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Show aLw T o x. Would you favor a freeze in the production of nuclear weapons? Why or why not? Dave Sundquist Yes. I don't want to die in a nuclear holocaust. PageA2 Thursday, April 22, 1982 DMfiitaDiriiaJl nrr.TT-K rrsTn tvtt r MLKJUillJUU 1 . t ' Nukes : our only choice is to stop For the first time since the early 1960s, the anti-nuclear movement is back in the headlines. Back then it was those wild-eyed English radicals, chanting chan-ting "Ban The Bomb" and painting peace symbols on ever-thing. ever-thing. Or so it seemed. Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic, Atlan-tic, people were digging holes in their yards for fallout shelters, and the government was stocking every available protected public place with boxes of crackers and cans of water. Then the mania subsided. The protests dwindled, the shelters were forgotten, and rodents raided the civil defense de-fense supplies. We had other things to worry about, like Vietnam, Watergate, higher gas prices. Then, in 1979, came Three Mile Island. It was a jarring reminder that, even when used for peaceful purposes, nuclear power can be deadly. Meanwhile, our weapons stockpiles have been growing by the thousands of megatons. Both the United States and the Soviet Union have assembled enough firepower to obliterate each other several times over, and upset the ecosystem on the rest of the planet. Now we are starting to confront the monster we have created. But, unlike the early '60s, the anti-nuclear movement has a different tone. It's not just a bunch of "crazed" European hippies, or a few survivalists trying to hide their heads in underground fallout shelters. It's U.S. senators, groups of professionals, television networks, news magazines all with the same underlying message: enough! Let's stop this insane drive to destroy ourselves and our planet. The White House tells us that we have to negotiate from a position of strength, that it takes muscle to bring the Soviets to the bargaining table. So how much muscle do we need? How many nuclear submarines do we have to put in the Indian In-dian Ocean to make the Soviets think twice about attacking first? Do we have to turn every corner of our own country into a bristling arsenal as well? The anti-nuclear movement in general, and this week's Ground Zero activities in particular, are doing us a favor. They're forcing us to ask ourselves these questions, to con-tront con-tront the possibility of a nuclear war, perhaps to start the wheels in motion for a reduction of nuclear weapons. Granted, it's not a simple issue. There are some very tough problems, like working out a means of limitation that can be verified by both sides, and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and technology to other countries. The list of nuclear powers gets longer all the time. The longer the list, the greater the chance that a nuclear weapon will be used. What's the alternative to arms limitation? We could go ahead and have a war, and destroy not only ourselves but everything else that this planet has taken billions of years to produce. Do we really have a choice? -DH 1NCASE0FAHUCLEAR ATTACK,! WILL ISSUE AGWL DEFENSE MAP LOCATING THE NEAREST PUBLIC Anderson Weekly gpcctoflKEK: Falklands crisis spotlights weakness of U.S. intelligence Washington The showdown between be-tween Argentina and Britain over the Falkland Islands has some of the comic aspects of an old Marx Brothers or Peter Sellers movie. But there is one feature of the episode that is no laughing matter for the United States. One again, U.S. intelligence agencies were caught napping. Like the debacle in Iran three years ago, the Falkland Islands crisis came as a total surprise to the White House. President Reagan should have been told long ago that trouble was brewing over the tiny islands in the South Atlantic. Even in a police state like Argentina, a military action of this size could hardly have been kept a complete secret. Where were our eyes and ears in Buenos Aires when preparations for the invasion were being made? The Reagan administration has been cultivating the Argentine military junta for more than a vear nowL And the Argentine generals have oeen doing their best to make friends in Washington. They have even offered to help in the CIA's efforts to destabilize the government of Nicaragua. Surely there must have been someone close enough to the Argentine military men to find out what was about to happen. Or at least someone, either in Buenos Aires or here in Washington, with enough knowledge of the situation to figure out that an armed invation was likely. Yet by the time President Reagan learned what was happening, it was too late for the United States to do anything about it. The president called Gen. Leopoldo Fortunado Galtieri and tried to get him to call off the invasion. It was much too late: The invasion had already begun. President Reagan was thus left on the horns of a dilemma. He didn't want to alienate Argentina. But at the same time, he couldn't afford to let the British down. They have always been our most dependable ally. So whatever he did or didn't do, the United States was likely to end up losing. All this could have been avoided if the president had been given adequate intelligence. If he had known what was coming far enough in advance, he might have been able to prevent the Falkland Islands invasion. Instead, his appeal to the Argentine leader was simply an embarrassment. By then, Gen. Galtieri couldn't have called back his troops even if he had wanted to. Once again, an American president was let down by his intelligence services. Meanwhile, we have learned that Argentina may be willing to call off its occupation of the Falkland Islands. This is what Secretary of State Alexander Haig confided to President Reagan, according to a transcript of their conversation. Haig told the president that the Argentinians probably would be willing wil-ling to withdraw and accept an international peacekeeping force on the islands. Haig added: "The Argentinians Argen-tinians are a little more flexible than the British." The president said his biggest fear was that a military confrontation might occur before an agreement can be reached. British warships are now patrolling the Falkland waters, and Reagan suggested "They'll want a skirmish to save face." Haig agreed that it would be difficult to get the British fleet to pull back. The secretary said: "They intend to remain in force until the peacekeeping force arrives." Andy Berntson I favor a freeze, but I don't think there's any possibility of it happening. It's got the whole world climbing the walls. lliiilSllil Mouson Vp ThP PYnpndirures currently used for the arms race could be used to ameliorate pressing social problems, hopefully creating a future political context that would make the nuclear arms buildup seem more obscene and irrational man nuoeaumcuuj Margaret Braae Yes, for both moral and economic reasons. I don't think the country's economy can stand the proliferation of nuclear weapons. I Michelle Boynton Yes. There are enough nuclear weapons around now to turn the earth into a smoldering cinder. As Lyndon Johnson said, the average human being cannot tell the difference between being killed by a 100 megaton or a 10,000 megaton bomb. Brian Carter Yes. We could spend the excess money on health, education, or me. llfUBffi by Stanley Karnow (BflaDDDsall View rff-rrtr - Election leaves El Salvador more polarized than ever The president's instructions to Haig were: "Do what you can. Don't put pressure on either country. I believe you've got your work cut out for you." The president also told Haig he was surprised that the British reacted so belatedly to the invasion, because they had a nuclear submarine in the area monitoring the Argentine military movements. HEADLINES AND FOOTNOTES: Is the Kev. Jerry Falwell, leader of the controversial Moral Majority, running out of money? He recently sent out a desperate plea for funds to finance his monthly newsletter, which promotes his conservative social views. He is asking for the contributions to pay for his $80,000-an-issue costs. He even asked us for money. And, incidentally, Falwell claimed he needed the funds by April 15 at the latest the same day his taxes were due. Jack Wooley, the chief lobbyist for the Environmental Protection Agency, kept hiring political appointees, even though the EPA budget was severely slashed. It soon became apparent that not enough money was available to pay the additional employees, so Wooley had to fire or reassign 17 of the people he had just hired. Uncle Sam demands his money on time every April 15, but he is tardy in paying many of his own bills. A recent federal audit discloses that nearly $10 billion owed by the government over a six-month period was paid late. The biggest losers: Already ailing small businesses. A law requiring the government to pay bills on time has been introduced in Congress. Copyright, 1982 United Feature Syndicate, Inc. WASHINGTON, D.C. "A stunning commitment to the power of the democratic process," enthused Secretary of State Alexander Haig following the impressive turnout in the El Salvador election last month. But such expressions of euphoria have faded here in Washington since then. For instead of reinforcing President Jose Napoleon Duarte, the moderate Christian Democrat, the election has strengthened the right-wing Salvadoran factions determined to scuttle land distribution and other reforms and return the country to an antiquated oligarchy. So, barring some brilliant diplomatic maneuver, El Salvador appears ap-pears to be headed toward political polarization as reactionary rule serves to fertilize the soil in which the leftist guerrillas can flourish. The situation has trapped the United States in a tough dilemma. The Reagan administration cannot walk away from the problem without increasing the prospects of an intensified inten-sified civil war that not only will ravage the already benighted Salvadoran people but may result, in the end, in a leftist victory. Yet it cannot plausibly support a right-wing regime dominated by Maj. Roberto D'Aubuisson, the head of the extremist Republican Alliance, whose instincts have been described by former for-mer U.S. Ambassador Robert White as "pathologically murderous." Even if the administration reluctantly reluctan-tly attempts to underwrite D'Aubuisson as the lesser of the evils, its chances of persuading Congress to back the accommodation are slim. During a visit to El Salvador the other day, a congressional delegation led by Democratic Rep. James C. Wright Jr. of Texas, the House majority leader, made it plain that only a centrist government dedicated to social and economic justice could expect to receive America aid. D'Aubuisson, judging from his own rhetoric, would not qualify. According to all accounts, including those of the perennial skeptics, last month's Salvadoran election was fair. Surprisingly, too, a large proportion of the citizenry defied a leftist boycott to cast ballots. But as former Ambassador White and other specialists familiar with El Salvador warned beforehand, it was a mistake to gamble on an election as a possible solution to the crisis. They argued that an election in which the leftists did not participate would be essentially meaningless because it foreclosed the hope of a reconciliation. As an alternative, therfore, the Reagan administration might have been wiser to urge and perhaps even pressure Duarte and the Salvadoran military high command to consider a negotiated settlement with the leftist insurgents. That approach would have been complicated. The rebels would not have laid down their guns, their only leverage, and they would have bargained hard. Nevertheless, the effort ef-fort would have been worth whileeven if it failed. To a large extent, I tluJc, the administration ad-ministration pushed for an election less out of a concern for what it might accomplish in El Salvador than what it could achieve on Capitol Hill. In my estimation, Reagan and Haig calculated that a trimph for Duarte would have endowed his government with legitimacy, and thus silenced the critics in Congress who have been agitating for negotiations with the leftists. lef-tists. This ploy was used repeatedly in Vietnam by John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, all of whom leaned on the Saigon government govern-ment to hold elections so that they could demonstrate to their opponents at home that they were backing a legal regime. The weakness in this device, however, is that it overlooks a fundamental fun-damental reality. Honest or not, an election in a nation locked in civil war is, at best, only a partial reflection of its opinion. The turnouts in Vietnam were always enormous, and still the Viet Cong prevailed. The "power of the democratic process" in El Salvador was dramatic, but the leftists are not going to evaporate. On the contrary, the conflict that already has cost 30,000 Salvadoran lives is likely to worsen, and, I would guess, so is the position and the reputation of the United States in Central Cen-tral America. (c) 1982 The Register and Tribune Syndicate Inc. Newspaper Subscription Rates, $6 a year in Summit County, $12 a year outside Summit County Published by Ink, Inc. USPS 378-730 Publisher jan Wilking Editor David Hampshire Advertising Sales Jan Wilking, Bill Dickson Business Manager Rjck Lanman Graphics Becky Widenhouse, Liz Heimos Staff Reporters Bettina Moench, Rick Brough, Morgan Queal Typesetting Sabina Rosser, Sharon Pain, Kathy Deakin Subscription & Classifieds ' Marion Cooney Distribution & Photography Michael Spaulding Entered as second-class matter May 25, 1977, at (he post office in Park City, Utah 84060, under the Act of March 3, 1897. Published every Thursday at Park City, Utah. Second-class postage paid at Park City, Utah. 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