Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 22, 1981)
The Battalion Viewpoint July 22, 1981 In Slouch By Jim Earle “Could you explain one more time how that helmet protects a skydiver if something goes wrong?“ Journalists watch out: diplomats have big ears By JIM ANDERSON United Press International WASHINGTON — Every so often, the State Department releases a bricksized volume in its series “Foreign Relations of the United States.” The heavy tomes, made up of some 1,600 pages of secret cables, memos and notes that are all more than 25 years old, make great door-stops. For the history buff with stainless steel eyeballs, the collections of declassified documents can also give an in sight into how foreign policy was made and how dull all those closed-door diplomatic conferences really are. The latest volume, from the Geneva con ferences of 1952 and 1954 dealing with In dochina and Korea, is a grinding exercise in futility. But, almost accidentally, the col lection of documents has a lesson in it for journalists. Diplomatic correspondents tend to think of themselves as collectors of information, gleaners who can put hints and opaque statements together to make a meaningful view of foreign policy in action. Several of the documents just declassi fied show that the reporters, to a degree they will find surprising, are themselves the source and channel of information that is collected and used by the diplomats. For example, one “confidential” cable to the State department from U.S. diplomat U. Alexis Johnson reported in 1954 that “several knowledgeable American corres pondents” had talked with an American press officer about their belief that the Chinese communist leadership was taking a role increasingly independent from that of the Soviets. The cable quotes “well-versed observers such as Edmund Stevens of the Christian Science Monitor, Ed Korry (then with Un ited Press and later U.S. ambassador to Chile) and Joe Fromm of U.S. News & World Report.” The Johnson cable says it was the consen- The Johnson cable ends with a diplomatic cop-out: “I do not entirely share these views but pass them on as of possible in terest. ” Ironically, another 1954 cable, this one from Secretary of State John Foster Dulles at Geneva, gives the official U.S. line: “There has been nothing to date indicating any differences of opinion between the Soviet Union and communist China.” Dulles flatly ordered that no official U.S. source should even hint that there were major Sino-Sovet differences. But six years later, when Russian advisers were pulled out of China, the State Department official ly recognized what had been apparent to a small group of reporters in Geneva: There were real differences between Moscow and Peking. Another memo from Johnson recounts in detail a dinner table conversation between J. Kingsbury Smith of International News Service and a man named Zhukov, a Soviet correspondent from Pravda. Zhukov, who apparently was more than just a Soviet newspaper reporter, laid out for Smith (who then passed it on to Johnson, who was head of the American delegation) much of the communist strategy in the In dochina conference. Smith, now national editor of Hearst Newspapers, says he had already written for INS what he passed on to the American delegation about the Zhukov conversation, and he had no idea that Johnson was meti culously passing on his dinner table chit chat to the State Department. The moral seems to be: Diplomats have big ears, and reporters should be careful when talking to them. The Battalion U S P S 045 360 MEMBER LETTERS POLICY Texas Press Association Smithwi'.t Journalism C.onenss Letters to the Editor should not exceed 300 words in , j length, and are subject to being cut if they are longer. The Editor , Angelique Copeland editorial staff reserves the right to edit letters for style and City Editor Jane Brust length, but will make every effort to maintain the author’s Photo Editor Greg Gammon intent. Each letter must also be signed, show the address Sports Editor Ritchie Priddy an d phone number of the writer. Focus Editor Cathy Saathoff Make-up Editor Greg Gammon Columns and guest editorials are also welcome, and are Staff Writers BernieFette, Kathy O’Connell, not subject to the same length constraints as letters. Denise Richter Address all inquiries and correspondence to: Editor, The Cartoonist Scott McCullar Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843. EDITORIAL POLICY The Battalion is published Tuesday, Wednesday and The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspaper Thursday during Texas A&M’s summer semesters. Mail operated as a community service to Texas A&M University subscriptions are $16.75 per semester, $33.25 per school and Bryan-College Station. Opinions expressed in The Bat- year and $35 per full year. Advertising rates furnished on talion are those of the editor or the author, and do not request. necessarily represent the opinions of Texas A&M Universi- Our address: The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald Build- ty administrators or {acuity members, or of the Board of ing, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843. Begents. ' The Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper for students in reporting, editing and photography classes United Press International is entitled exclusively to the within the Department of Communications. use for reproduction of all news dispatches credited to it. Questions or comments concerning any editorial matter Rights of reproduction of all other matter herein reserved. should be directed to the editor. Second class postage paid at College Station, TX 77843. Clouds gathering over GOF El By DAVID S. BRODER WASHINGTON — So many things are going so well for the Republicans these days that it seems almost churlish to suggest that there are a few clouds on the horizon. But there they are — and they may as well be acknowledged. First, though, the good news for the GOP. Ronald Reagan has reached his six- month anniversary in the presidency in re markable fine political fettle. That is attri butable to two interlocking accomplish ments. ternationally. The Ottawa economic talks, focusing on the overseas effects of Reagan’s unique mixture of high interest rates, budget stringency and tax cuts, is putting on display the tensions within the alliance 'over his fundamental economic policy. When the president comes home, he will face a series of decisions on major de- fesne weapons systems and the export of American arms to the Middle East, on all of which his own party in Congress is divided. He and his senior aides have done an extraordinary job of focusing public and congressional attention on their chosen agenda of budget and tax cuts. They have dominated the debate on those issues. Second, they have benefitted from thr re markable display of cohesiveness and acu men by the congressional Repulicans under Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker and House Minority Leader Bob Michel. Social Security looks like a political tar- baby for Reagan and the Republicans; in all the optimistic polling, the one jarring ele ment is the suspicion by large majorities that those now in power may jeopardize or cut back the most widely supported part of the social safety net. The administrations’s mishandling of the Social Security issue is worrisome — very worrisome — to Reagan loyalists on Capitol Hill. And that raises the third nagfe Despite the record of achieve® old Inc first six months, there is still slit: 0 rder are Washington about how deeplyaive, says s tively Reagan is engaged in thewB re m * > tendency to skate lightly over lit j-) r of many policy discussions. Itv. se( j amon to learn that for five days after ft e n referr staff had been briefed on tin anded do> Reagan was shielded from knowsually can a major scandal was about to bre3pl° rers a spymaster Hugel. Kimber „ , jent mon Soon, the President will depan^joug m0( vacation, and the questions al)(!. m ts from really minding the store are ak^ to rise in volume. Kimber vo groups Finally, for all their publicizecf exitail ' Al the Democrats are showing signs 011 ? , . c order folk mg one lesson from their morcsfe The teamwork of the White House and the GOP senators and representatives has been awesome to behold. The public is plainly impressed; each succeeding set of polls measures further progress by the Re publican Party toward majority status in the country and a highly competitive position in the 1982 congressional race. Second, there is a growing awareness in Washington that the Reagan White House is thinly staffed and perhaps stretched too far for the demands of the expanding agen da. The triumvirate of Ed Meese, Jime Bak er and Mike Deaver gets very high marks, as does budget chief Dave Stockman, con gressional liaison Max Friedersdorf, and public relations counselor Dave Gergen. past. They are saying with some : "Among on both the tax bill and Soc >day of fol issues that they are the party tkte vitality for the wage-earners, the vjjvHillCoui orphans and the Republicans a. r i ^ exas ^ e: of the affluent. uropean-i aence and It is not a subtle or elevatingi|^ ex ’ can but it has worked in the past. Mississippi special election sho^^ ^ j And yet ... and yet. There are at least four reasons to belive that the next few months may see some bumpy passages for the Reagan bandwagon and test the GOP in ways it has not been tested so far. First, the tightly controlled agenda is about to expand, both domestically and in- But there are conspicuous weaknesses in the non-budget domestic issues area and in all of foreign policy — weaknesses that the insiders acknowledge and whose consequ ences the public will soon enough come to see. The Max Hugel fiasco at the CIA was a warning sign that other national security disasters are waiting to happen. In that area, Reagan is in a race against time to shore up a sagging policymaking stucture. in the full flower of Reagan’s po offers the potential for unifying class constituency across racial; gical lines, and producing a vict Democrats now and then. None of this suggests that Reai political revolution are about to r j tracks. My own guess is that the: Robert N will come through this shakeout d wine-m ably good shape. But I’d be surp He was k quite the cakewalk or the triumpl ,sc hoolat’ sion these first six months have 3 Texas o tactly hon ;ars in Fn <W sus of the correspondents, based on the close observation of tiny hints such as the guest lists of diplomatic dinners, that Chou En-lai “has been making obvious efforts to forge (his) own foreign policy in the Far East.” TO TUB »vETK/i ST KS&Xm- BY THE vkhwo Mjmnrji. mrm ij/'J An enolc ttle or old unch a ca Unfortu alifornia t Jtoptimisi y in Texa: “About t n of a m ig Texa: McBryde “I was loc iehce will tistic,” Mi definitely | Armed wi re — the: amental dy wine- least, lik< Inat is wl frit enten very stri< nk. The i ie country Speaker ie August ises to be Reagan, summit both under fire fniversity. State Se ill address y medici id their g iremony i: By JIM ANDERSON United Press International WASHINGTON — When the members of OPEC, the cartel of oil-exporting states, jacked up their prices 400 percent in 1974, they started something new in summitry: the annual roving migration of statesmen, economists and journalists known as the Western economic summits. From a sense of collective alarm, the seven leading Western industrial democra cies were invited to meet in France in 1975. It has turned out to be an annual event. The political leaders of Canada, Britain, Japan, the United States, West Germany, France and Italy have gathered once each summer to plan joint actions for those prob lems which have a solution and to try to increase their common understanding of the insoluble issues. Have the summits done any good? The carefully considered answer, supplied by statisics and by statements from participat ing officials, is, “Yes, a bit.” They cite as examples: — The original idea of reducing depend ence on outside oil supplies has succeeded, to some extent. In the last seven years, the use of oil in all the countries dropped about 5 percent. It did not succeed in holding oil prices down and those costs have more than doubled in the last two years. — The cooperative economic action did not succeed in averting what is now seen to have been a full-scale recession in all the countries in 1980. But it did spread the burden around the industrialized coun tries. — The countries agreed to take joint action against international terrorism in 1978. The decision has not by any means eliminated transnational acts of terrorism but it has made them more difficult. — By coordinating their trade polices with the Soviet Union, the Western coun tries probably were able to exert more lev erage on the Soviets in the wake of Afgha nistan. However, the burden of that cooperation fell mainly on the United States, which saw its exports to the Soviet Union slashed 67 percent. — In last year’s summit at Venice, the seven nations agreed inflation was the chief villain in their combined economic crisis. Despite a big jump in oil prices, the coun tries have held to their word and concen trated on fighting inflation, even though unemployment rates rose in all countries as an indirect result. One of the inherent problems of the annual gathering of the seven nations is that they are not equals. The United States, with a gross national product of $2.4 tril lion, has an economic weight that is greater than the combined product of Canada, Bri tain, West Germany, France and Italy. This year, more than most, there is an underlying current of adversary politics within the group as the Western Euro peans, in a series of preliminary meetings, agreed upon action they think the United States should take. U.S. officials say much of the prelimin ary manuevering is meant for domestic political consumption in Europe. But, allowing for that, there appears toi' Dr. W.< genuine grievances against the Tarleton administration on three points: ? st w — The Reagan economic recovf uates^n 0 ram, while laudable for making^ dollar strong, is doing so in wayst% c j ie j or , s profound and sometimes harmftilfjnted at t] ences on the other countries - in Associa devaluing the French franc and tarter esti pound to make the dollar healthy ^ be gra — The Western Europeans, paflBBHI the West Germans, have close ec( and political links with Eastern Eni( they fear the sometimes stride^ Soviet rhetoric coming from Wail will create a new Cold War. %{ European nations, which havegainf! asure of economic and political ind' ence from Moscow during the f- f or detente, may once again be locked^ new Iron Curtain if the clock is tuff to the Cold War days. — Some of the Europeans doubt- Reagan administration is sincert ■ trying to reach an early agreement' 1 q f y Soviets on arms control. The Rea$ " / cc Soviets on arms control. The Reaga 1 nistration scrapped the painfully ad Q £y SALT II agreement and has shownt- / of urgency in approaching the So' 1 ^ TV talks to limit long-range nuclear f / stationed in Europe. American officials warn that nod And Ie results are expected from the Otta' c Conditi mit. That is another way of say#! think they can contain the criticisitj other nations and the industrial' the summit will be pretty much lib before. Sped 0