suggests that North and Poindexter Ever acted from criminal motives. Neither one of them pocketed a dime from the Sale of arms. The majority report quoted from article i of inc Constitution no Money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by Bui inc authors did not finish the sentence. The rest of it reads and a regular statement and account of the receipts and expenditures of All Public Money shall be published from Lime to time. Ever since the Central intelligence Agency came into being. Congress flagrantly has violated the last half of that sentence. The funds thai went to the contras May nol have been drawn from the Good lawyers will argue that inc Boland amendment prohibiting Aid to inc contras did no apply to the National Security Council. Under these arguable circumstances it is absurd to predict that North and Poinc scr will be convicted of mishandling Federal funds. The Constitution says among other things that the president shall be commander in chief of the armed services. In that capacity a president any president has vast discretion Over the disposition of weapons. If president Reagan chose to sell missiles to Iran As he did he surely was operating within his authority and those who carried out his orders accordingly arc protected. It is unthinkable or so it seems to me thai Reagan would permit his subordinates to be punished for seek More than an excess of loyally. Surely that is a Par Donable sin. 1c uru jul Prem s Gorbachev s rhetoric has an air of surrealism the key foreign policy utterance of the hectic 10 Days that took us to the arrival of Mikhail Gorbachev was Ronald Reagan a casually Given to four interview ers the thursday of the preceding week. Asked about the problem of Afghanistan he replied thai after All Gorbachev inherited Afghanistan. The whole melodrama of the inf treaty and sur rounding effusions has to do with the question nicely posed in the synecdoche whether Gorbachev inherited Afghanistan or whether Gorbachev inherited marxism leninism. Implicit in what or. Reagan said was that if it had been Gorbachev in charge Back in 1979, soviet troops would nol have gone into Afghani Stan. One could accept this without concluding that Gorbachev s appetite for expansion is less than that of his predecessors. One could reason that Gorbachev would have been Loo smart to involve himself in a War the soviet Union is having great difficulty in concluding. But marxism leninism docs not Rule against Pru Dence. But in an Efton to clarify the question of what Gorbachev is up to. One nem asks Why in the three years he has served As Leader has Gorbachev not succeeded in withdrawing soviet troops from Afghanistan one of these assessments has got to be Correct either Gorbachev is powerful enough decisively to alter the trajectory of soviet history or else he is nol that Power Ful or a Subtle alternative he is not Jei powerful enough but might Lux unit so. Much hangs on a Correct answer to that ques Tion. If Gorbachev is nothing More than Stalin or Khrushchev or Andropov or Brezhnev in a Gray flannel suit successfully practising the arts of Madison ave nue then nothing has changed except that we arc in greater danger than when confronting men whose faces and behaviour arc As curmudgeonly As their souls. If Gorbachev has in mind the disintegration of the West Ern Alliance and the conclusive intimidation of . Policy then we arc unfolding a red carpet for him. If by his dramatic destruction of 1,700 redundant nuclear weapons and a firm intention to dominate Europe he has caused us to surrender the Only thinkable deter rent to soviet conventional preponderance Ihen he has snookered us for Good and All. If he truly seeks change Hen Providence is smiling on us. Now Gorbachev told a meeting of . Intellectuals that he could nol comprehend those who have taken up the cudgels against the newly found elements of Mutual understanding and cooperation that have appeared in preparation for the signing of the question Why arc they newly found at what pre Vious Point in postwar history has the United states been unwilling to engage in effective disarmament barring any weakening of our deterrent Power sup pose that one of our intellectuals had said that he could not understand Why the soviet Union had deployed intermediate Range missiles in the first place. What was he provocation and Why arc we All supposed to celebrate the withdrawal of something that should never have been there in the first plate and Gorbachev said at the White House Arri Val ceremonies history has charged the governments of our countries and the two of us or. President with a solemn duly to justify the Hopes of americans and soviet people and of people the world Over to undo the logic of the arms race by working together in goo Faith. Now unless Gorbachev is prepared explicitly to renounce his ideological mandate history has charged the Soviel government Wilh a single solemn responsibility namely to be the instrument for the socialization of the Enli re Gorbachev is saying that there is a new View of history he shares with other leaders of the soviet Union then that new View of history has got to reject soviet activity that is not alluded to in the trealy Mak ing its Way to the Senate. If history now has a solemn duty to justify the Hopes of people everywhere inc soviet Union can ratify this new View of history by a eel ing out of Afghanistan b getting out of Cuba and Nicaragua c destroying the Berlin Wall and d demo Bilzing 90 percent of its conventional armed forces. What gives the High flying rhetoric of last week its air of surrealism is the Lack of correspondence Between soviet rhetoric and soviet action. Forcing us to con clude that perhaps the reason Gorbachev inherited Afghanistan is the same reason that he inherited the leadership of the soviet Union to proc cult the great historical struggle using new tactical forms forms no More different from marxist orthodoxy than the new economic policy by which Lenin sought 10 save his crumbling Economy in 1921. Cun or i prom
