European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 29, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 columns the stars and stripes George will Navy will remain object of special Contention Jim Webb was Oliver North s class mate at Annapolis where they had a celebrated boning Malch for the 147-Pound championship of the brigade. North wan. Webb Hales to lose fights wars or budget Battles. Thai is Why he re signed in protest after less than a year As Secretary of the Navy. Departing of end bladed Secretary of defense Frank Carlucci with scathing words to protest inc Navy s si2 billion contribution to the 13j billion contraction of the defense budget. To under stand the controversy begin As in poll lies one must by distinguishing the character of Itic actor from the Quality of the action. Webb the Warrior novelist is temperamentally unsuited to the culture of government. In a Brilliant Esquire Magazine essay on Webb and North. Robert Tim Bers a cons that when he asked Webb Why he look up writing his first novel Fields of fire in 1978 was a Best sell Crl Webb tiled a line from an Auden poem about Veals mad Ireland Bun you into from his service As a Marine officer in Vietnam Webb now 42, carries shrapnel in his head Back kidney Iofi Arm and left leg. He was the Man w take yonder Hill. Capitol Hill is another matter. Compromise May be Jim Fain Man s Best Friend if you try to Tell that to Webb take cover. Webb is a casually of a conservative administration s misrule. Reagan s Den its Are strangling Reagan s defense pro Gram including the pan thai a recently As Cap Weinberger s Farewell ceremony Reagan cited As a particularly glittering accomplishment the 600ship Navy. That goal now goes glimmering. The number 600 should not be treated As a Talisman but the defense budget and especially the Navy should be Tai lored to the nature of the nation s Security needs not budgetary convenience. The Navy is especially Central to recur ring american controversies. In i794, Congress having previously dissolved the Navy re established it As an alternative to paying perpetual tribute to Barbary pirates. But president Jeffer son. Who decried inc ruinous Folly of a Navy stopped construction discharged every naval constructor and dismantled Many ships. Flat Bottom boats in coastal water should thought suf Floc for a nation insulated from the world by wide oceans. However in 1889, Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Tracey who believed thai the sea will be the future scat of Empire broke Wilh past thinking in his annual report. He emphasized no coast Al defense but command of the sea based on battleship capable of defeating an enemy Fleet in mid Ocean shipbuilding was soon to become the of Large link Between inc military and Industry. The arrival of the United Stales As a world Power we announced Wilh naval Assou with the around Lac world cruise ordered by president Roosevelt in 1908-09, and the big Navy act of 1916 10 battleships 16 cruisers 50 destroyers 72 submarines 14 auxiliaries for a Navy second to none. The unil re Stales edged by ship toward involve ment in both world wars by arming merchantmen in 1917 and by aggressive behaviour in inc North Atlantic toward German vessels behaviour not quite compatible with neutrality. The Navy is suited to in John Paul Jones words go in harm s it is the most flew ble instrument for the projection of Power. Thus the Navy Engen Ders suspicion among those who do not want Power projected isolationists of the old sort who thought America was Loo Good for the world and the new sort who think the world is too Good for America furthermore. . Foreign policy in this Century has generally been eurocentric. Today the principal threat is perceived to be at inc Eastern end of the North German Plain which is primarily the army s problem. That problem is suited to the systems analysts Delight of quantifying threats and responses so Many tanks versus so Many countering systems. The Navy in its substantive and sym Bolic role expresses the notion s sense of destiny something hard to express Algebraically. A battleship off Lebanon when fed into a computer docs not com Pute. An aircraft Carrier can be trivialized by decisively abstract analysis it costs x dollars a Day to keep it near Libya in an operation it might delivery munitions meaning n High Cost per munition unit. But naval assets being movable men aces have effects that Are difficult to quantify. Things difficult to quantify arc inconvenient for analysts to credit. Tie evolution of the Navy exemplifies America s journey from coastal defense to global involvement. Many americans remain unreconciled to that journey so the Navy will remain a subject of special Contention whether or not it is presided Over by a Warrior like Webb. Wit con be kiss of death in o Politico Campaign humor is the cyanide Pill of electoral politics. Adlai Slevc Nunn was its wittiest modern Pra Clinion or. Lie could t have beaten Eisenhower if Dick Daley had been counting the Voles in tammany Hull list his inability to resist an elegant quip buried him deeper. Even Abe Lincoln found humor a Handicap it s no Surprise then that the funniest pair in the current Fidi Wen Ike earliest casualties. Gary Marl to. Bul he s funny by Accident not design the night before Alexander Haig folded his tent he Lold a Republican dinner in Nashua . These other Fellows keep reciting their resumes bul i m the Only one who s actually been president. 1 must say i enjoyed it lie May have been talking about the scene after president Reagan was shot when George Bush was out of town and Haig As Secretary of stale Sci cd a microphone to proclaim i m in charge Ever since. Ihrcke fourths of the country has regarded him not without rough Justice As a megalo maniac. That s the main reason he never got out of the Sale As candidate. The other he Tolu the Nashua audience my Friend. Mun Sahl. Snid to me Lal. You know Why Usu can t get elected president1 i did who .1 he Laid. Because everybody knows you re inc Only one of these Guys who. If he got elected would do i ii Ity what he says he s going to do " among or Morais. Bruce Babbitt who was not Long for the race. Lakes inc Crown seconded by wife Han someone handed Lla tie a baby in a shopping Center in other Day. She turned to Bruce with a Grin have 1 got a Surprise for i havin i been Home for nine months to a Babbitt protested. After a 13-Inch Snow in Concord . Babbitt Ano Luti cd for being late 10 a democratic dinner. I expected pal Kobe non would turn the storm out to sea in explained then he offered some advice in the gop. With Robertson As Nomine. They would need a Mode talc to balance the ticket he Laid. I of a i i an Mecham us embattled governor of Babbitt offered. Hell be available in one 10 ten the democratic Pany in Ohio some cats ago nominated a Lack from the Cleveland machine As a sacrificial Lamb to occupy a ballot vacancy against or. Re publican sen. Robert a. Taft no one was Ever sure whether this worthy a state auditor or something equally nondescript was comic by design or default. A reporter asked what he thought of Formosa then a thorny Issue. " i la carry it three to one he promised. When challenged to define his foreign policy he was ready. Beat Michigan he chirped. Tie quickest candidate Wilh a one liner in i ther party today is Bob Dole but he s humming Hail to the chief and determined to go straight. His bar bed wit has earned him a rap As sarcastic and mean thai he d like to shuck. Like any funny Man he can t always resist however. In the gop Manchester debate Moderator Edwin Newman asked him whether to commercials arc Good for the country. Mine arc Dole replied. Probably the Best epitaph for a losing candidate handicapped Wilh a sense of humor was pronounced by Stevenson As the returns piled up for Ike on their first election night. Stevenson quoted Lincoln quoting a Little boy who stubbed his toe. It hurts too much to laugh Ano i m Loo old to the opinions expressed in the columns mid cartoons on this Pitt represent those of the Al hours ind Are in no my to a considered a representing the Tiew of the Stan did stripes or the United is a its government
