PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION WESTERN ALLIANCE FUTURE INVOLVED IN THE RESULT

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30588, 3 November 1964, Page 12

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION WESTERN ALLIANCE FUTURE INVOLVED IN THE RESULT

[By the Washington Correspondent of "The Times") A good many Americans resent the intense European interest in this year’s Presidential election, and some say that Senator Barry Goldwater, the Republican candidate, has been 'misrepresented across the Atlantic. He is said to be misunderstood because the issue to be decided for western Europe on November 3 is not the choice between a reliable and an allegedly trigger-happy Atlantic leader, but whether the present differences within the alliance should continue under President Johnson or be resolved by the Republican candidate.

The Senator likes to see himself as a defender of the alliance, and a spokesman for the lesser European members. For him, the dispute with President de Gaulle and the apprehension of many West Germans are the consequences of Democratic softness on communism. Other speakers say that a Republican Administration would not have scuttled Skybolt, and would have invited France to attend the Nassau conference. They show a commendable concern for West Germany, and insist that under a Republican President there would have been no approaches to the Soviet Union without full consultation and co-operation with Bonn.

Nor has this unexpected European movement within the Goldwater party been without its inspiration idealism. In Cincinnati last month the candidate said:— Let us look to the flowering of an Atlantic civilisation: the whole of Europe reunified and freed, trading openly across its borders, communicating with the world. Let us look and thrill to the advance of the Atlantic civilisation, joined by its great ocean highway to the United States. What a destiny can be ours. . . . All this has not been without success, at least in galvanising the Democrats to show some interest in the alliance. The charge that N.A.T.O. has been neglected moved President Johnson to announce that, if elected, he would visit Paris immediately to reinvigorate the alliance. Fellow Crusader Yet it cannot be reported that our ancient continent or American relations with its indispensable allies have received more than modest and rather mechanical attention during the campaign. The announcement of the President’s visit,, unprecedented if it is to take place before the inauguration, surprised the Department of State as much as the European embassies. Neither advice nor invitations had been sought. On the Senator’s side the most diligent search of the record failed to uncover any abiding European interest. There is only an assumption that the alliance would be a willing partner in some future crusade against communism. Judging from his remarks, Senator Goldwater would see Mr Strauss, the former West German Defence Minister, and not President de Gaulle, as a fellow crusader. Britain apparently has been abandoned, perhaps regretfully, but as

a victim of creeping socialism she is obviously lost. Listening to these exchanges, one could possibly despair of the American system if it was not known that they are a kind of approximate shorthand in a debate of immense importance for this country and western Europe. Senator Goldwater is in this case offering the electorate a choice, and not merely echoing the wild ambitions of right-wing extremists with no decisive role in the American future. He is in fact trying to reopen a debate that most of the country, Democrats and non-Goldwater Republicans alike, assumed has been decided once and for all time. Loyalty Unquestioned To understand the substance of his position it must be realised that he is speaking for those senior military officers who strenuously oppose the American diplomatic and national security objectives that have painfully come into focus since the most frozen period of the cold war. He is not a good spokesman—it is said that he cannot always remember his briefs and often gets things wrong—but he is their confident and willing representative. He believes, as they believe, that they know what is best for the country because of their professionalism and the dominant role they once played in shaping American defence and foreign policies. Thus, indifferently or otherwise, he represents a powerful force in American public life, the militant military. I am not referring to such confused men as the former General Edwin Walker, who saw a Benedict Arnold under every barrack room bed and resigned his commission to join the extremists; nor am I suggesting the possible emergence of a military junta This is the United States and military loyalty is not in question. They are patriots who fiercely believe that the path now being tentatively cleared towards nuclear sanity, to accommodations and some degree of disarmament, is already a six-lahe highway leading directly to appeasement and national disaster. This internal struggle is not new; President Eisenhower spoke of it in his farewell address. “Daedalus,” the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, subsequently said:— The President’s words highlighted an increasing concern with the relations between the military and big business, the role of military leaders In shaping foreign policy decisions, their struggles to get more of the taxpayers’ dollars, their opposition to disarmament, and their links with radical right extremists. Senator William Fulbright, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, carefully documented the connexion with the radical right. Into Seats of Power It is worth recalling that during the Second World War

the generals and the admirals moved from political isolation into seats of power, and formulated defence and foreign policy while the civilian secretaries, including the Secretary of State, played only marginal roles, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Admiral Leahy in 1945, were under no civilian control whatever.

This military domination continued to a remarkable degree until President Kennedy took office determined to control all manifestations of American power as a prerequisite for the achievement of his national securitydiplomatic objectives. He was assisted by military technological developments and changes in strategy demanding civilian control not only from the White House but within the Pentagon. The new military doctrines of nuclear deterrence, the concepts of a nuclear balance, second strike capacity, and counter-force and countervalue, were all of civilian origin. Strategy, and even weapons procurement, is no longer decided by the military but by civilians, Mr it McNamara, the Defence Secretary, his so-called “whizz kids,” and brain factories such as the Rand Corporation and the Hudson Institute.

This fundamental change, in the relationship of the military to the civil, and in foreign policy and military strategy, was marked by a series of milestones: the socalled muzzling of the military to ensure that foreign policy statements would come only from the White House and the State Department; the internal struggle over the nuclear test ban treaty, and complaints that not a single new weapons system had been introduced during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. All provided convenient stumps for Senator Goldw’ater’s attacks, which were said to have been. rehearsed under military guidance. New Policy

They met with little success, and the new policy finally emerged. It can be briefly summarised as the maintenance of a nuclear balance during a search for accommodations with the Soviet Union until such time as progressive disarmament together with political-strategic adjustments can be safely embarked upon. It called for a stern discipline in the formation and control of nuclear forces and moderation in the choice of diplomatic objectives. Widespread public support and understanding were evident, but Senator Goldwater accused the administration of being soft on communism. The choice before the electorate is thus clear in spite of the confusions of the campaign. If President Johnson is elected, one can only hope that the interests and differences of the allies will be considered, and that his journey to Europe will be more than the fulfilment of a hasty election pledge.