Peace Through Strength

[Music] thank you it was a great and joyful moment advancing from opposite directions American GIS and Soviet soldiers crushed the Nazi forces between them and joined hands at the Elba River World War II would soon be over the United States and the Soviet Union were allies then and many Americans assumed they would become friends thank you we have never been close to the Soviet Union we weren't even close to the Soviet Union during World War II that was an alliance of convenience to defeat a much worse and much greater danger to both of us the important thing about this Soviet Union is that it is the last of the great multinational empires in World War one and World War II every other Empire in the world was destroyed the German Empire with the astro-hungarian Empire the Ottoman Empire all disappeared at the end of the war the tsarist Empire would have disappeared also except for the Russian Revolution and the historical function the Communists played in Russian history was to give the tsarist Empire a new lease on life and back the Communists have recreated the Israel Empire it will continue as Empires attempt to do to expand more and more [Music] in America we seek Freedom not expansion yet the Soviet Union accuses us of being aggressors why Dr Edward lutbach of Georgetown University's Center for international and strategic studies Soviet leaders keep accusing us of being a grass source and in a way they're right because our freedom and especially the freedom of Western Europe that we uphold and guarantee are aggressions from the Soviet point of view the freedom of Western Europe that we ensure keeps Eastern Europe restive because in Germany and France and Italy there's a free press there's free television radio there's all these images coming out of there the peoples of Poland Czechoslovakia Hungary uh never settled down and accept Imperial rule so for the point of view of the Imperial rulers in Moscow the mere fact that we are free and protect Freedom overseas that is an aggression in itself if this is true isn't the Soviet system too fragile to compete with ours I think that the record shows that the realities is quite opposite it is the Soviet Union that has a strategy namely the classic Imperial strategy of controlling what you have and projecting your power beyond it to better preserve what can happen and it is they will have taken the initiative ever since 1944 when they wanted at the time we handed the time when they want to hunker down and toughen up there is no return when they want to expand they have been able to do so the Soviet Union pursues what's known as a grand strategy that is a strategy that integrates a politics economics military power and ideological psychological means to attain a general objective of the government democracies find it very difficult to pursue this kind of policy because they do not control the economies or the media they have a single-minded strategy of world expansion what do we have it is very difficult for us to be taken seriously as a strategic power or as a negotiating partner on arms control agreements for that matter if we continually change the underlying premises every four years of the way we deal with the Soviet Union with strategic programs and With Arms Control [Music] thinks that if we can't we begin to agree among ourselves on at least the rough outlines of how we're going to deal with the Soviet Union what our strategic programs ought to be what the general type of Arms Control approaches we ought to offer to them would be we're going to find ourselves unable to either sustain a reasonable strategic program or to sustain a reasonable approach toward Arms Control the Soviet Union resolutely pursues a unified strategy to meet its goals we do not what are the consequences as Soviet dissident Andre sakarov has said there has been Relentless worldwide Soviet expansion the Soviet Union invaded Poland Finland and the Baltic states early in World War II while the Soviets were allies of Nazi Germany at the end of the war the Soviet Union subjugated East Germany Romania Bulgaria Hungary and Czechoslovakia putting down public uprisings with tanks in these last two countries later it invaded Afghanistan with Soviet troops directly threatening Pakistan and the Middle Eastern oil fields the Soviet Union has established military bases in Ethiopia Angola Vietnam and Cuba with basing rights in Iraq [Music] Soviet military advisers arms and intelligence agents are stationed in Syria Libya benis Congo Equatorial Guinea the Cape Verde Islands served home and Principe South Yemen and Peru using Cuba as an air and Naval Base the Soviet Union has helped install and arm a Marxist regime in Nicaragua and supplied arms to Marxist guerrillas in El Salvador these strategic positions allow them to strangle Train by cutting off free world access to primary sources of energy and necessary minerals [Music] on a broader scale the Soviet Union has launched a worldwide propaganda campaign the Soviet Ministry of Defense boasted recently that side by side with the mighty forces of the countries of socialism and other peace-loving states there exists representatives of the mighty anti-war movement protested the installation of a handful of America's second strike cruise missiles but made no equivalent protest against the 900 First Strike Soviet Warheads already aimed at them in America One Peace group called America and oligarchy that oppresses the masses another group described the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as a desire to share close relations with a neighbor a letter supposedly written by the Ku Klux Klan to threaten foreign athletes attending the 1984 Olympic Games was examined by intelligence experts they were not produced or sent by the Ku Klux Klan they were instead manufactured and mailed by another organization devoted to Terror the KGB a teacher's workbook called choices published by the National Education Association inaccurately Compares our MX missile to the Hiroshima bomb but says nothing about the already installed Soviet ss-18 missiles twice the size of our MX a century ago Karl Marx proclaimed terrorism as a tool of Revolution intelligence organizations have pinpointed terrorist training camps in Cuba Moscow and Eastern Europe a professional terrorist shot Pope John Paul II in 1981 after he had castigated Soviet tyranny in his native pollen the terrorist Ali Aja confessed that the plot was engineered by the Bulgarian secret police agents of the Soviet KGB they handed the KGB later head of state was Yuri on dropoff [Music] the military balance in the 1960s we kept the Peace by maintaining overwhelming superiority in strategic weapons then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announced a unilateral nuclear freeze saying the Soviets wouldn't try to catch up or pass us was he wrong he was absolutely wrong through the whole negotiating session of salt II where the U.S actually did not modernize its forces at all we've seen the greatest buildup of nuclear weaponry in modern history as a matter of fact the greatest buildup in history so Not only was he wrong he was terribly wrong the balance today in terms of systems that are most threatening certainly shifted in favor of the Soviets not only in terms of numbers but in terms of capabilities and in terms of number of warheads the bipartisan scowcroft commission comprising top defense experts from past administration States the Soviets now probably possess the necessary combination of ICBM numbers reliability accuracy and Warhead yield to destroy almost all of the 1047 us ICBM silos using only a small portion of their own ICBM Force then the members of the commission added this chilling warning most Soviet hardened targets of which ICBM silos are only a portion could withstand attack by our other strategic missiles our other strategic weapons are carried by our obsolete v-52 bombers and our aging submarines nor can we stop incoming Soviet missiles today the United States cannot intercept any Soviet missiles or anybody else's ballistic missiles that's in contrast with what the Soviets can do they have deployed at least up to or beyond the treaty limitations around Moscow and can stop a U.S can slow down a U.S attack can cause some uncertainty to us the Soviet Union has a substantial civil defense program and has been developing since the end of World War II it applies on a compulsory basis to the entire country and to all administrative and territorial institutions down to Villages individual factories schools and so on the result is that the Soviets have a system which combines protection of the population in place meaning Sheltering and the construction of blast shelters particularly in areas that they regard to be possible targets for an attack they have a very large Civil Defense Force of of some 16 to 20 million trained people they have a program for the protection of industrial resources and they have a compulsory civil defense instruction program for the entire Soviet population which begins in the second grade and continues nearly on a yearly basis through the people's retirement the net assessment is an unhappy one we are inferior in military power and defense emapped in propaganda indecisive in third world struggles and disunited at home the Soviet Union acts from an all-encompassing World strategy since we have none as they act we react yet we have a great strength where they are weak we are free our citizens vote as they wish work at what they choose and say what they think in a letter smuggled from Exile Andrei sakharov described what happens to anyone who speaks out in the Soviet Union the opportunity to criticize the policy of one's national leaders in matters of War and Peace as you do freely is in our country entirely absent not only critical statements but those merely factual in nature may not even much less important questions often entail arrest and a long sentence of confinement or psychiatric prison some experts believe that internal repression and a failing economy threaten a crisis for the Soviet system many people regard this as impossible and yet it has happened Poland had a bloodless revolution in which the party was in effect removed from power and for a while a power pass into the hands of the century trade unions until a military coup took place in the Soviet Union something very similar could occur the Soviet Union has a strategy of expansion and repression it also has trouble holding its empire together what strategy should we develop to have a strategy we need a goal and one has been defined with remarkable consistency by several American presidents the American people desire and are determined to work for a world in which all nations and all peoples are free to govern themselves as they see fit and to achieve a decent and satisfying life yet our basic goal Remains the Same a peaceful world community of free and independent states free to choose their own future and their own system so long as it does not threaten the freedom of others let us now begin a major effort to secure the best a crusade for Freedom that will Engage The Faith and fortitude of the Next Generation for the sake of peace and justice let us move toward a world in which all people are at last free to determine their own destiny to fulfill this bipartisan National goal 157 organizations with 15 million members enlisted in a National Coalition for peace through strength a piece through strength resolution was sponsored by 257 members of Congress from both parties 40 percent were Democrats peace through strength the two are inseparably connected and anyone who misses the connection between peace and strength does not know anything about history I invited many educational institutions and organizations to cooperate in this effort and I'm pleased to say that over 500 colleges universities and think tanks accepted my invitation this remarkable response is the best indicator that America is ready to close the strategy Gap the recommendations of these Americans and their institutions have been summarized in a new book entitled a strategy for peace through strength a panel of leading strategists and Scholars has produced the text strategists agree that a first priority must be restoration of America's military strength to reduce the risk of war in order to deter War one simply has to be able to put the military forces of the other side at risk and not sit here threatening only the people of the Soviet Union our national security policy is based on a Triad of forces that Triad being man bombers land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine lost ballistics now in order for that Triad to have any validity to be viable all three legs of it must be modernized Soviets and out distances terms of icy beans ours desperately need updating that's why we need enact so badly it's the first B1 and that we'll deliver will be the best state-of-the-art airplane possible it improves over the B-52 by a factor of 50 percent which means it can escape in half the time it takes the v-52 the alert B-52 to get off the ground today its ability to penetrate defenses is based principally on what a thing that we call its radar cross-section it's radar cross section is 1 100 of existing B-52s we produced the first Trident II submarine in 1982 it had been 15 years since we produced our last submarine Edward lutbach warns that replacing old weapons will not be enough we must reclaim strategic superiority the way the balance was maintained was that our strategic nuclear superiority American Western nuclear superiority balanced the Soviet Army the great superiority of the Soviet Army now today the Soviet Army is stronger than it ever was in relative terms but America's strategic nuclear sociology has gone hence you now have an imbalance one of the reasons I am a strong advocate of this policy is because history clearly shows that only a superior War fighting capability can deter an aggressor forces that cannot win cannot deter America's strategy must rely on technological innovation and on alliances to balance the tremendous power of the Soviet Union both Innovation can create a Strategic Defense for America there's a menu of potential defensive weapons that you can look at some of them fall in that category that some call the Star Wars those are decades away but the shorter term stuff the the kind of thing that we prove that we are on the verge of doing when we fired a missile a claudulent a toll in June 1984. we hit an incoming ballistic missile fired from Vandenberg California about a four thousand mile flight and we went well above 100 miles several hundred miles out and we hit it no nuclear in fact we had put a parasol on it so that if we missed we'd still hit enough of it to destroy it those kinds of weapons are nearer at hand some critics say that no such defense can be perfect Dr Robert jastrow of Dartmouth University founder of NASA's Institute for space studies has an answer well their facts are right of course but the criticism really seems to me to be factuous because if we could even knock down 50 percent of the Soviet attacking missiles and we can do that almost do it now uh the uncertainty as to which ones we're going to get through and which ones are going to be shot down would be paralyzing to the Soviet attacker and that uncertainty would discourage him so that he would never launch the surprise attack in the first place can we really afford a civil defense program but the most expensive aspect generally is regarded as the provision of blast shelters for the entire population at risk that is all the people in urban areas and near military installations so forth who might be targeted that comes out to approximately 60 billion dollars total it's been projected that way or roughly 300 per person it's an American life the life of an American citizen worth three hundred dollars uh as an investment considering the taxes he pays and the productive life he has and so forth how can we roll back Soviet expansion and help those who fight for freedom there quite obviously is a struggle going on for the future of Central America in almost all those countries there is low intensity Warfare guerrilla warfare insurgencies going on in virtually every country except Costa Rica and the outcome of those conflicts will decide whether the Central American Republic's uh evolve along Democratic lines or whether they become communist totalitarian states that is what is basically at stake and Central America it will not in my belief require major U.S intervention to shift the balance in favor of democracy but it will require substantial economic assistance it will require military assistance it will require a military advice [Music] I think we have been shamefully neglectful in Afghanistan we have done very little for these poor people who are being genocidally murdered by Soviet troops and in other areas in Angola and elsewhere we can support indigenous forces experts believe we should use America's Communications technology strong signal radio video cassette programs and Direct TV broadcast by satellite to penetrate the Iron Curtain and help Soviet citizens transform their society from within the Soviet Republic and the public in other areas and the Communist control is extremely eager to hear the facts mainly the facts about themselves they want to know the truth about themselves in our radio stations can and to some extent perform the function of a free press in communist societies they have an enormous impact there are tens of millions of people in this Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe who listen regularly to Western broadcast Western broadcast would make greater appeal to the ethnic minority nationalism than they do there is a possibility of utilizing television that would be an extremely powerful the new strategy has far-ranging support it has been endorsed by the Coalition of peace through strength by Republicans and Democrats in the Congress by 500 colleges universities and think tanks most recently in a scientific random sample survey of American households by the opinion research Corporation eighty percent of Americans agree that America should have a national strategy of peace through strength 78 agree we should pursue positive non-military means to roll back communism 72 percent agree we should help our allies and other non-communist countries to defend themselves nearly 62 percent agree we should seek overall military and technological superiority over the Soviet Union nearly 85 percent agree we should create a strategic and civil defense that protects our citizens at least as well as Soviet citizens are protected what I'm describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people [Music] support for a national strategy of peace through strength is both Broad and deep and this offers hope for the future because history tells us that there will be peace and it will come through strength the questions are who's Peaks and whose strength we all want peace though we may differ on how to preserve peace with freedom tell us whether you agree or disagree with the strategy of peace through strength we'll tell your senators and Congressman what you say write peace poll Boston Virginia 22713 [Music]