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2
2
THE
HERITAGE
LECTURES
The Rule of Law
271
in the
Soviet Union:
A Necessary
Framework for
Democratic
Reform
By Dick Thornburgh
The
T
Herîtage Foundation
The
Herîtage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation was established in 1973 as a nonpartisan, tax-exempt policy
research institute dedicated to the principles of free competitive enterprise, limited govern-
ment, individual liberty, and a strong national defense. The Foundation's research and study
programs are designed to make the voices of responsible conservatism heard in Washington,
D.C., throughout the United States, and in the capitals of the world.
Heritage publishes its research in a variety of formats for the benefit of policy makers, the
communications media, the academic, business and financial communities, and the public
at large. Over the past five years alone The Heritage Foundation has published some 1,000
books, monographs, and studies, ranging in size from 953-page government blueprint,
Mandate for Leadership III: Policy Strategies for the 1990s, to more frequent "Critical
Issues" monographs and the topical "Backgrounders" and "Issue Bulletins" of a dozen
pages. Heritage's other regular publications include the SDI Report, U.S.S.R. Monitor,
Heritage Foundation Federal Budget Reporter, Business/Education Insider, Mexico Watch,
and the quarterlies Education Update and Policy Review..
In addition to the printed word, Heritage regularly brings together national and interna-
tional opinion leaders and policy makers to discuss issues and ideas in a continuing series of
seminars, lectures, debates, and briefings.
Heritage is classified as a Section 501(c)(3) organization under the Internal Revenue
Code of 1954, and is recognized as a publicly supported organization described in Section
509(a)(1) and 170(b)(1)(A)(vi) of the Code. Individuals, corporations, companies, associa-
tions, and foundations are eligible to support the work of The Heritage Foundation through
tax-deductible gifts.
Note: Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of The
Heritage Foundation or as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before Congress.
The Heritage Foundation
214 Massachusetts Avenue, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20002
U.S.A.
202/546-4400
The Rule of Law in the Soviet Union:
A Necessary Framework for Democratic Reform
By Dick Thornburgh
Whether or not the present 28th Communist Party Congress in Moscow is, as some pre-
dict and more hope, a true precursor to the "withering away of the Party," the extraordinary
debate which is taking place in that forum parallels in important ways President
Gorbachev's stated desire to create a "law-based state" - a Soviet Union founded on the
rule of law.
Heritage Analyst Leon Aron has identified the creation of "a government vested with au-
thority and having enough legitimacy to administer the very bitter pill of radical economic
reform as the central and most urgent issue of Soviet politics today."
It is my view, in the context of recent exchanges between the Department of Justice and
our Soviet counterparts, that the rule of law provides the only basis upon which such a gov-
ernment can eventuate from the upheaval under way in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Eu-
rope.
Our October 1989 trip to the Soviet Union - the very first by a sitting United States Attor-
ney General - occurred at the very beginning of the Supreme Soviet's effort at institutional
reform and enabled us to open an historic, and continuing, dialogue on the rule of law and
human rights.
It was a remarkable experience. At the invitation of Soviet Minister of Justice, Venyamin
F. Yakovlev, we met for a week with Soviet leaders in the fields of law enforcement and the
administration of justice - ministers, jurists, law students, even the Chief of the K.G.B., Vla-
dimir Kryuchkov. Our agenda was a full one, devoted to topics central to what makes our
democracy work: our Bill of Rights, our federal system, the principle of separation of pow-
ers, with its checks and balances, our two-party political process - all from that curriculum
of liberties we teach (but don't always learn) in our basic high school civics courses.
Placing in Context. And I have to credit our Soviet hosts, even at that early juncture,
with a bold exercise in pursuing political discussions which were open and free-ranging, cov-
ering everything from our mutual interest in stopping international terrorism to their obliga-
tion - as we see it, and they increasingly recognize it - to allow freer emigration of Soviet
Jews. But our talks still took place within an historical legal context that must be under-
stood if their present difficulties are to be fully recognized, or ever surmounted.
To summarize abruptly a great deal of history, Soviet justice derives from three legal tra-
ditions: customary law among the peasantry, the imperial law of the Czars, and, much later,
the Romanist law of civil codes. Customary and imperial law have had by far the over-
whelming impact, creating a government of men above the law, from the Mongols to the bo-
Dick Thornburgh is Attorney General of the United States.
He spoke at The Heritage Foundation on July 10, 1990.
ISSN 0272-1155. ©1990 by The Heritage Foundation.
yars to the Czars and beyond. Various formal codifications of imperial law did appear. But
the operative legal power was still vested in what we commonly know as the ukase. "A proc-
lamation of a Russian Czar," as Webster's says, "having the force of law."
Subordination of Law. This violently changed yet did not really change - when the Bol-
sheviks came to power. Initially Lenin abolished imperial law, along with private property,
and set up the people's courts. Judges were instructed to follow the decrees of the revolu-
tion - or their "socialist conscience." Later, Lenin and his successors moved to keep author-
itarian sway over the courts by what became known as "telephone justice." Party officials
frequently rang up judges, who then ruled in particular cases according to what the Party
told them to do. The ukase had been reduced, by 20th century technology, to a phone call.
The legalistic way was prepared for Stalin's Moscow show trials during the Great Terror
and, thereafter, the habitual subordination of the law to Party interests.
Against this unpromising background, so-called new thinkers in the Soviet Union have
now embarked upon what appears to be a truly idealistic and laudable attempt to establish
the rule of law - or in Gorbachev's words, a "law-based state." Could it actually happen?
So often you hear it optimistically said: remember that Mikhail Gorbachev was trained as a
lawyer. Yes, but so was Lenin.
The chances are certainly there - as we saw during that week, and continue to see as we
visit with Soviet officials and lawyers, both here and in the Soviet Union. Indeed, we are pre-
paring for a return visit by Minister Yakovlev next month to extend our dialogue on democ-
racy. But chances of success in this endeavor must always be measured against the long fa-
tigues of history - - the institutional neglect and political disrespect for what we know as the
rule of law.
What is really missing is what might be called a "legal culture." Time and again, for exam-
ple, we found an almost naive belief that all that was needed was to pass the correct stat-
utes, to get the right laws on the books to create a "rule of law." We did our best to try to
disabuse them of this legalistic and somewhat simplistic notion. Laws on the books, we ex-
plained, must be conscientiously obeyed and impartially enforced within a structure, and
through a process, recognized and acknowledged by all - citizen and bureaucrat alike.
The rule of law works in a democracy, we pointed out, because of the supremacy of the ju-
diciary, because men adhere to a government of laws, and act to see that the laws are en-
forced, in such ways that no man is above - or below - the law.
Practical Questions. Happily, the very things the Russians found most curious about our
democracy let us discuss those practices in our law that really make our democratic process
work. Our Ambassador to the U.S.S.R., Jack Matlock, reports this phenomenon is common
- as Soviet citizens seek him out to gain insight into the functioning of the most basic of
American institutions. Soviets quiz him on remarkably practical questions. If the Russians
are writing a law on the press, they might query, for example, "How do Americans treat
libel law? What can your press say? What can it not say?"
One of the first, most insistent questions I was asked by nearly everyone was, inevitably, a
constitutional one: How does your federal system work? How did you weld together the sep-
arate states as the United States? How do you keep things from falling apart through inces-
sant struggles between the national government and 50 different state governments?
2
Obviously, they are worrying about the unrest among their own republics. You only need
look at the independence movements in Lithuania and the other Baltic states - as well as
similar secessionist rumblings in the Republic of Russia under Boris Yeltsin and, most re-
cently, in Uzbekistan - to understand their anxiety. They are also looking to us for ways, if
you will, to deal with their own diversity.
Emphasizing Due Process. We gave them a very pragmatic answer to these inquiries. We
did our best to explain, "Look, this is the way we do it, but the central thing about our sys-
tem is its accommodation to change. Most of the mechanisms and components of our gov-
ernment are designed to accommodate change. And mastering that process is going to re-
quire far more than just the passage of new laws by the Supreme Soviet." It is going to take
a commitment to the lawful, democratic process, and we tried to emphasize legal process -
due process of law - even over substantive rights, as the true safeguard of the people's liber-
ties.
Again, they asked us often, and in much confusion, about the separation of powers. The
idea of deliberately building in a tension between separate branches of government - our
concept of checks and balances - was extremely puzzling to them and, to some, utterly in-
comprehensible. Accustomed to their own monolithic system, they would have to struggle
hard to understand, for example, Justice Brandeis's observation that we adopted the separa-
tion of powers in 1787 "not to avoid friction, but by means of the inevitable friction incident
to the distribution of government powers among the [branches], to save the people from au-
tocracy."
We called attention to their own guarantees of civil rights under the Soviet constitution.
There they are, all fully documented, like our own Bill of Rights. Only there is also the care-
fully worded escape clause: "Civil rights shall be protected by law - Just as our rule of law
would hold, but with this kicker. " - Except as they are exercised in contradiction to their
purpose in socialist society in the period of communist construction."
That, of course, admits the ubiquitous specter of Party tyranny. Attempts are being made
to toss this offensive language off the train by the new thinkers. But it's not litter down the
tracks of history yet. And still to come is the real test as to whether the Soviet courts them-
selves can and will act to protect the people's rights. In short, will respect for legal process
eliminate the prior abuses of "telephone justice"?
True reform must reach down into the legal culture itself, and create an inherent respect
not only for individual rights, but for legal procedure and due process. In a statement be-
fore the Communist Party Congress last Monday, K.G.B. Chief Kryuchkov affirmed this ele-
mental truth:
We cannot speak in favor of the universal development of democracy
and at the same time refrain from speaking in favor of law and order,
and the supremacy of the law. A society which allows the law to be
mocked is a diseased society
Fine words indeed, but one problem is that much of the motivation for legal reform is
coming from a different direction altogether.
3
The Soviets face one great, dire urgency - besides national unrest - and that is their econ-
omy. To survive, they must enter the free world marketplace. To do that, they realize they
must position themselves to recognize - and take advantage of - the rules of free com-
merce. The rule of law is the fundamental prerequisite for turning away from a command
economy - to a market economy.
Respect for Contracts, Property. One of the Soviets' principal reasons for their great in-
terest in the rule of law is just that they have an immediate and pressing need to jump-
start their participation in the world economy, to attract foreign know-how and investment.
To do that, they realize they must display the predictability and stability that can only
emerge from a body of commercial law which, in turn, respects the sanctity of contracts
and, yes, recognizes property rights as well. Fear of abrogation of contract rights or expro-
priation of investments can stunt otherwise attractive commercial and industrial initiatives.
This is one reason why property rights have been so hotly debated in the Soviet Union. A
young reformer, whom my wife and I met last year, Ilya Saslavski, is involved in a property
battle which typifies the disputes taking place on a local level across the Soviet Union.
Saslavski, an elected member of the Congress of Peoples' Deputies, who is visiting here this
week, has announced the take-over - for ordinary families - of an apartment building built
for the Party elite. Though the controversy will be settled in court, such a confrontation
would never have been attempted were Saslavski not assured of a favorable hearing from a
pro-reform judge. The action taken by Saslavski is but one manifestation of the myriad cri-
ses arising as local leaders vie for power in the communist system which has an endemic an-
tagonism to property rights reform.
On the very day we visited the Supreme Soviet - a semi-democratically elected legisla-
ture, and a developing seat of power debate on the subject of property rights went on
seemingly endlessly, and with very good cause. The Soviet Constitution says that property
belongs to the state alone. But might such state property be legally leased to cooperative,
joint ventures? And how does a Soviet citizen without ownership "act like an owner," as
Gorbachev has instructed, or even enjoy "something close to ownership" as espoused by
Boris Yeltsin? As we watched, the late Dr. Andrei Sakharov, among others, rose to voice
his objections to the government's bill. Finally, two bills, partially in conflict, were sent off
to a commission for a further massaging, which continues to this day.
Adept legal accommodation can also be seen in the liberalization of their emigration poli-
cies. We are convinced they are now doing their legal utmost to facilitate the issuance of em-
igration visas - as a new exodus follows hard upon a rise in anti-semitism in Russia but,
here again, their interest is not wholly altruistic. They would like to meet the strictures of
our Jackson-Vanik legislation in order to secure the most-favored nation status that would
much enhance their prestige in world markets.
Still, we must be convinced - as in so much else undertaken in the name of Soviet legal
reform - that not just the letter, but the spirit, of the law has taken root in the Soviet Union.
That is the essence of the agreement reached between Presidents Bush and Gorbachev dur-
ing the recent summit, that any trade agreement remains contingent upon legislative action
by the Supreme Soviet in support of free emigration. We are, in short, watching to see that
4
opportunities to emigrate are institutionalized in law and practice, and are not just episodic,
in the present uncertain flux of Soviet democratization.
All that being said, at the same time, I do not want to downplay their efforts to achieve
the rule of law, or underestimate the modern-day difficulties of democratization. Two hun-
dred years ago, we could call upon our English, common law heritage, and an American
over-abundance of legal talent, to create our written Constitution, even in crisis. Also, we
were then only four million, relatively homogeneous Americans, mostly concentrated on
the Atlantic Coast - not 290 million multi-cultured Soviet citizens, spread across eleven
time zones. Moreover, our Constitutional Convention deliberated in secret - not under
glasnost. Imagine, if you will, George Washington on worldwide television, in the midst of a
currency crisis, trying to suppress Shay's Rebellion, letting Vermont and New Hampshire
pursue Yankeeism in their own way, negotiating with Quaker Solidarity, while trying to cut
an arms deal with the British and French to put a cap on heavy frigates. George Washing-
ton, you will recall, said not one single word while presiding at Philadelphia.
The Soviets suffer all the drawbacks of history, including their own, most recent, flawed
history. But do they now recognize these flaws, particularly in law, and do they sincerely
want to counter them by establishing, for example, an independent judiciary - an institution
they have never known, from Czarist times forward? The ultimate answers to those ques-
tions are unknown, but there are a few signs of an incipient legality. They have doubled judi-
cial salaries, formerly below the average wage. And - good news to the Soviet law students I
addressed at Moscow State University- - they are allowing lawyers to charge real fees - in-
stead of a scale of meagre fixed fees (plus money under the table) - and are taking steps to
allow them actually to represent their clients.
Judicial Review. They have also been struggling to establish a rudimentary mechanism
for judicial review - not unlike our Supreme Court, but far less august and lawfully empow-
ered. A constitutional oversight committee is to review the constitutionality of Soviet law -
in a sharp break with the past. But there are strict limitations upon their powers. The com-
mittee is advisory only, and it can rule on Soviet federal law, but not on the laws of the sepa-
rate republics. In one curious anomaly, if any Soviet law is found to violate human rights -
presumably as defined by the United Nations Charter - the committee is empowered to de-
clare said law unconstitutional. There is much confusion over how the constitutional over-
sight committee will actually operate - let alone, legally prevail. What is needed - as Profes-
sor John Hazard of Columbia Law School says - is another John Marshall to arrive on the
scene and guide their deliberations.
So there appears to be a will to a rule of law, if still much wandering in pursuit of untried,
democratic ways. Going for such high stakes means that it is far too early to determine their
chances of success. But I do remind you of two highly successful, post-war experiments in
democratic reformations: Germany and Japan. Again, there are large differences in na-
tional circumstances - whole histories, wartime sufferings, other relevant factors. But we
have seen the political adaptability of West German democracy overcome many obstacles
from the totalitarian German past, and witnessed - sometimes to our chagrin - the Japan-
ese experiment's continuing, modern triumph over centuries of emperor-worship. And both
experiments were undertaken in similar adversity: by an undone people - even a conquered
people - in economic extremis, at a moment of deep disillusionment with their own society.
5
Could something far different, yet alike, happen again? For the sake of world harmony, we
can hope so, while also providing whatever encouragement is possible.
One final, positive observation. In 1979, when I visited the Soviet Union as a state gover-
nor, I found each official session invariably opened with an almost obligatory denunciation
of the United States and our system of government. Ten years later, nearly every meeting
with our counterparts began with a litany of woes - their recitation of the shortcomings of
their system - and an almost wistful yearning for more knowledge about how our democ-
racy works.
So I come away from my most recent visit to the Soviet Union - and our subsequent con-
tacts with their legal delegations - well aware that Soviet justice does not yet embody what
we know as the rule of law, but convinced that patience and example, and even some advo-
cacy, might help certain determined Soviet officials to establish their own rule of law.
Like everybody else's democratic experiment, it will have to be attempted and achieved
within their own society. If ever we needed dramatic reinforcement of that truth, it has
come from the recent elections in Eastern Europe. On the one hand, East Germany has all
but reunited with West Germany after its first free parliamentary election in four decades.
On the other hand, Romania seems to have reverted to a government-sponsored vigilan-
tism in the streets following the electorate's return to office of former communists.
Rule of Law. We cannot count upon constitutionalism simply to arise as virtue triumphant
from the totalitarian ruins of Europe. Even where constitutionalism seems likely to prevail,
the rule of law will be formalized differently by the Czechs, or the Poles, or the Hungarians
- and most certainly, by the Russians. Nobody else but their own judges, lawyers, ministers,
and citizens can evolve the judicial fairness and institute the legal restraint that underpin
any rule of law. And it is only inherent respect for the law - such as we have seen people
steadfastly demanding in the open squares and open parliaments and newly open societies -
that will bring to a tolerable end the last vestiges of tyranny in these formerly closed com-
munist monoliths.
In sum, only the rule of law can provide a sturdy bridge over the yawning political chasm
between upheaval and democracy.
And we will know it when, and if, it appears. By the human rights the rule of law protects,
by the governmental powers it limits, by the judicial independence it preserves. We will
know it, constitutionally, when we see it. After more than two hundred years of experience
and experiment on our own - who better to judge its emergence elsewhere?
6
The
Herîtage Backgrounder Foundation
214 Massachusetts Avenue N.E. Washington, D.C. 20002 (202)546-4400
Number
5/8/89
99
THE "NEW" ABC CHILD CARE BILL:
NOW IT SEEKS TO REGULATE GRANDMOTHERS
licensing.
subject bureaueracy quandmother
child care
(Updating Executive Memorandum No. 229, "Two Cheers for Bush's Family Tax Cut," March 22,
1989, and Issue Bulletin No. 145, "The 'ABC' Child Care Bill: An Attempt to Bureaucratize
Motherhood," October 6, 1988.)
The full Senate is about to consider a revised version of the Act for Better Childcare (S.5),
the measure introduced by Christopher Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat. A similar bill (H.R.
30) has been introduced in the House by Dale Kildee, the Michigan Democrat. Known generally
as the "ABC Bill," the legislation would spend nearly $12 billion over four years to subsidize
secular day care centers. Contrary to the claims of its sponsors, this expensive legislation still
poorly serves parents with young children; recent changes have not corrected the bill's inherent
flaws. In fact, ABC would deny parents choice in child care while taxing poor families to sub-
sidize day care for the rich.
Among its many problems, ABC would provide no help to typical families. Only one
ABC
pre-school child in ten is cared for in a day care center, while 75 percent of pre-school children
are cared for by parents and relatives. And American parents overwhelmingly prefer care by
parents, relatives, and neighbors for their children to care in formal institutions. Families that
use day care centers, moreover, are far more affluent than those who do not.
No Funds For Families. Critics of the original ABC bill pointed out that it would fund
bureaucrats and social service institutions while denying funds to parents. ABC backers
responded by claiming that 70 percent of the bill's funding actually would be provided as "direct
assistance" to families. This is untrue. In fact, families would receive virtually no ABC funds. Up
to 30 percent of ABC funds would pay for administrative and regulatory costs; nearly all of the
remaining money would be direct grants to day care centers.
True, ABC contains a provision allowing states to give "childcare certificates" to parents. But
experience with the highly flexible Social Service Block Grant day care funds, which can in part
be distributed as vouchers, suggests that most states will not offer such certificates. More
important, only a tiny fraction of ABC funds would be disbursed to parents in this manner even
were a state to introduce a certificate program. These ABC certificates, moreover, would not
offer genuine parental choice because, unlike true vouchers, they could not be used with a wide
variety of licensed day care providers. To use an ABC certificate, parents would have to enter
into a written contract with the state, which would select and approve the child care
arrangement. Day care providers also would have to receive specific approval and enter into a
written contract with the government for each certificate received. Thus in practice there would
be little difference between certificates and direct grants to government-selected centers;
bureaucrats and not parents would select the child care.
Note: Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of The Heritage Foundation or as an
attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before Congress.
they
'This certificate provision which baits with talk of parental choice and then switches with
as
government selection - is characteristic of the entire bill. ABC backers appear hostile toward
grandmothers could
loy
any type of child care that is not "professional" and bureaucratically controlled. Indeed, Kildee
stated that if his mother were to care for his children (her grandchildren) in his own home, he
would want her registered and trained by the government.
Daunting Requirements. Because such sentiments against family child care are alien to most
Americans, ABC backers have tried to hide the true nature of their bill, claiming that the "new
ABC" would allow funds to be used to subsidize care provided by grandmothers. But in order to
receive support under ABC, a grandmother caring for her grandchild would face a daunting
array of requirements. First, she would have to reside in a state actually distributing child care
certificates. Second, she would have to enter into a personal written contract with the
government, specifying the conditions under which she would care for her grandchild, and obtain
state approval. Third, the parents would have to sign a contract with the state. And fourth, the
grandmother would then have to demonstrate that she complied with federal health and safety
standards and would be required to fill in daily reports proving that the food she provided to her
grandchild met detailed federal nutrition standards. Given these conditions, it is unlikely that
any grandparents would receive ABC funds, despite the fact that more pre-school children are
cared for by grandparents and aunts than by day care centers.
ABC advocates also have sought to deal with the claim that the original bill excluded
church-based day care. Again, they have failed to do so. Church-based day care centers could
receive support under the legislation - but only if they banished religion from their program.
Any church-based day care center providing religious values to children, through Bible stories,
prayers, hymns, or similar activities would be denied funds. Thus religious day care centers either
would be forced to purge their programs of religious content or would be forced to operate
without subsidies in competition with heavily subsidized secular day care centers. Many of the
church day care centers would be driven out of the market. Thus ABC discriminates against
parents who wish to have their children raised in a religious environment, and those parents
would be taxed to pay for secular day care for other families.
Forcing States to Regulate. The anti-religious impact of ABC would go even further. Many
states, especially in the South, exempt religious day care centers from state licensing and
regulation. Religious day care is regarded in effect as "Sunday School during the week," and
state legislatures wisely have deemed that government licensing would violate the separation of
church and state. The ABC bill, however, stipulates that state governments must impose and
enforce all existing state day care regulations "uniformly" on day care providers. ABC thereby
deliberately bans states from exempting religious day care centers from the current regulations
imposed on secular day care centers. If a state received ABC funds, it thus would be forced to
impose state licensing and regulation on all religious day care centers within the state, even if
those centers did not receive one cent of federal or state money.
The ABC bill thus is a highly discriminatory and anti-religious measure. In contrast, George
Bush's proposed tax relief for families with young children would not discriminate against those
families choosing parents, grandparents, neighbors, or religious centers to care for their children.
ABC advocates demand that the government invest in "quality child care," but the highest
quality child care is provided by families themselves. Bush is right to propose that the way to
secure America's future is by investing in families, not in professional day care centers.
Robert Rector
Policy Analyst
D
HERITAGE
C
TALKING POINTS
A Checklist on Vital National Issues
NATO's 40th Anniversary
Summit
May 29-30, 1989
A Test for George Bush
By Jay Kosminsky
The
Heritage Foundation
The
Herîtage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation was established in 1973 as a nonpartisan, tax-exempt policy re-
search institute dedicated to the principles of free competitive enterprise, limited government,
individual liberty, and a strong national defense. The Foundation's research and study programs
are designed to make the voices of responsible conservatism heard in Washington, D.C.,
throughout the United States, and in the capitals of the world.
Heritage publishes its research in a variety of formats for the benefit of policy makers, the
communications media, the academic, business and financial communities, and the public at
large. Over the past five years alone The Heritage Foundation has published some 1,000 books,
monographs, and studies, ranging in size from the 564-page government blueprint, Mandate for
Leadership II: Continuing the Conservative Revolution, to more frequent "Critical Issues"
monographs and the topical "Backgrounders" and "Issue Bulletins" of a dozen pages. At the
start of 1981, Heritage published the 1,093-page Mandate for Leadership: Policy Management
in a Conservative Administration. Heritage's other regular publications include the monthly
National Security Record and the quarterlies Education Update and Policy Review.
In addition to the printed word, Heritage regularly brings together national and international
opinion leaders and policy makers to discuss issues and ideas in a continuing series of seminars,
lectures, debates, and briefings.
Heritage is classified as a Section 501(c)(3) organization under the Internal Revenue Code of
1954, and is recognized as a publicly supported organization described in Section 509(a)(1) and
170(b)(1)(A)(vi) of the Code. Individuals, corporations, companies, associations, and founda-
tions are eligible to support the work of The Heritage Foundation through tax-deductible gifts.
Note: Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of The
Heritage Foundation or as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before Congress.
The Heritage Foundation
214 Massachusetts Avenue, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20002
U.S.A.
202/546-4400
May 22, 1989
NATO's 40th Anniversary Summit - May 29-30, 1989
A Test for George Bush
INTRODUCTION
In the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, the United States committed itself to "safeguard the
freedom, common heritage and civilization" of its West European allies against Soviet
forces already in control of half the European continent. Today, as Western leaders prepare
to gather in Brussels to celebrate NATO's fortieth anniversary, it could be argued that the
Treaty's goal has been achieved. Western Europe is free and prosperous and its common
heritage and civilization are secure. To be sure, the Soviet Union remains a militarily threat;
but even here, growing unrest in Eastern Europe and among Soviet nationalities may be
signs of Soviet imperial fatigue.
At forty, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is entering a period of tensions
between hope and peril. It faces on the one hand the possibility of a transformed adversary
in the Soviet Union which may be willing to reduce its military threat to Western Europe.
On the other hand, Gorbachev's promises of peace have not yet been transformed into a
reduction in the Soviet military threat to NATO. Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney
rightly warned recently that Gorbachev could fall or abandon his promising agenda. Or he
could solidify his domestic position and turn out to be the new kind of Soviet leader that he
purports to be.
The challenge to George Bush and his fellow NATO chiefs of state is to prepare the U.S.
and the Atlantic Alliance for either contingency. A particular challenge for Bush will be to
fend off allied efforts to rush to make concessions to Moscow. This, in fact, may be Bush's
most important test of his young presidency.
Communism's Failure. The emergence of a Gorbachev at the Kremlin's helm is a
testament to NATO's forty-year success in containing Soviet military power and to the
abject failure of communism to provide a workable alternative to democracy and free
enterprise economics. Today, within the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe,
cries for freedom and self-determination are drowning out the anachronistic slogans of
communism. A faltering Soviet economy, meanwhile, strains to support the Red Army's
military machine. In fact, Gorbachev has agreed for the first time to the principle of
reducing his European forces through negotiation to numerical parity with NATO.
While the West may not yet have won the Cold War, victory seems in sight. The Cold
War, after all, is mainly a European affair, waged to protect Western Europe and to free
Central Europe. With bold U.S. leadership, NATO can set an agenda for bringing the Cold
War to a close on its own terms. This agenda should include: 1) political liberalization in
Eastern Europe leading to self-determination, multi-party democratic systems, and an end
to the division of Europe; 2) unilateral or negotiated reductions in Soviet military forces
that would enable the U.S. to begin bringing home many of the 325,000 GIs now stationed
in Europe; and 3) ultimately a settlement that permanently removes the Soviet military
threat to U.S. allies and the rest of Europe.
Unremitting Military Threat. Achieving these goals will require NATO to overcome
many obstacles. Despite Moscow's domestic problems and promises of peace, Soviet
military spending still increased last year by 3 percent; in contrast, U.S. defense spending
actually declined. Moscow now is producing tanks at the record level of between 3,500 and
5,000 per year, compared to the modest 600 rolling off U.S. assembly lines.
In addition to the so far unremitting external military threat from the Soviet Union,
NATO faces new problems within the Alliance. NATO's two principal anchors, Washington
and Bonn, are at odds over nuclear weapons policy and a range of other military issues that
reflect a growing, if vaguely defined, West German challenge to established Alliance policy.
Further, Bush faces a Congress justifiably restive over the refusal by the European allies to
accept a greater share of the financial responsibility for their own defense.
Bush's most critical challenge at his first NATO summit will be to keep the Alliance
militarily strong and cohesive through this period of uncertainty and rapid change. There
are five broad areas that Bush must address.
1) Forging a common approach to Gorbachev.
Bush's first priority at the summit should be to set the tone for NATO dealings with
Moscow and its East European empire. To do this he should:
Caution NATO allies that regardless of Gorbachev's possible intentions, the
Soviet Union remains a militarily powerful and therefore dangerous adversary; urge
them to be honest with their publics in assessing this threat. Despite promises of
cuts, last year Soviet military spending amounted to between 15 percent and 20
percent of the USSR's total economic output, compared to just under 6 percent for
the U.S.
Open a dialogue with the allies to forge a common strategy for reducing Soviet
influence in Eastern Europe and encouraging the expansion of multi-party
democracy and human rights in Eastern Europe. Bush should propose the creation
of a NATO High Level Group of Foreign Ministers for this daunting task.
Take a firm stand on limiting credits and the transfer of high-technology goods
to Moscow until Gorbachev has taken concrete steps to reduce substantially the
Soviet military threat to Western Europe.
Remind NATO allies that the U.S. expects their support and cooperation in
combating Soviet global intervention in such regions critical to U.S. national security
as Central America and the Pacific.
2) Coping with Germany and the nuclear question.
Recently Bonn has clashed with Washington on issues ranging from nuclear weapons
modernization and negotiations to NATO military maneuvers on German territory. In both
cases, Germany wants to reverse longstanding NATO policy in anticipation of a new
relationship with Moscow, while the U.S. rightly is insisting on responding to Soviet military
capabilities rather than presumed intentions. Dealing with this new Germany likely will be
Bush's most difficult task at the summit. He should:
2
Reaffirm U.S. support for the official NATO position opposing immediate
negotiations on short-range nuclear forces, even if this means an open split between
the U.S. and West Germany at the summit. NATO should not consider such
negotiations until after an arms agreement establishing conventional (non-nuclear)
military parity.
Remind Germans publicly that he cannot justify keeping U.S. troops at risk in
Germany if Bonn unilaterally pursues policies leading to the removal from German
territory of all or even most U.S. nuclear weapons. The U.S. always has required
these weapons to protect U.S. troops in Germany from being overrun by the tens of
thousands of Soviet tanks just across the West German border. These weapons also
long have provided nuclear options below the level of an all-out nuclear war that
would destroy the U.S.
Continue to support NATO's agreed-upon nuclear modernization plan,
including modern nuclear artillery and a new air-launched missile, while giving Bonn
until after the 1990 West German elections to make a firm decision on deploying a
modernized version of the obsolescent Lance short-range missile.
Convey U.S. flexibility in addressing German concerns over the inconveniences
caused by NATO maneuvers and "low flying" NATO aircraft, but not to the point of
jeopardizing the safety or effectiveness of U.S. troops in Europe.
3) Promoting NATO defense burden-sharing.
Despite the attention focused on developments in Moscow and intra-alliance quarrels over
nuclear weapons, Bush should not let NATO allies think that the U.S. has overlooked the
fact that they continue to spend proportionally about half of what the U.S. spends on
defense. This disparity is unfair to the U.S. and demands redress. Bush should:
Inform the allies that cuts in their defense budgets will be met with
commensurate reductions in the U.S. military commitment to NATO. The U.S. no
longer can afford to be more concerned about European defense than are the
Europeans themselves.
Propose negotiations with the allies to specify additional defense roles and
costs that could be shifted to them. These could include paying for part of the new
C-17 transport aircraft (a $40 billion program needed mainly for NATO defense),
providing further funding for stationing U.S. troops in Europe, and filling NATO
stocks of equipment for U.S. reinforcements. These three simple measures alone
could save the U.S. as much as $75 billion over the next ten years.
Press the allies to meet the military preparedness and military spending
obligations they have made to NATO.
4) Pressing Moscow for conventional arms reductions.
NATO and the Warsaw Pact in March began what potentially are the most important
East-West negotiations of the post World War II era: the Conventional Armed Forces in
Europe (CFE) talks in Vienna. While many hurdles remain, if these talks succeed they will
lead to rough equality in conventional (non-nuclear) forces in Europe. This would benefit
the U.S. and its allies and would enable the U.S. to reduce substantially the level of its
military forces in Europe. Bush should:
3
Seek an official NATO statement making CFE the key litmus test of
Gorbachev's professed intentions toward NATO. In effect this would move CFE to
the top of NATO's agenda.
Inform allies that the U.S. expects to receive the lion's share of any NATO cuts
resulting from a CFE agreement. This is only fair since the U.S. contributes far more
proportionally to Western defense than any other ally.
Be tough in negotiations; stick to NATO's position for cuts by both sides to
about 10 percent below current NATO levels; exclude aircraft and naval forces from
the talks; insist on accurate data from the Soviets on numbers of weapons on each
side; and require very strict monitoring and verification measures to ensure
compliance with the Treaty.
Save very deep cuts, like 50 percent below NATO levels, for CFE's second
round. Cuts on this scale are desirable, but would cause new military and political
problems for NATO that will require time to address. First round mutual cuts to 10
percent below current NATO levels could be carried out quickly and easily.
5) Approaching "Europe 1992."
By the end of 1992, most of NATO's European members are scheduled to remove all
remaining economic barriers between them, creating a true common market of 320 million
people. Concern has arisen in the U.S. that this trade liberalization among the members of
the European Community (EC) will lead to increasing trade protectionism against the U.S.
Bush should:
Support and encourage "Europe 1992" while warning that new trade barriers
must not be erected to "protect" the newly integrated EC market from U.S. or other
competition. Protectionism, he should explain, would slow economic growth in
Europe and the U.S.
Offer a pledge to expand the accessibility of U.S. markets to EC goods and
companies in 1992 in return for a reciprocal pledge by the EC.
Encourage the EC to adopt such policies as low taxes and economic
deregulation to spur economic growth in Western economies.
Urge West Europeans to use 1992 as an opportunity to improve cooperative
arms planning, development and production among themselves and with the U.S.
This is one way for NATO allies to contribute more effectively and efficiently to
NATO defense.
DEALING WITH GORBACHEV
NATO above all is a military alliance whose first priority is to defend its member states
against the military threat from the Soviet Union. Gorbachev has professed an intention to
reduce this threat, on a scale unprecedented since the Khrushchev years, through unilateral
force cuts and negotiations. Western intelligence services have been monitoring Soviet military
activity for hard evidence of these reductions, but so far most of the evidence points to the
opposite conclusion.
4
The CIA reports, for example, that Soviet defense spending was up 3 percent last year, despite
a poor performance by the Soviet economy, and despite a 2 percent drop in the U.S. defense
budget. Soviet tank production in the first quarter of this year rose to its highest level since the
end of World War II, reaching an annual rate of between 3,500 and 5,000 of the most modern
Soviet tanks (the U.S. will produce about 600 tanks this year). A massive Soviet military
buildup on the Kola Peninsula, on the Barents Sea near Finland, has NATO so concerned that
it prompted a top secret briefing at a recent NATO Nuclear Planning Group meeting in
Brussels. The Soviet Union, moreover, recently laid the keel for a third large-deck aircraft
carrier, an enormously expensive undertaking at a time when Gorbachev claims to be trying to
cut defense expenditures. A similar U.S. carrier plus its aircraft would cost about $8 billion,
with another $6 billion for support ships. 1
Massive Soviet Cuts. Gorbachev says that he will cut his military budget by 1.5 percent this
year, 7 percent next year, and 14 percent the following year. He says he will make all military
expenses public so that the West can verify these cuts. He has announced that five divisions
comprising about 60,000 troops and 5,000 tanks will be removed from Eastern Europe over the
next two years. 2 Perhaps, therefore, the West soon will see evidence that Gorbachev is willing
and politically able to fulfill his promises in a way that substantially reduces the military threat
to NATO. So far, however, the preponderance of evidence argues to the contrary.
Despite the evidence of a continued or increased Soviet military buildup, the publics in West
Germany and much of the rest of Western Europe have all but abandoned the idea that the
Soviet Union continues to threaten their security.³ Even such conservative European leaders as
Britain's Margaret Thatcher question publicly whether Moscow continues to pose a security
threat to the West. European governments have encouraged this overreaction, offering generous
lines of financial credit to Moscow (West Germany alone has opened a $2 billion line of credit
to the Soviets) and advocating liberalized restrictions on advanced technology sales to the
Soviet bloc.
4
Loosening East Europe's Chains. Doubtless there are important changes occurring in
Moscow. Gorbachev seems to be making great efforts to stem the Soviet Union's steady slide
into ideological and economic impoverishment. His experiments with political and economic
reform have few precedents in the past sixty years in the Soviet Union. In Eastern Europe,
particularly Poland and Hungary, Gorbachev has permitted and in some cases abetted
movement toward political pluralism and national autonomy. Both of these countries now are
looking forward to their first multi-party elections in over forty years.
1
See: "Soviet Defense Spending Up 3% Last Year CIA/DIA, Defense Daily, April 25, 1989, p. 135;
"Soviets Boost Tank Production Despite Sweet Talk," The Washington Times, May 8, 1989, p. 1; "NATO
Monitors Soviet Kola Naval Buildup," Defense News, May 1, 1989, p. 2; "Soviets Now Working on Third
Large-Deck Carrier," Defense News, April 28, 1989, p. 162; Ronald O'Rourke, "The Cost of a U.S. Navy
Aircraft Carrier Battle Group," Congressional Research Service Issue Brief, June 26, 1987.
2
See: Jeffrey Smith, "Soviets May Disclose Military Budget in Fall," The Washington Post, April 28, 1989;
"Soviets Claim 1.5 Percent Cut for Defense in 1989," Defense Daily, May 10, 1989, p. 226.
3
At least three-quarters of West Germans have ceased to consider the Soviet Union a military threat. Josef
Joffe, "Rocks in the Stream of Opinion; Results of Opinion Poll on Security Issues," Sueddeutsche Zeitung,
February 28, 1989, p. 6, in FBIS-Western Europe, March 1, 1989, pp. 11-12.
4
William Dlozdiak, "Soviets Back Bonn Strategy In East Bloc," The Washington Post, March 18, 1989, p. 1.
5
Bush's task at the summit will be to brake any Western slide toward unilateral disarmament
while encouraging the Alliance to look ahead. Gorbachev's domestic reforms, the changes
underway in Eastern Europe, and Gorbachev's acceptance in principle of conventional military
parity with NATO indicate that new opportunities now may be emerging for NATO to press
forward on such issues as liberating Eastern Europe, expanding human rights in the Soviet
Union and throughout the Eastern bloc, and promoting a conventional arms control agreement
that improves NATO military security. At the same time, NATO cannot let down its guard
while Soviet military capabilities continue to grow.
Bush should urge the allies to:
Recognize that the Soviet Union remains a militarily powerful and
therefore dangerous adversary. Recent trends point to a buildup,
rather than the promised build down of Soviet military forces. Until
evidence to the contrary is forthcoming, NATO must continue to
maintain and modernize its own conventional and nuclear forces.
Hope cannot be permitted to defeat reason in formulating Alliance
military policy, which always must respond to Soviet capabilities, not
rhetoric.
Publicly remind European publics that the Soviet military threat
continues to grow.
Forge a strategy for eliminating Soviet influence in Eastern Europe
and encouraging multi-party democracy and human rights. If
Gorbachev is contemplating ending the Cold War by at least partially
relinquishing his political hold over Eastern Europe, NATO allies
should begin to discuss seriously among themselves their precise
objectives in Eastern Europe and strategies for achieving them. Bush
should propose discussions along these lines among a new NATO
High Level Group of Foreign Ministers. Once NATO formulates its
objectives, discussions could be shifted to an East-West forum such
as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE),
where NATO could press for genuine self-determination for Eastern
Europe.
Limit credits and the transfer of high technology to the Eastern
bloc. NATO countries weaken their own defense by sharing militarily
significant technology with Moscow or making loans of Western
currency that the Soviets can use to upgrade their arsenal or
continue supporting communist governments and insurgencies
abroad. Until Gorbachev has taken tangible steps to reduce the
Soviet military threat to NATO, the U.S. should resist efforts to
weaken restrictions now in place through the Coordinating
Committee on Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) on
high-technology trade with the Soviet bloc. COCOM is an
organization of Western industrial countries that regulates militarily
significant trade with hostile powers. Further, discussions should be
undertaken to coordinate Alliance strategy for requiring economic
6
8
liberalization and political reform in the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe in return for Western economic assistance to the East.
Support U.S. efforts to combat Soviet global intervention. Last year
the Soviet Union gave $500 million dollars in aid to the communist
government of Nicaragua. NATO allies also have been aiding the
Nicaraguan regime, although this aid has declined-recently. This aid
amounts to a direct subsidy by U.S. allies of a Soviet-Cuban ally
seeking to spread communist revolution on America's southern
border. This action by the allies is the opposite of burden-sharing; it
creates new security burdens for the U.S. British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher has taken the lead in rebuffing further efforts by
Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega to obtain more economic
assistance from Western Europe. Bush should thank her for her
efforts and encourage other allies to follow suit.
DEALING WITH THE NEW GERMANY
During a recent trip to Bonn, The Heritage Foundation discovered that Germans across the
political spectrum want U.S. troops to stay in Germany. But while Germans almost
unanimously want the U.S. to stay, they increasingly are unwilling to support longstanding
NATO policies that are considered essential by the U.S. to the preservation of peace in Europe
and necessary to protect those U.S. troops stationed there.
Endangering U.S. Troops. For example, Germany wants to cut back on the scope and
number of NATO maneuvers in Germany and to curtail "low flying" training by U.S. and other
NATO military aircraft over German territory. In both cases, Germany's position repudiates
longstanding NATO policy and affects the safety and security of U.S. troops.
The most public and vociferous clashes between the two countries, however, have come over
nuclear weapons issues. In March, the U.S. and other allies conceded under heavy German
pressure to postpone until after the 1990 German elections a firm decision on deploying a
modernized version of NATO's short-range (70 miles) nuclear Lance missile. Then, three weeks
ago, Bonn tore up this compromise and announced that it would break with NATO policy to
endorse immediate talks with Moscow that could eliminate not only the Lance, but nuclear
artillery. 5 Bush rightly rebuffed this latest German demand and is holding firm in support of
existing NATO policy.
Germany's New Shift. While the German argument that these missiles would fall mostly on
German territory is true, it has been true since the U.S. first deployed short-range nuclear
weapons in Germany in the mid-1950s. In fact, none of the issues over which the U.S. and
Germany are now at loggerheads is a new issue. By contrast, Germany's pushing the U.S. and
other NATO allies to shift course on these issues is a new development. It will have to be
handled gingerly but firmly by Bush.
5
See: Jay P. Kosminsky, "Rebuffing Bonn's Unilateral Attempt to Torpedo NATO Policy," Heritage
Foundation Executive Memorandum No. 232, May 1, 1989.
7
Germany's new independence is not limited to NATO policy. During their trip to Germany
last month, Heritage Foundation analysts found Germans talking more openly about a range
of issues that until recently were only whispered. Reunification with East Germany increasingly
is no longer seen by German politicians as a dream to be fulfilled by other generations. Said
Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher in a recent speech: our [West German
government] responsibility. my very personal responsibility. does not end at the border that
cuts right through Germany."6 It is precisely this kind of talk that has other NATO allies
nervous, particularly the British and French. Ready or not, however, NATO likely is going to be
faced with an increasingly assertive and independent Germany in coming years.
At the summit, Bush should:
Continue to oppose immediate negotiations on short-range nuclear
forces. He should stick to this position even if it means an open split
between the U.S. and West Germany. Only when the Soviet Union
has agreed to reduce its conventional military threat to NATO,
perhaps through negotiations at the Conventional Armed Forces in
Europe (CFE) talks, can the U.S. conclude an agreement to reduce
or eliminate some short-range nuclear weapons. No irreparable
harm will be done to the Alliance by a summit communique in which
the U.S. and West Germany "agree to disagree" for the time being
and to hold further discussions on the issue of short-range nuclear
modernization and negotiations.
Remind West Germans: "No nukes, no troops." The Bonn
government has done an inadequate job of explaining to the German
public that the presence of short-range nuclear forces on German
territory is part of a trans-Atlantic "bargain" under which the U.S.
stations a quarter-million GIs in Germany. According to U.S.
commanders, these weapons are required as a last ditch protection
for U.S. troops facing overwhelming Soviet advantages in tanks and
artillery. Without these weapons, U.S. troops cannot remain in
Germany. If the German government will not explain this, Bush
should make it plain.
Support NATO nuclear modernization program. Bush already has
agreed to give Bonn until after the 1990 West German elections to
make a firm deployment decision on a modernized version of the
nearly obsolescent Lance short-range missile. In addition to Lance
modernization, the other key elements of NATO's nuclear
modernization program are: 1) continuing to replace old U.S.
nuclear artillery shells with new and safer ones; and 2) deploying a
roughly 250-mile-range tactical air-to-surface missile (TASM) that
would be launched from aircraft such as the F-15E Strike Eagle and
would be able to destroy such targets as rail yards and command
posts on Soviet and other Warsaw Pact territory.
6
Genscher speech to Bundestag, April 27, 1989. English translation, FBIS-Western Europe, April 27, 1989,
pp. 12-15.
8
Be flexible, but set clear limits. In addressing such points of
disagreement with Germany as NATO maneuvers, "low flying"
NATO aircraft, and even nuclear force modernization, Bush should
convey a willingness to accommodate legitimate German concerns,
but not to the point of jeopardizing the safety of U.S. troops in
Europe. As long as U.S. troops remain in Germany, the U.S.
President's first responsibility is to ensure their protection. Even if it
means a rift with allies, Bush cannot precipitously change policies
that have kept U.S. troops safe and preserved the peace in Europe
for over forty years.
DEFENSE BURDEN-SHARING
The U.S. commitment to European security is expensive; according to the Pentagon, as much
as 60 percent of the annual U.S. defense budget of nearly $300 billion is directly related to
NATO defense. By and large, this is a major reason why U.S. defense spending is so high. If
Europeans were as concerned as Americans about their own defense, the U.S. would have little
reason to complain. But Europeans proportionally spend about half on average of what
Americans spend for defense. According to official NATO figures, the U.S. spent about 6
percent of its total national income on defense. Of the major allies, only Britain's 4.5 percent
approaches U.S. levels, while France at 3.9 percent, West Germany at 2.9 percent, and Italy at
7
2.4 percent lag far behind.
Misreading the U.S. During a recent trip to NATO headquarters in Brussels, in Bonn and in
Paris, Heritage Foundation analysts heard a similar refrain from European allies: they do not
take seriously U.S. demands for European allies to pay more for their own defense. Heritage
also was told that, while the U.S. may bridle over the cost of its commitment to Europe, in the
end it will not cut back because, said a number of Europeans, "the U.S. is in Europe to protect
its own interests, not just to defend us." Only in London was there a recognition that the U.S.
would not indefinitely continue to bear the brunt of the burden for Western defense.
Except for the British, Europeans are not accurately reading the U.S. political scene.
Congress is becoming ever more restless over the heavy burden of the U.S. defense commitment
for Europe, and cutbacks in U.S. troops in Europe are becoming increasingly more likely. A
bipartisan report released last August by the Defense Burden-sharing Panel of the House
Armed Services Committee warns NATO allies to "be prepared to defend their own territory
7
"Enhancing Alliance Collective Security: Shared Roles, Risks, Responsibilities in the Alliance," NATO
Defense Planning Committee, December 1988; figure for France from U.S. Department of Defense,
"Report on Allied Contributions to the Common Defense," April 1988, p. 40.
9
without a large-scale U.S. ground commitment" in coming years. 8 This year Representative
Andy Ireland, the Florida Republican, joined with Representative Patricia Schroeder, the
Colorado Democrat, to advocate the immediate withdrawal of up to 25,000 U.S. troops in
Europe, with further reductions to come. Factors besides defense burden-sharing that are
causing many in Congress to take another look at U.S. troop strength in Europe include the
federal budget deficit and expanding U.S. interests elsewhere, particularly Asia where the U.S.
now does $241 billion a year in trade compared to $170 billion with Europe.
Bush should tell NATO allies:
If Europe cuts back on its defense, so will the U.S. The allies should
be put on notice that cuts in their defense budgets will be met with
commensurate reductions in the U.S. military commitment to
NATO. The U.S. no longer can afford to be more concerned about
European defense than are Europeans themselves. If NATO allies
begin to cut their already low defense budgets, the U.S. can find ways
to cut the cost of its own commitment to Europe's defense and to
direct those resources to other pressing military needs. If, for
example, the U.S. were to bring home and transfer to the reserves
two divisions of 17,000 combat troops and supporting forces, the
savings would be up to $20 billion over the next seven or eight years
- more than enough to deploy a limited SDI missile defense system
for the U.S. 9
Be ready to accept new costs. The U.S. and the Europeans should
enter into negotiations to specify additional defense roles and costs
that could be shifted to the Europeans. These could include paying
part of the cost of the C-17 transport aircraft now being built by the
U.S. to bring reinforcements to Europe during a crisis; providing
additional financial support for U.S. base operating costs,
construction, salaries and cost-of-living supplements for U.S.
personnel stationed in Europe; and paying for the cost of stockpiling
military equipment in Europe for use in wartime by U.S. troops.
These three steps alone could save the U.S. roughly $75 billion over
the next ten years. 10
Meet military preparedness and military spending obligations. The
U.S. should press NATO allies to meet the force modernization
goals included in NATO's 1985 Conventional Defense Improvement
program, a NATO-wide project to boost military preparedness. One
8
U.S. House of Representatives, "Report of the Defense Burden-sharing Panel of the Committee on
Armed Services," August 1988, p. 8.
9
Based on figures in Warren W. Lenhart, "The Mix of U.S. Active and Reserve Forces," Congressional
Research Service, November 1983, p. 11. Figures adjusted for inflation. A Limited Protection System
(LPS) to protect the U.S. against limited or accidental launches of ballistic missiles would cost about $10
billion. W.C. Loomis, Lockheed Corp., March 10, 1989 speech.
10
Jay P. Kosminsky and Richard D. Fisher, "A Ten-Point Program for Increasing the Allies' Share of
Defense Costs," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 686, January 17, 1989.
10
of its goals is improving critical ammunition stocks. The U.S. also
should single out publicly those NATO allies spending less than 3
percent of their total national wealth for defense: Belgium, Canada,
Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain and West Germany.
CONVENTIONAL ARMS NEGOTIATIONS
NATO and the Warsaw Pact in Vienna last March began what potentially are the most
important arms control negotiations in which the two sides have ever engaged: the
Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) talks. Their objective is to eliminate
overwhelming Soviet advantages in such non-nuclear weapons in Europe as tanks, artillery,
and armored fighting vehicles, thereby substantially reducing the military threat to U.S. allies.
Success in these negotiations could enable the U.S. to bring home a significant number of the
325,000 GIs in Europe.
Dramatic Results. The announced negotiating objectives of the two sides are similar: NATO
wants mutual cuts in military equipment to equal levels between 5 percent and 10 percent
below current NATO levels; the Warsaw Pact is proposing cuts between 10 percent and 15
percent below NATO levels. Either way, the results would be dramatic. Example: a cut in tanks
to 20,000 on each side, or roughly 10 percent below current NATO levels, 11 would eliminate
37,300 Warsaw Pact tanks to 2,224 NATO tanks, a ratio of roughly 17:1.
Significant differences remain between the two sides regarding the details of the proposed
agreement. The Warsaw Pact has provided its own estimates for the quantity of tanks and other
equipment on both sides that are not accurate. Example: Pact figures count NATO's Bradley
infantry fighting vehicle, a lightly armed troop carrier, as a "tank." Another major sticking point
is Moscow's insistence on negotiating reductions in aircraft, a position NATO rightly rejects
since aircraft withdrawn from Europe quickly could be flown back to the battlefield from bases
in the Soviet Union.
French Footdragging. Not all NATO allies fully support Conventional Armed Forces in
Europe (CFE) negotiations. France in particular has dragged its feet, delaying the start of talks
by quibbling over details. Heritage Foundation researchers were told repeatedly in Paris that
France is satisfied with the status quo and "deep down" does not want a CFE treaty because it
fears eventual U.S. troop withdrawals as a result of the treaty. These withdrawals would mean
that France might have to cooperate more with NATO allies and spend more for defense. On
the other end of the spectrum, critics of NATO's proposal, including former NATO Supreme
Allied Commander General Andrew J. Goodpaster, argue that NATO does not go far enough.
Goodpaster and others argue for a dramatic NATO proposal to cut forces on both sides to 50
percent below NATO levels. 12
In Brussels, Bush should:
Make CFE a litmus test for Gorbachev. Conventional arms control is
the ideal issue on which to test Gorbachev's sincerity. If he is serious
11
Based on official NATO figures. See Michael Gordon, "Crucial Talks on Reducing Conventional Arms
Open This Week in Vienna," The New York Times, March 5, 1989, p. 18.
12 Andrew J. Goodpaster, "Gorbachev and the Future of East-West Security: A Response for the
Mid-Term," Atlantic Council Occasional Paper, April 1989.
11
about reducing the military threat to NATO, CFE is his opportunity.
If he fails this test by stalling the negotiations by insisting on false
data or resisting strict verification, he also will have delivered an
important message to NATO. If the political will is there on the
Soviet side and a verifiable agreement is possible, CFE can
dramatically improve the security of NATO allies and enable the
withdrawal of significant numbers of U.S. troops from Europe.
Tell allies that the U.S. expects the lion's share of cuts from CFE.
CFE provides a ready framework to begin withdrawing substantial
numbers of U.S. troops from Europe without hurting the security of
European allies. If CFE achieves reductions in tanks and other
offensive equipment to 10 percent below NATO levels, the U.S.
should expect to withdraw from Europe at least 75,000 of the
325,000 U.S. troops now stationed there.
Stick to NATO's negotiating position. NATO should hold fast to its
position excluding aircraft from the talks because they quickly can be
flown back to Europe from Soviet bases; insist on accurate numbers
of Soviet tanks and equipment; and require monitoring and
verification measures strict enough to ensure compliance. If
Gorbachev is willing to make the cuts contemplated under CFE, it is
because he already has decided for economic or other reasons that a
smaller, leaner military is preferable to his present force. It is in
NATO's interests to see these reductions made in the context of an
agreement that is verifiable and results in a genuine improvement of
NATO's military position. NATO's current proposal is sound, and
the Alliance should stick to it.
Save 50 percent cuts for later rounds of CFE. NATO's current
bargaining position would bring Soviet forces down to equal levels in
conventional arms and equipment at roughly 10 percent below
current NATO levels. Much deeper cuts, such as the 50 percent cuts
suggested by Goodpaster and others, would require extensive
military restructuring within NATO and force some painful political
choices on Germany. Because a NATO front line thinned out by 50
percent cuts could not maintain a "forward defense" all along the
border between West and East Germany, Bonn might have to
consider the now politically unthinkable option of erecting
permanent defensive barriers along the border with East Germany,
symbolically dividing the German nation, or moving to a strategy
that initially concedes ground while NATO organizes a mobile
defense deep in German territory. Neither is a politically attractive
option in West Germany. NATO's 10 percent proposal is simple and
could be implemented quickly. 50 percent reductions are a good
objective for the second or third rounds of CFE.
12
EUROPE 1992
By 1992, states belonging to the European Community (EC), most of them NATO allies,
plan to form a truly "common market" by removing all remaining barriers to each other's trade,
investment, and movement of labor. 13 This has generated concern in the U.S. of an economic
"fortress Europe" erecting protectionist trade barriers against goods and services from the U.S.
and other non-EC countries. The type of measure that concerns the U.S. is last year's EC
decision to restrict agricultural imports from non-EC countries to protect farmers in Spain and
Portugal from foreign competition.
Opportunities for U.S. and Europe. Despite increasing U.S. trade ties with Asia, Europe
remains an important U.S. trading partner. The twelve countries of the EC in 1987 bought
nearly 25 percent of all American exports. Moreover, American exports to the EC in 1987 14 rose
by 14 percent, compared with a 7 percent increase in American imports from the EC.
The removal of trade barriers among EC countries in itself should benefit the EC and the
U.S. Reductions in trade barriers should increase European incomes, providing more
opportunities for U.S.-based companies and their European branches or subsidiaries. Already
U.S. firms are expanding European operations in anticipation of 1992. Only if the EC turns
protectionist will the U.S., and ultimately Europe, be hurt by "Europe 1992." At the summit,
Bush should seek to prevent trade protectionism and help Europeans and Americans enjoy the
benefits of an open market.
He should:
Support "Europe 1992"; fight "fortress Europe." Bush should
encourage EC members to use the upcoming "Uruguay round" of
negotiations on the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs
(GATT) to eliminate subsidies and trade barriers that would close
European markets to U.S. and other non-EC countries.
Pledge reciprocity. The U.S. should pledge to further open U.S.
markets to EC goods and companies in 1992 in return for a
reciprocal pledge from EC countries.
Encourage the EC to adopt growth-oriented economic policies.
There is a danger that the EC will adopt on a European-wide basis
some of the worst economic regulations and high tax policies of
some of its member states. The U.S. should encourage the EC, as.
Margaret Thatcher already has done, to link integration with moves
to cut taxes and deregulate economic activity.
13 Much of this section is drawn from Wendell H. McCulloch, Jr., "Europe 1992': Ensuring a Fair Deal for
the U.S.," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 706, May 5, 1989. The members of the European
Economic Community are Belgium, Denmark, France, the Federal Republic of Germany (West
Germany), Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
14 Ibid.
13
Urge Europeans to use 1992 to improve arms planning and
production. Last September NATO's European Defense Ministers
agreed on an effort, linked informally to "Europe 1992," to improve
defense trade and move toward a common arms market. This move
could improve Europe's defense self-reliance by improving the
efficiency of European defense industries, and therefore enable the
U.S. to reduce its European defense burden, as long as it is not
coupled to new defense trade barriers erected against U.S. defense
firms.
CONCLUSION
At its fortieth anniversary summit NATO faces new challenges and opportunities. For the
first time since the formation of NATO, the end of the Cold War may be in sight. But
NATO undoubtedly faces hard times and difficult choices before its Cold War victory can
be assured. The Soviet Union's internal reforms, the erosion of Moscow's influence in
Eastern Europe, and the promise of cuts in Soviet military forces all bode well for NATO.
But empires seldom die quietly. Violence already has erupted in the Baltic states, Soviet
Georgia, and elsewhere within Soviet borders. And the ultimate showdown between
Gorbachev and the growing forces of democracy and self-determination in Eastern Europe
still lies ahead.
During this period of rapid change NATO is facing its own internal crises, particularly the
widening policy rift between the U.S. and West Germany. Despite serious evidence of a
reduction in Soviet military power, European publics are rapidly losing any awareness of a
continuing threat, and their governments are doing little to remind them.
Difficult, Basic Questions. These issues suggest some basic questions about the U.S. role
in NATO, and Bush should begin raising them at the summit. How long can the U.S. be
expected to pay more for European defense than Europeans, who are wealthy enough to
defend themselves? When will it be time for the U.S. to begin drawing down some of its
troops in Europe, regardless of what happens in relations with the Soviet bloc? Why do
NATO allies consistently work against U.S. interests by supplying vast credits to Moscow
and supporting such Soviet-Cuban allies as Nicaragua that pose a direct threat to U.S.
security? Is West Germany getting ready to go the way of France, adopting a defense
strategy based on domestic political expedience while imposing new risks and costs on the
rest of the Alliance, primarily the U.S.?
These are difficult questions, but it does not serve the interests of NATO or the U.S. for
Bush to ignore them or seek to paper them over. NATO at forty is facing momentous
opportunities and great risks. The stakes are too high now for Bush to be anything less than
candid with the allies. NATO bureaucrats can worry about preparing a harmonious and
high minded summit Final Communique that will present a united front to NATO's
adversaries and the rest of the world. Behind closed doors, Bush should tell the allies just
what is on his mind.
14
K K
TALKING POINTS
A Checklist on Vital National Issues
The Bush-Gorbachev
Washington Summit
May 30 - June 2, 1990
Maintaining the
Momentum of Change
By Leon Aron and
Jay P. Kosminsky
The
K
Heritage Foundation
The
Heritage Foundation
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May 25, 1990
MAINTAINING THE MOMENTUM OF CHANGE
The Bush-Gorbachev Summit
Washington, D.C., May 30 - June 2, 1990
By Leon Aron and Jay P. Kosminsky
INTRODUCTION
The Washington summit meeting on May 30 - June 2 between George Bush and Mikhail
Gorbachev occurs at a crucial juncture in the history of the twentieth century. Communism,
a global ideology responsible during this century for killing, starving, and jailing more
people than any other political, religious, or social movement in history, appears to be
gravely weakened. Unlike the detente summits of the 1970s, when the Soviet Union was on
the rise and the U.S. in decline, George Bush comes to the 1990 summit as the leader of an
unquestionably ascendant power, optimistic, prosperous and, most important, able to deal
from a position of strength.
By its unflagging commitment over the past four decades to containing Soviet expansion
in Europe and around the globe, the U.S. and its Western allies have created the conditions
for the collapse of the Soviet empire and the failure of communism within the Soviet Union.
This herculean effort was capped during the 1980s by Ronald Reagan's renewal of
American power and global leadership, and the rebirth of democratic and free market
ideals which it spawned. Denied new ground for expansion, communism in the Soviet
Union is collapsing beneath the weight of its own bureaucratic inertia and internal
contradictions. Economically, politically, morally, and ideologically bankrupt, the Soviet
system is sliding inexorably toward its own ruin.
Leon Aron is Salvatori Senior Policy Analyst in Soviet Studies and Jay P. Kominsky is Deputy Director for Defense
Policy Studies, both at the Heritage Foundation.
The authors are grateful for the contributions of their Heritage Foundation colleagues: Andrew Brick, Roger Brooks,
Lozowy, James Phillips, Douglas Seay, Baker Spring, and Michael Wilson.
Kenneth Conboy, Thomas Cox, Richard Fisher, Mark Franz, Michael Johns, Bryan Johnson, Dennis Kilcoyne, Ivan
To be present at the creation of a new, post-communist world order is a great honor for
Bush. Yet it also imposes a great responsibility. As the Soviet Union retreats from Eastern
Europe and the Soviet people openly rebel against the communist system, the challenge for
Bush is to sustain the momentum of change, to ensure that this historical transition to the
post-communist era takes place in a peaceful and orderly fashion, and to help draft the
blueprint for a new international order that preserves and advances America's interests. In
this first summit of the century's last decade, Bush can cap the achievements of the long,
victorious struggle against communism and start the world heading toward what can
become, with the right policies, a second "American Century."
At the Washington summit, Bush should ask Gorbachev to:
Withdraw all his forces from Eastern Europe quickly and
participate in the creation of a new European security system based
on the sovereign rights of all countries to choose their allies and
control military activities on their territory.
Follow through on his nascent political and economic reforms
with dramatic moves toward genuine democracy and the creation of
a free market economy in the Soviet Union.
Commit himself firmly to a non-coercive, negotiated settlement
with the national republics of the Soviet Union, including the Baltic
states.
End his military support for such brutal Third World regimes as
those in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Cuba, Ethiopia, and
Vietnam.
Downplay the current Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START)
in favor of a Defense and Space Treaty which will help the U.S. and
Soviet Union move cooperatively toward the deployment of strategic
defenses.
Bush is negotiating from a position of strength and has political leverage over Gorbachev
to advance his agenda. In short, Bush has many things which Gorbachev wants. The Soviets
desire greater participation in such international economic organizations as the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the
World Bank, and they are seeking trade concessions from the U.S. as well in the form of
Most-Favored-Nation (MFN) status. Bush should tie U.S. concessions on these points to
movement by the Soviet Union toward the U.S. agenda. He should also tell Gorbachev that
concessions already granted, such as plans to relax high-technology trade restrictions
through the Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls, are reversible if the
Soviet Union returns to an expansionist foreign policy and brutal repression at home.
2
THE ROAD TO WASHINGTON
The road to the Washington summit of 1990 has been a long one. The
Bush-Gorbachev meeting in Washington is the nineteenth since
President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston
Churchill, and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin first met in 1943 to chart
the post-World War II international order. The milestones of
U.S.-Soviet summits over the past 47 years are:
Tehran, November 28 - December 1, 1943. Winston Churchill,
Franklin Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin.
Issues:
1) Agreement on the invasion of Nazi-occupied France
by Britain, Canada, and the U.S. The date was set for May
1944 and later moved to June 1944.
2) The post-war Polish-German and Soviet-Polish bor-
ders.
Yalta, February 4-11, 1945. Winston Churchill, Franklin
Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin.
Issues:
1) Allied administration of a defeated Germany, includ-
ing zones of occupation.
2) Agreement on Poland's new eastern borders.
3) The "Declaration on Liberated Europe," which called
for free elections in Eastern Europe.
4) The Soviet Union's entry into the war against Japan
ninety days after Germany's surrender.
5) Creation of the United Nations.
Potsdam, Germany, July 17 - August 2, 1945. Winston Churchill,
President Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin (Midway through the
summit, Churchill was replaced by Clement Atlee, the Labor leader
who defeated Churchill in the July 25, 1945, British elections).
Issues:
1) The administration of occupation zones in Germany.
2) A new German-Polish border.
3) German war reparations.
4) The surrender ultimatum to Japan.
5) Forms of government in Eastern Europe.
3
Geneva, July 18-23, 1955. Soviet Chairman of the Council of
Ministers Nikolai Bulganin, British Prime Minister Anthony Eden,
President Dwight Eisenhower, and French Premier Edgar Faure.
Issues:
1) German reunification.
2) Withdrawal of U.S. and Soviet troops from Europe.
3) Nuclear and conventional disarmament.
4) An "Open Skies" proposal by the U.S. to allow spy
flights over the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
Camp David, Maryland, September 25-27, 1959. Dwight
Eisenhower and Soviet Communist Party First Secretary Nikita
Khrushchev.
Issues:
1) The status of Berlin.
2) A future "Big Four" summit of Britain, France, the
Soviet Union, and the United States to discuss lowering
tensions in East-West relations.
Paris, May 16-17, 1960. French President Charles de Gaulle,
Dwight Eisenhower, Nikita Khrushchev, and British Prime Minister
Harold MacMillan.
Issue:
Intended as a discussion of ways to reduce East-West ten-
sions, the conference broke up when Khrushchev walked
out after Eisenhower refused to "apologize" for sending a
U-2 spy plane into Soviet airspace. It had been shot down
by the Soviets on May 1, 1960.
Vienna, June 3-4, 1961. President John Kennedy and Nikita
Khrushchev.
Issue:
The status of Berlin.
Glassboro, New Jersey, June 23-25, 1967. President Lyndon
Johnson and Soviet Chairman of the Council of Ministers Aleksei
Kosygin.
Issues:
1) The Arab-Israeli conflict.
2) Soviet support for the communist insurgency in South
Vietnam.
4
Moscow, May 22-28, 1972. President Richard Nixon and Soviet
General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev.
Issues:
1) Signing the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty
(SALT I), limiting long-range nuclear arms.
2) Signing the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, limit-
ing strategic defenses.
1
3) A trade agreement.
Washington, Camp David, Maryland, and San Clemente,
California, June 16-25, 1973. Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev.
Issues:
1) Strategic arms control.
2) Trade and technical cooperation.
Moscow, June 27 - July 3, 1974. Richard Nixon and Leonid
Brezhnev.
Issues:
1) Limits on underground nuclear testing.
2) Extension of the SALT treaty from a five-year agree-
ment to a permanent one.
Vladivostok, U.S.S.R., November 23-24, 1974. Leonid Brezhnev
and President Gerald Ford.
Issues:
1) Tentative agreement on limiting strategic nuclear
weapons through 1985.
2) Future of strategic arms control.
Vienna, June 16-18, 1979. Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy
Carter.
Issue:
Signing of SALT II.
1
The Soviet Union abrogated the agreement in 1975 after the U.S. Congress made it conditional on
freedom of emigration from the U.S.S.R. (the Jackson-Vanik Amendment).
5
Geneva, November 19-21, 1985. Soviet General Secretary Mikhail
Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan.
Issues:
1) Soviet aggression in Afghanistan.
2) Human rights.
3) Progress toward agreement on a 50 percent reduction
in long-range strategic weapons.
4) Progress toward limiting Intermediate-range Nuclear
Forces (INF) in Europe.
Reykjavik, Iceland, October 11-12, 1986. Mikhail Gorbachev and
Ronald Reagan.
Issue:
Whether to restrict the Strategic Defense Initiative
(SDI) program as a pre-condition for deep reduction of
strategic forces.
Washington, December 8-10, 1987. Mikhail Gorbachev and
Ronald Reagan.
Issues:
1) Signing of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces
(INF) Treaty.
2) Strategic arms reduction and SDI.
3) Human rights.
4) Soviet aggression in Afghanistan.
5) Regional conflicts.
Moscow, May 29 - June 2, 1988. Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald
Reagan.
Issues:
1) Strategic arms reductions.
2) Regional conflicts.
3) Soviet political reforms.
6
New York, December 8, 1988. President-elect George Bush,
Mikhail Gorbachev, and Ronald Reagan. 2
Issue:
A U.S. response to troop cuts announced by Gorbachev
in a December 7 speech to the United Nations.
Malta, December 2-3, 1989. George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev.
Issues:
1) Regional conflicts.
2) Accelerate treaty on conventional forces in Europe.
3) Agreement on concluding a chemical weapons treaty.
4) Acceleration of strategic arms talks.
5) Trade agreement negotiations.
THE ENDING OF AN ERA
The Washington summit completes a twenty-year cycle in U.S-Soviet relations. The cycle
began in 1970 with the preparation for the first visit of a U.S. President to Soviet Union,
which took place two years later. At this time, the Nixon-Kissinger team was desperately
trying to extricate the U.S. from the Vietnam War and sought Soviet help in exchange for
conferring on Moscow the prize it valued most: equal "superpower" status with the U.S.
In all subsequent summits of the 1970s, the "correlation of forces," to use the Soviet
term, reflected rising Soviet and diminishing U.S. power. The Soviet Union was confident in
its future, undertaking the largest military build-up in history, and it was marching from
success to success in such Third World countries as Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia,
Ethiopia, Laos, Mozambique, Nicaragua, South Yemen, and Vietnam. By contrast, the U.S.
was devastated by the Watergate scandal, shell-shocked by the 1973-1974 Arab oil embargo
and skyrocketing oil prices, and shaken by inflation and recession. In foreign affairs, the
defeat of America in Vietnam spawned what has been called the "post-Vietnam syndrome":
retreat, indecisiveness, and loss of national purpose. The U.S. situation began to improve
dramatically in the 1980s. The new President, Ronald Reagan, instilled the American
people with optimism and a sense of purpose. The economy began to grow. America began
to rearm, resisting Soviet expansion in the Third World, and imposing a high price on Soviet
adventurism. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, went through several leadership
changes. Its economy began to stagnate, and it became mired in the costly and stalemated
war in Afghanistan. Its population grew tired, dispirited, and cynical. Both at home and
abroad, the U.S. began its ascent while the Soviet Union was left behind.
2
Gorbachev's visit was interrupted by an earthquake in Armenia. Only one luncheon meeting took place.
7
This month's Washington summit completes this cycle. George Bush represents a free,
prosperous, growing, and optimistic America. Mikhail Gorbachev leaves behind him in the
Soviet Union what the main Soviet government newspaper Izvestia calls a "bankrupt,
impoverished country, which is in a state of near-disintegration,"3 a country whose economy
is depressed and shrinking, torn by deep political and national strife and deeply pessimistic
about its future. In contrast to the 1970s, the world today increasingly recognizes the
American way as the "wave of the future." Respect is growing throughout the globe for
such ideas as limiting the power of the state, and fostering individual liberty, the initiative of
private entrepreneurship, and the free market.
At the same time, the ideas associated with the Soviet Union and socialism - the
omnipresent and intrusive state, a government-controlled economy, restrictions on
individual economic initiative in the name of a higher "collective good" - all seem to be
headed toward what Ronald Reagan called, in his famous June 8, 1982, speech to the
British Parliament, the "trash heap of history." A leading Soviet political observer and
philosopher, Igor Kliamkin, on April 29, 1990, wrote in the Soviet weekly Moscow News:
"People do not have much of a choice today. They can either prefer a society of high
organization and economic efficiency, which is known as capitalism, or a society of poverty
and confusion which until recently was known as socialism." Or as Izvestia put it on April
23, 1990, "private property and hired labor have always been the most powerful stimulus of
the progress of humankind," and "economic liberty is the only real basis of all other
liberties."
REAGAN'S CONTRIBUTION TO SOVIET REFORM
This summit takes place against a backdrop of revolutionary change in Eastern Europe
and significant shifts in the Soviet Union. If the U.S is to play a role in continuing this
revolutionary advance, it is necessary to understand the forces which have brought such
tremendous success. Undoubtedly the Soviet economic crisis played a major role. Clearly,
too, Gorbachev deserves credit for recognizing that the Soviet Union is a deeply sick
society which needs radical treatment. Yet to attribute Soviet change to these factors alone
would be to oversimplify.
For example, when Gorbachev took over the post of the General Secretary of the
Communist Party in March 1985, the economy was in better shape than it was in the early
1930s after Stalin's disastrous collectivization of agriculture, or in the late 1940s when the
country lay devastated by World War II. Yet in both cases terror, propaganda, and the
alleged "Western threat" were employed successfully to frighten the Soviet people into
submission and to preserve the communist system. When Soviet rulers did try reforming the
economic system, as Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin did in 1965, their actions amounted to
little more than tinkering.
3
V. Kisilev, "Ot aprelia do aprelia" ("From April to April") Izvestia, April 23, 1990.
8
One of the key reasons why Gorbachev's reforms have gone much further than those of
his predecessors was a reevaluation by the Soviet leadership of some of the cornerstones of
Soviet domestic and foreign policy. Previous Soviet leaders believed deeply in the
Communist Party's totalitarian control over political life, the mass media, and the economy;
in enormous Soviet defense expenditures; in continued absolute control over Eastern
Europe; and in the dominant role of military force in Soviet foreign policy.
What prompted this soul-searching by the Soviet ruling class? What caused it to doubt its
most sacred articles of faith? It is impossible to answer these questions without recalling
Reagan's two-term presidency. For it was Reagan's policies that exposed the inherent
weakness of Soviet communism. For example, Reagan:
Turned the tables on the Soviets in military competition. Reagan
not only matched the Soviet military build-up which Moscow
launched in the late 1960s, he shifted the U.S.-Soviet competition
into areas which put Moscow at a disadvantage. By proposing the
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in 1983, Reagan forced the Soviets
to compete with the futuristic technologies in which the Soviets were
behind the U.S.
The 1983 deployment of U.S. medium-range nuclear missiles in
Western Europe following the deployment in Eastern Europe of
Soviet SS-20 missiles was another serious blow to the Soviet
leadership. NATO was able to place Pershing II and cruise missiles
in Europe despite a massive Soviet disinformation campaign. Instead
of intimidating Western Europe into submission and "de-coupling"
the U.S. from its European allies, the Soviet missiles strengthened
Western resolve to resist Soviet nuclear blackmail and solidified
NATO unity in the face of the Soviet threat.
The Soviet leadership also was shaken by America's resurgent
military strength. Military power had been Moscow's only claim to
superpower status and the only arena in which the Soviet Union
could hope to compete successfully with the United States. Faced
with an economically and militarily strong America, Soviet rulers
began to lose confidence in the ultimate triumph of their system. A
dialogue between two leading Soviet political observers, recorded in
the popular Soviet weekly Literaturnaya Gazeta of August 16, 1989,
reveals the impact of the U.S. military revival on Soviet thinking:
Igor Kliamkin: "Brezhnev built his entire foreign policy
on military parity [with the United States]. As long as this
parity could be achieved, [Brezhnev] did not have to
change anything inside the country. But after Brezhnev's
death, we found that the [U.S.] "Euromissiles" were supe-
?
rior to ours in accuracy, and that we could not achieve
such accuracy
This caused a change in thinking,
which led to domestic reforms."
Andranik Migranian: "All our history supports this pat-
tern. For example, the defeat of Russia in the Crimean
9
War [1853-56]: the threat that this defeat posed to
Russia's status led to modernization If we win by old
means, the thinking that prevails is that nothing needs to
be changed."
Restored U.S. economic strength. The founder of the Soviet state,
Vladimir Lenin, predicted in 1916 that so-called "imperialism
[would be] the final stage of capitalism." In Soviet eyes, this
prediction appeared to be coming true in the 1970s. During this time
the U.S. suffered from double-digit inflation in the wake of
skyrocketing oil prices. Jimmy Carter said America was plagued by a
"national malaise.' The U.S. was humiliated by the Iranian hostage
crisis. All these things seemed to indicate to Soviet ideologues that
"the tide of history" was on their side.
By 1984, however, Reagan restored America's economic health by
cutting taxes and creating a political climate that encouraged free
market initiative and investment. Moreover, as the Soviet Union
entered its worst economic depression since World War II, the U.S.
began the longest period of sustained peacetime economic growth in
American history. The effect of renewed U.S. economic vigor was an
ideological crisis in Moscow. In the minds of the Soviet leaders, the
U.S. economic expansion may have cast doubts about the most
sacred tenet of Soviet ideology: the "inevitable triumph" of socialism
over capitalism, as predicted by Lenin.
Helped squeeze the Soviet economy by lowering oil prices. Oil and
natural gas account for 80 percent of Soviet trade with the West. 4 Oil
is by far Moscow's most important hard-currency earning
commodity. According to Soviet sources, the Soviet Union earned
$176 billion during the period of skyrocketing oil prices between
1974 and 1984. 5
The political implications of this oil windfall were immense. First, oil
dollars bought the Soviet Union bread, consumer goods, and even a
slight but steady increase in the standard of living that helped keep
the population quiescent as Moscow sank billions of rubles into the
military buildup of the 1970s. Under these circumstances, there was
no need either to modernize the Soviet economy or loosen the
straightjacket of the police state. As a Soviet commentator put it,
"[In the 1970s] we tried to build a society on oil dollars in which one
could have everything except the opportunity of political
participation.
,,6
4
Izvestia, October 10, 1987.
5
V. Katasonov, "Ne neftiu edinoy." ("Not by oil alone.") Literaturnaya Gazeta, March 1, 1989.
6
Literaturnaya Gazeta, March 1, 1989.
10
Second, oil dollars helped the Soviet Union pay for the maintenance
of its Eastern European empire. Moscow provided its puppet
regimes there with between $11 billion and $15 billion a year in
economic aid.
Third, oil profits helped finance the rapid expansion of the Soviet
Third World empire by allowing Moscow to funnel tens of billions of
dollars worth of military and economic aid to such new Third World
clients as Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia, Grenada, Mozambique,
Nicaragua, and South Yemen. All this was on top of continuing aid to
such expensive old clients as Cuba, Syria, and Vietnam.
By deregulating U.S. oil and gas prices, Reagan helped stabilize and
then bring down global oil prices after almost a decade of
unconstrained growth. Oil prices sank from roughly $47 per barrel in
1981 to $26 per barrel in 1985 (in 1985 dollars). As a result, the
Soviet Union 7 lost 40 billion rubles, or $62.4 billion, between 1986
and 1989.
The political repercussions of collapsing oil prices were profound for
the Soviet Union. The loss of oil revenues exacerbated the problems
of a stagnating economy, and made it much more difficult to fund
client regimes in Eastern Europe and the Third World. It is no
accident that a reformer such as Gorbachev was elevated to lead the
Soviet Union at about the time the falling oil prices undermined the
already-shaky Soviet economy.
Imposed a high price in gold and blood for Soviet expansionism
in the Third World. The Reagan Administration gave military,
economic, and diplomatic support to indigenous anti-communist
resistance movements in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, and
Nicaragua. Reagan also helped Honduras and El Salvador resist
Cuban-sponsored communist insurgencies, and he liberated
Grenada from a communist dictatorship.
The Reagan Doctrine, which called for effective U.S. support for
anti-communist liberation movements, demolished the myth of
Soviet invincibility. Severe damage was done to Soviet international
prestige, a great part of which had been based on the perception that
Soviet expansionism was inevitable and, in some quarters, even
legitimate. But most important, the success of the Reagan Doctrine
sowed doubt in the mind of the Soviet rulers, who began asking
themselves if communism really was the wave of the future.
7
Op. cit..
11
WHAT HAS GORBACHEV CHANGED? WHAT HAS HE NOT CHANGED?
Springing from the seeds of doubt and soul-searching planted during Reagan's eight years
in office, Gorbachev's reforms changed the Soviet Union in many ways. Before Bush sits
down with Gorbachev, he should take stock not only of what has changed in the past five
years of Gorbachev's rule, but also of what has not changed.
SOVIET DOMESTIC POLICY
What Has Changed
What Has Not Changed
The repeal of Article 6 of the Soviet
The absence of a legitimate government,
Constitution, which guarantees the
elected freely and fairly in direct multi-party
Communist Party's political monopoly.
elections.
Multi-candidate local elections, which
Continued illegal occupation of the Baltic
ended party control over the city.
Republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
Dramatic expansion of the bounds on
No legal foundation for independent
public discourse, known as glasnost.
political activity.
An end to the jamming of Western radio
No institutionalized freedom of speech.
signals, including the U.S.-funded Radio
Liberty.
No cuts in the number of secret police.
A reduction of anti-American and
Over 100 confirmed prisoners of
anti-Western propaganda in the Soviet
conscience remain in Soviet jails and
mass media.
uncounted others remain in punitive
psychiatric wards.
An elimination of restrictions on the sale of
some Western periodicals in the Soviet
State control over the Soviet economy.
Union and on subscriptions by Soviet
The prohibition on hired labor for private
citizens to Western publications.
enterprises.
Removal of many restrictions on travel and
No private ownership of the "means of
emigration.
production."
Relaxation of state control over religion
No price reform which would allow the
and de-facto legalization of the Ukrainian
market, and not government ministries, to
Catholic Church, outlawed since 1947.
set prices.
Emergence of private enterprises in sales,
No convertible ruble which could be
services, and food production.
exchanged for foreign currencies.
No free wholesale market.
No radical land reform, which would allow
farmers to sell and inherit farm land.
12
Soviet Foreign Policy
What Has Changed
What Has Not Changed
An end to Moscow's political control over
Continued buildup of strategic nuclear
Eastern Europe.
forces aimed at the U.S. and its allies.
The beginning of Soviet troop withdrawals
The presence of about 550,000 Soviet troops
from Eastern Europe.
in Eastern Europe.
Cuts in defense spending in 1989 of 4-5
Soviet military support for the Marxist regime
percent.
in Angola.
The pullout of Soviet troops from
Soviet aid to Ethiopian dictator Mengistu
Afghanistan.
Haile Mariam.
The destruction of the Berlin Wall.
Massive military assistance to the
Acquiescence to preliminary steps toward
communist regime in Afghanistan.
German unification.
Soviet economic and military aid to Cuba.
A cutoff of direct arms shipments to
The flow of Soviet arms to such
Nicaragua and non-interference with the
terrorism-sponsoring states as Iran, Iraq,
transfer of power to a non-communist
Libya, South Yemen, and Syria.
government there.
A refusal to extend diplomatic recognition to
Israel.
Soviet espionage efforts with an increasing
emphasis on technological and industrial
targets.
Soviet disinformation campaigns, aimed at
discrediting the U.S. and the West,
estimated to cost $4 billion in 1989.
Continuing Soviet obstruction of U.S. efforts
at the United Nations to promote freedom
and democracy.
IS THERE STILL A SOVIET MILITARY THREAT?
For the first time since Khrushchev was the leader of the Soviet Union, U.S. intelligence
services have reported a significant drop in Soviet military spending and production.
According to the Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency, Soviet
military spending dropped last year by between 4 and 5 percent. More important, spending
13
on weapons dropped by 6 to 7 percent. Tank production was cut in half last year, from a
post-war high of 3,500 in 1988 to 1,700 in 1989. Field artillery production dropped by about
a quarter, 8 from 2,500 to 1,850, but still outpaces U.S. artillery production by a ratio of about
10 to 1.
Yet there was no slowdown in production of nuclear-armed strategic missiles capable of
reaching the U.S. and its allies. New weapons included the production of two land-based
mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), the SS-24 and SS-25, along with a more
powerful and accurate version of the most formidable missile in the Soviet arsenal, the
ten-warhead land-based SS-18. Production of short-range missiles such as the 75-mile range
SS-21 actually increased from 650 in 1988 to 700 in 1989. Over the past five years, Moscow
has produced about 3,050 short-range missiles while the U.S. has produced none.
The Soviet Navy also had a banner year in 1989, with no slowdown in production rates for
submarines and surface combat ships such as cruisers and destroyers, although training time
at sea decreased for the Soviet Navy as a whole. The first large-deck Soviet aircraft carrier,
Tblisi, (formerly called the Brezhnev), began its trial runs last year.
Reductions in Soviet military capability have reduced the threat to allies in Europe and,
for the first time in the post-World War II era, have made feasible a NATO defense against
a Soviet attack without resort to nuclear weapons. 9
Three factors are contributing to this decline in Soviet power:
1) Gorbachev's unilateral withdrawal of tanks and some other
military equipment from Eastern Europe, which has reduced Soviet
combat power there by about ten percent;
2) The newly-gained independence of such countries as
Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland, which
effectively has removed the armies of these countries from Soviet
control, and
3) The beginning of Soviet withdrawals from Czechoslovakia and
Hungary under agreements to remove all Soviet forces from these
countries by mid-1991.
8
See testimony of John L. Helgerson, Deputy Director for Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, to U.S.
Congress Joint Economic Committee, April 20, 1980; See also, "The Soviet Economy Stumbles Badly in
1990," Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency paper to U.S. Congress Joint
Economic Committee, April 20, 1990; other data from testimony of Under Secretary of Defense Paul
Wolfowitz before the House Armed Services Committee, February 28, 1990.
9
According to Congressman Les Aspin, who referred to a classified report to Congress from the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. See Peter Almond, "Declining threat leaves NATO with response time to spare,"
Washington Times, March 14, 1990, p. 17.
14
Of course, Gorbachev, or more likely a successor, still could reverse course and embark on
another major military buildup. This could be manifested in a slowdown in conventional
arms negotiations. Or Moscow could take more severe steps, such as reneging on
agreements to withdraw its forces from Czechoslovakia and Hungary, reintroducing tanks
and other military equipment recently withdrawn from Eastern Europe, or even attempting
to reimpose political and military control over parts of Eastern Europe. While such
measures would be dangerous and perhaps bloody, they cannot be ruled out. Disquieting
reports from Moscow suggest that the Soviet military is beginning to balk at Gorbachev's
attempts to reduce size. This may be evident in Soviet backtracking on arms control
concessions, Gorbachev's harsh reaction to the Lithuanian drive for independence, and an
apparent slowdown in the pace of Soviet withdrawals from Eastern Europe.
15
WHAT BUSH SHOULD ASK OF GORBACHEV: A SUMMIT AGENDA
Gorbachev has many problems. Republics are trying to secede from the Soviet Union;
the economy is suffering a crisis of catastrophic proportions; and political opposition to
Gorbachev's rule is growing. What America wants of Gorbachev is only one factor among
many influencing the Soviet decision-making process. Bush therefore will have to pick and
choose carefully which issues he wishes to raise with Gorbachev at the summit. He should
convey clearly to Gorbachev precisely what it is he wants from him. Afterward, he should
lay out what the U.S. is prepared to do if Moscow takes America's interests into account,
and the consequences if it does not.
The main U.S. objective at the summit is to expand, deepen, and accelerate the process of
change that would strengthen the security of the U.S. and its allies and advance the cause of
democracy in the world. In accordance with this strategic objective, Bush should ensure that
his discussions with Gorbachev focus on six areas critical to U.S. national interests. They
are:
1) Conventional Arms Reductions, German Unity, and the Future of Europe
The main threat to Europe's peace since the end of the World War II has been Soviet
military power. The East European revolutions of 1989 and the political and economic crisis
of the Soviet Union have set in motion the collapse of the Soviet empire and the retreat of
Soviet power from Europe. Change in Europe is moving in a direction favorable to the U.S.
and its allies. Bush comes to the Washington summit negotiating from a position of strength
over the future of Europe.
The United States and the Soviet Union are engaged or are about to be engaged in
several negotiations which together will determine the future security structure of Europe.
These include: the Vienna-based Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) negotiations aimed
at ending Moscow's overwhelming advantage in tanks, artillery, aircraft, and other
equipment stationed in Europe; the ongoing "two plus four" talks over Germany, designed
to work out the internal mechanisms and external security arrangements of German
unification; the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), which could
convene later this year to discuss human rights and security issues in Europe; and the
Short-range Nuclear Force (SNF) negotiations, which could convene shortly to discuss
reductions in short-range nuclear missiles and perhaps other nuclear weapons based in
Europe.
In these negotiations, Moscow has sought variously to dissolve NATO, denuclearize
Europe, take Germany out of the Atlantic Alliance and weaken it through undue
restrictions on the German army. If successful, Moscow's efforts would create a power
vacuum in Central Europe which would leave the area open to Soviet military - and
therefore political - influence even as Soviet forces are withdrawn from it. It is precisely
such influence which the U.S. and its allies have sought to deny Moscow for the past forty
years.
16
U.S. Objectives
The rollback of Soviet military power in Europe and the
withdrawal of Soviet forces to within their own borders.
A new European security system based on the freedom and
sovereignty of all European states and a balance of military power
that would prevent the resurrection of a Soviet or any other military
threat to peace and freedom on the continent.
The preservation of democratic gains in Eastern Europe.
A united and democratic Germany, free to choose its allies and
provide adequately for its conventional and nuclear defense in
cooperation with its allies.
Withdrawal of most U.S. ground forces from Europe and
subsequent reduction in the costs and risks of the U.S. military
presence on the continent, provided that the Soviet threat is
substantially reduced.
What Bush should tell Gorbachev
In summit discussions on conventional arms control, German unity, and the future of
Europe, Bush should ask Gorbachev to:
Speed the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe. Since
the end of World War II, the Soviet military presence in Eastern
Europe has posed the greatest danger to European and world peace.
The revolutions of 1989 have freed Eastern Europe from Soviet
control, and it now looks as if Soviet forces soon will be on their way
out of Czechoslovakia and Hungary entirely. The next step is to get
the 350,000 or so Soviet troops in East Germany, the spearhead of
the Red Army, back into Soviet territory. For the U.S. and its
European allies, a Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Europe is the
most comprehensive test of Gorbachev's new thinking. Until such a
withdrawal is completed, doubts about Gorbachev's commitment to
peace will remain, tainting all aspects of U.S.-Soviet relations.
According to Pentagon sources, U.S. allies are considering a
"transition period" of up to seven years during which Soviet forces
would remain in a united Germany. Germany even apparently is
willing to pay Moscow to station them there. Bush should look for a
commitment from Gorbachev to withdraw his forces from Eastern
Europe within two years. If NATO is going to pay Moscow, it should
be to help with the financial burden of withdrawing and demobilizing
hundreds of thousands of Red Army troops, and not to subsidize
their continued presence on foreign territory.
17
Accept the need for a balance of power in Central Europe. Even if
Moscow removes all its forces from Eastern Europe, it will remain
the most powerful state on the European continent because of its
nuclear striking power and its ability to mobilize a huge army.
Adequate Western military power in Central Europe, essentially
Germany, will be needed to continue to counter Soviet power and
limit Soviet influence in Europe. To assure a balance of power in
Europe, Bush should stress three principles to Gorbachev:
Principle #1. United Germany must be fully sovereign and have the
right to choose its allies. Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard
Shevardnadze proposed on May 6, 1990, that the wartime
occupying powers of Germany - Britain, France, the Soviet
Union, and the U.S. - retain some residual rights in Germany
even after unification takes place. Bush and Kohl rightly
rejected this proposal in Washington on May 17, recognizing
that it was an attempt by Moscow to gain a veto over united
Germany's membership in NATO, the size of its armed forces,
and its ability to station U.S. nuclear weapons on its territory.
Only a fully sovereign Germany will be able to choose its allies
- presumably NATO - and with their assistance assure its
defense against what will remain into the foreseeable future, a
tremendously powerful Soviet Union.
Principle #2. NATO will retain the option of deploying U.S. nuclear
weapons in Central Europe. Without these, Germany, and such
other allies as the Netherlands, will be open to Soviet nuclear
blackmail in wartime. Central Europe should not become a
"nuclear-free zone." Bush already consented on May 4 to
negotiate limits, perhaps to zero, on all ground-based nuclear
weapons including missiles and artillery. Some NATO nuclear
capacity will be needed in Europe, however, to reassure allies
of America's ultimate commitment to their defense.
Principle #3 Germany cannot be singled out for conventional
military force cuts. Germany should not be asked to reduce its
conventional forces beyond the general constraints placed on
all NATO and Warsaw Pact militaries by a CFE treaty. Doing
so would leave Germany insecure and resentful. Bush asserted
on April 20 that there should be no discriminatory limitations
on German sovereignty, including singling Germany out for
special limitations on the size of its armed forces. He should
reiterate this position to Gorbachev.
Make military stability in Europe irreversible. To ensure that the
demise of Soviet military superiority is irreversible, a CFE treaty
must include a "sufficiency rule" limiting the Soviet Union, along
with all other signatories, to no more than roughly 30 percent of the
military equipment in the area covered by the agreement, which is
18
from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains. It also will mean
that all military equipment removed under the agreement will have
to be destroyed, although a small percentage might be converted to
civilian use under international supervision to ensure that it is made
militarily unusable.
Recognize that NATO is not negotiable. Bush should make it clear
that the U.S. will participate in no plans, either through the "two plus
four" negotiations on German unification or under the auspices of a
CSCE agreement, to dissolve or transform NATO. Various schemes
for weakening NATO have been proposed by Moscow, including
Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze's offer on May 6, at the
opening of the "two plus four" negotiations, to keep a united
Germany in both NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Shevardnadze's
proposal would debilitate NATO by effectively removing its most
powerful European member, West Germany. NATO is a voluntary
alliance of free states, dedicated to maintaining peace by deterring
Soviet power. Its future is a matter for its members to decide. By the
same token, the future of the Warsaw Pact is a matter for its
members to decide. If the newly-liberated states of the former Soviet
East European empire decide to leave the Pact, as is likely in coming
months and years, the organization will dissolve.
Agree that the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
(CSCE) is not workable as a collective security organization. CSCE
is a 35-nation organization which includes all European countries
except Albania as well as the U.S., Canada, and the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev and many Europeans, including the opposition Social
Democrats in Germany, are proposing an expanded role for CSCE,
going beyond its current mandate of addressing such issues as arms
control and human rights. They want to turn CSCE into a standing
body responsible for guaranteeing peace in Europe, eventually to
supersede NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
Since CSCE operates by consensus, however, its actions would be
subject to veto by the Soviet Union or any other power, thereby
rendering it entirely ineffective in a peacekeeping role, and leaving
Europe vulnerable to its most powerful state - the Soviet Union.
Bush should proceed with plans to hold a CSCE conference after the
n
two plus four" talks have been completed, and to expand CSCE's
role in ratifying and helping to verify such arms control agreements
as a CFE Treaty. However, he should reject the idea of CSCE as a
collective security organization. He should also make clear U.S.
opposition to proposals made on April 6 in Washington by German
Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher to expand CSCE's role in
such areas as technology-sharing and establishment of a European
Development Bank.
19
Accept U.S. diplomatic cover for the Soviet retreat from Europ
Bush should agree to help Gorbachev save face as he pulls his for
out of Eastern Europe. He could offer to comply with the proposal
made on February 9 in Potsdam by Genscher to refrain from
stationing any U.S. or other foreign NATO forces in what is now
East Germany. He could also offer a somewhat expanded role for
CSCE in such areas as arms control verification. And he could
promise to help provide civilian housing for demobilized Soviet
forces returning to the Soviet Union if Gorbachev agreed to
withdraw them within two years. Face-saving devices for Gorbachev,
however, do not include concessions on any issues vital to U.S. or
allied security, such as the future, shape, and character of NATO.
2) Soviet Political and Economic Reform
The U.S. is interested in the transformation of the Soviet Union into a democratic and
free-market state that will pose less of a threat to the security of the U.S. and its allies, and
that will show greater respect for freedom and human dignity. While Gorbachev has made
many reforms since he came to power in March 1985, he has not yet fundamentally
transformed the Soviet political or economic system.
U.S. Objective
A peaceful Soviet transition to a multiparty democracy and a free
market economic system.
What Bush should tell Gorbachev
In summit discussions of Soviet domestic issues, Bush should ask Gorbachev to:
Take immediate steps towards the creation of a legitimate national
government that people would trust and that could carry through
radical economic and political reforms. As constituted today, the
Soviet Union's national legislature, the Congress of People's
Deputies, and its permanent working body, the Supreme Soviet,
cannot be called democratically legitimate. One-third of the
Congress's members (including President Gorbachev) were not
elected. Instead, they were appointed by such so-called "social
organizations" as the Committee of World War II Veterans, the
Communist Youth League (Komsomol), and even the Stamp
Collectors' Society, which are controlled by the Communist Party.
20
Moreover, in many places where multi-candidate elections did take
place, they were not fair because the Communist Party manipulated
the nominating process.
Create laws guaranteeing freedom of independent political activity
and freedom of speech. Political parties still have no legal status in
the Soviet Union. The official platform of the Communist Party
states only that the Party "does not exclude the possibility" of the
emergence of other political parties. 11 Moreover, the same
"platform" states that the Communist Party is "ready for a political
dialogue" only with those parties which are "for the renewal of the
socialist society. 12 In the absence of laws guaranteeing political
freedom, further democratization of the Soviet Union is impossible.
Furthermore, the Soviet Union still lacks laws protecting freedom of
speech. A relaxed "Law on Mass Media," promised two years ago,
has failed to materialize. The absence of any law guaranteeing
freedom of speech and the press makes the policy of glasnost
reversible.
Open up the secret police to glasnost and drastically reduce its
numbers. If Gorbachev is serious about his commitment to
democracy and the rule of law, there is no need for a 600,000-strong
secret police (the KGB). Bush should encourage Gorbachev to
curtail radically KGB activities by prohibiting surveillance of Soviet
citizens, including phone-tapping and opening of mail, and to
institute effective legislative oversight of the KGB's activities. Also,
the KGB should be instructed to confine its activities to such tasks as
fighting organized crime and illegal drug trafficking, while its force
should be reduced to no more than one-tenth of its present size.
Order immediately the release of Soviet prisoners of conscience. At
least 100 individuals incarcerated in the Soviet Union are considered
political prisoners by such human rights groups as Amnesty
International. Among these are those who, like Leningrad scientist
Mikhail Kazachkov, were convicted of "high treason" for attempting
to leave the Soviet Union. Others are conscientious objectors who
refused to serve in the Soviet army. Still others are nationalist
activists.
Proceed immediately with a radical economic reform. Bush should
underscore the urgent need to make a radical economic reforms by
reminding Gorbachev that the Soviet Union has little time to set the
Soviet economy on the right path. In the last six months, the Soviet
economic crisis has worsened into something very close to a national
11 Izvestia, April 23, 1990.
12 Ibid.
21
catastrophe. According to Soviet economists, industrial production
dropped at least 5 to 6 percent in the first three months of this year.
According to a CIA estimate, if the present trend continues, the
Soviet economy could shrink by as much as 20 percent in the next
two years. During the first quarter of this year, inflation skyrocketed
as the free-market price of meat grew by 13 16 percent, of vegetables by
13 percent, and of fruits by 20 percent.
Already ranked 77th in the world in terms of per capita
consumption, 14 the Soviet Union is sinking deeper into poverty.
Ninety-five million Soviet citizens, or nearly one-third of the
population, live below the poverty line, which was recently raised by
a special commission of the Supreme Soviet from 75 rubles per
person per month to 120 rubles 15 - or $8 by the market rate of
exchange.
The longer systemic economic reform is postponed, the greater the
turmoil and the greater the probability that an anti-democratic,
anti-Western, and anti-free market mass movement could emerge. If
this were to occur, the Soviet Union could become more dangerous
to the West than it is now.
Bush should express deep disappointment about the postponement
of radical economic reform postponement of radical economic
reform. He should encourage Gorbachev to take the steps to
introduce a free market system into the Soviet Union. These should
include:
Reducing state control of the economy. According to a member
of Gorbachev's Presidential Council, economist Stanislav
Shatalin, after five years of reforms, "We have strengthened
the old mechanism of control [by] leaving the ministries all
the material ,,16 resources and thus creating even more monstrous
monopolies.
Introducing price reform. Until prices are dictated by the laws of
supply and demand, and not set arbitrarily by government
ministries, the Soviet Union will never succeed in cutting
waste, increasing productivity and motivating people to work
harder.
Allowing the sale and inheritance of farmland. The Soviet
agricultural system is inefficient and wasteful, incapable of
13 Egor Gaidar, "Chto novogo V ekonomike?" ("What's new in the economy?") Pravda, April 29, 1990.
14 V.Radaev and O. Shkaratan, "Vozvrashenie k istokam." ("Return to the source.") Izvestia, February 16,
1990.
15 Moscow News, March 11, 1990.
16 Izvestia, April 21, 1990.
22
feeding the country despite annual state subsidies of over 100
billion rubles. A major obstacle to the revival of Soviet
agriculture is the peasants' lack of confidence in the
permanence of the reforms. Until laws have been passed
permitting inheritance and the sale of land, farmers will not
believe that the land is theirs to cultivate.
Repealing the prohibition on hired labor for private enterprises.
Private entrepreneurs in the Soviet Union are prohibited from
hiring workers and can only form partnerships, or
"cooperatives," with those they hire. Although the law against
hired labor is often ignored, it remains a key obstacle to the
growth of a Soviet free market.
Allowing private ownership of the "means of production."
Private enterprises are limited mostly to production and sale of
food, clothing and providing services. Private enterprises are
prohibited from manufacturing tools, machines and
technology. Allowing private ownership of the "means of
production" is necessary for a truly radical overhaul of the
Soviet economy.
Freeing the wholesale market. Moscow's economic ministries
continue to control raw materials, set prices, and distribute
products. Under such circumstances, private enterprises are
forced to pay enormous bribes to government officials. The
cost of such bribes is then added to the price of goods, making
them too expensive for many Soviet consumers. These high
prices create a popular backlash against private enterprise and
the free market in general.
3) The Dissolving Soviet Empire
The Eastern European revolutions of 1989 already have jumped the border into the
Soviet Union. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are embarked on a path of independence, and
revolutionary fervor is growing in such other republics as Byelorussia, Georgia, and
Ukraine. Lenin called what now is the Soviet Union a "prisonhouse of nationalities." Now
these nations are expressing their desire to be free. Only through negotiation and the
growth of democratic processes can a just and peaceful path to self-determination be found.
Bush should ask Gorbachev to understand that the use of brute force against independence
movements will be self-defeating, and that the U.S. will retaliate if the Soviet leadership
chooses a forceful, rather than peaceful, solution to its nationalities crisis.
23
U.S. Objective
A peaceful, negotiated decolonization of the Soviet domestic
empire.
What Bush should tell Gorbachev
In summit discussion of the Soviet nationalities crisis Bush should ask Gorbachev to:
Avoid the use of force against democratic movements inside the
Soviet Union. The non-Russian peoples of the Soviet Union are
determined to gain independence from Moscow. Lithuania, Estonia,
and Latvia already have declared their independence. Azerbaijan,
Georgia, and Moldavia may follow before the end of the year. The
eventual configuration of the Soviet Union is impossible to predict;
some national republics may become totally independent while
others may stay in varying degrees of association with Russia. The
only hope for a peaceful resolution of this crisis lies in Gorbachev's
recognition that Moscow's future relationship with breakaway
republics should be resolved through negotiation, not force.
Lift economic and political pressure on Lithuania immediately and
begin to negotiate in good faith with the freely and democratically
elected government of Lithuania.
Understand that the U.S. considers the Lithuanian crisis a test case
for Gorbachev's nationalities policy. Following the March 11
declaration of independence by the Lithuanian parliament, Moscow
has been trying to force the Lithuanians to back down by imposing
economic pressure, such as a cutting off oil supplies. Gorbachev
should be told that a negotiated solution to the Lithuanian crisis is
the only outcome which will allow continued improvement in
U.S.-Soviet relations and the economic benefits which Moscow
hopes to derive from them.
Understand that the U.S. will continue to provide moral support
for forces in the Soviet Union working for peaceful and democratic
choice.
Recognize that the U.S. seeks no military advantage in the
decolonization of the Soviet domestic empire.
Understand that the U.S. never recognized the forcible
incorporation of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania
into the Soviet Union in 1940.
24
Be aware that the U.S. may raise the issue of national
determination for the peoples of the Soviet Union at future sessions
of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE).
Be advised that the U.S. may request membership status at future
CSCE conferences for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Understand that a Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty
will in no way legitimize the presence of Soviet troops in Estonia,
Latvia, and Lithuania. The U.S. may wish to include the subject of
the Soviet troops in those republics in future conventional arms
control talks.
4) The Third World and Multinational Organizations
Continued Soviet assistance to Third World clients is a major obstacle to normalizing
U.S.-Soviet relations. Bush should use the summit to press Gorbachev to cut Moscow's
support for anti-democratic, anti-Western regimes and instead join forces with the U.S. in
encouraging democracy, freedom and free market economies in the Third World and in
such multinational organizations as the United Nations.
U.S. Objectives
The reduction and eventual elimination of Soviet support for
violent, anti-democratic, anti-Western regimes in the Third World.
Transition from U.S-Soviet confrontation to cooperation in the
Third World.
The peaceful transition of Afghanistan, Angola, Cuba, Ethiopia,
Mozambique, and Nicaragua to democracy.
A negotiated solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The end of state-sponsored terrorism.
Soviet support for U.S. efforts at the United Nations to bring
democracy, freedom, and free markets to the world community.
25
What Bush should tell Gorbachev
In summit discussion of Third World issues, Bush should ask Gorbachev to:
End Soviet military assistance to Third World clients. While
pleading poverty and seeking Western economic assistance, Moscow
spends $10 billion on arms, ammunition, and equipment for its Third
World clients. The lion's share of this amount is spent on assisting
such violent, anti-Western communist regimes as Afghanistan,
Angola, Cuba, and Ethiopia. Gorbachev should not expect
large-scale Western help until the Soviet Union begins to help itself
by drastically reducing assistance to its Third World clients.
End the Cold War in the Third World. Many Third World dictators
have oppressed and impoverished their peoples while playing the
U.S. and the Soviet Union against each other. Opportunistic Third
World leaders appealed for and received generous economic and
military assistance from one or both of the superpowers, which they
used to secure their own personal power rather than to make
democratic and economic reforms. It is time for the U.S. and the
Soviet Union to reap "a peace dividend" in the Third World. They
could do this by working together to build democracies and free
market economies.
Stop propping up the Castro dictatorship. The fall of Fidel Castro's
dictatorship is only a matter of time. Moscow's $6 billion in annual
aid to Cuba sustains an illegitimate and economically bankrupt
regime. The longer Moscow keeps Castro afloat, the greater the
chance that a popular revolution will be violent, as happened in
Romania in December 1989.
Stop supplying arms to Cuba. The U.S. considers Central America
vital to its national security. Cuba uses Soviet weapons and
ammunition drawn from its annual $1.5 billion in military aid to
undermine such fragile Central American democracies as El
Salvador. For example, the arms factory in Camaguey, Cuba, built by
the Soviets last year, produces AK-47 assault automatic rifles,
mortars and land mines, some of which have been found in the hands
of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN)
communist guerrillas in El Salvador.
Withdraw billions of dollars worth of weapons that the Soviets
poured into Nicaragua and begin working for peace. The Soviet bloc
provided the Sandinistas with an estimated $3 billion worth of
military assistance between 1979 and 1989. The presence of such a
huge arsenal poses a serious danger to the fledgling Nicaraguan
democracy of Violeta Chammoro. If the new Nicaraguan
government requests it, the Soviet Union should cover the costs of
removing these weapons from Nicaragua and join the U.S. in
providing much needed economic aid.
26
Stop military assistance to the Marxist regime in Angola. The
Angolan regime currently is conducting a military offensive against
the anti-communist resistance movement, the National Union for the
Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). This offensive is the largest
government operation in the fifteen-year civil war. Not only does the
Soviet Union foot the bill by spending an estimated $1 billion a year
to aid the Marxist government, but also Soviet military advisors are
reportedly directing government troops on the battlefront.
Terminate immediately all Soviet assistance to the brutal
dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam. Soviet military assistance to
Ethiopia props up one of the world's bloodiest regimes. Last year
Moscow supplied an estimated $800 million worth of arms,
ammunition and equipment to Ethiopia.
Quit pouring $300 million worth of military aid each month into
Afghanistan. Moscow continues to funnel arms, ammunition and
equipment into Afghanistan at a rate of $250 million to $300 million
per month. At least 300 Soviet military advisors remain to plan
military operations, train government troops, maintain military
equipment and launch Soviet-made SCUD missiles at rebel
positions. The Soviet KGB continues to supervise the Afghan secret
police, the backbone of the communist Najibullah regime. Massive
Soviet aid merely postpones Najibullah's downfall and prolongs the
sufferings of the Afghan people. Moscow should allow the Afghans,
like the Eastern Europeans, to regain their self-determination
through free elections. Further, Bush should avoid the trap of
"negative symmetry," which would entail a cutoff of arms to both the
communists and the Afghan freedom fighters, because this would
leave the Najibullah regime in power with military superiority, and
thereby discourage a peaceful settlement.
Reduce arms supplies to Iran, Iraq, Libya, South Yemen and Syria.
Soviet arms supplied to these countries are intended in part for use
against Israel, the only democracy in the region, and against innocent
victims of terrorism around the world. The flow of Soviet military
hardware to the so-called "rejectionist," anti-Israel Arab states is a
major obstacle to the peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
These arms sustain the illusion of a possible Arab military victory
over Israel. Further, the current transfers of Soviet arms to Iran, at a
time when six Americans and ten other Westerners are held hostage
by pro-Iranian Shiite terrorist groups in Lebanon, is a hostile act
against the U.S. and its allies.
Re-establish diplomatic relations with Israel. If Moscow desires a
role in the Arab-Israeli peace process, then it must be on an equal
legal footing with both sides, and thus should open full diplomatic
relations with Israel.
27
Denounce and withhold Soviet support from radical Palestinians.
To prove that it is serious about peace, Moscow should publicly
denounce Palestinian terrorism against Israel and moderate Arab
states, cease support for radical Palestinian groups, and press Iraq,
Libya, South Yemen, and Syria to end their support of Palestinian
groups engaged in terrorism.
Take additional cooperative steps at the U.N. Bush should express
satisfaction with improvements in Soviet policies at the U.N.
Example: Assistant Secretary of State John Bolton and Soviet
Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Petrovsky co-authored a
November 15, 1989, U.N. resolution, calling on all states to "adhere
to the principles of equal rights and self-determination of peoples,
respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms," and to comply
with their obligations under the U.N. Charter. Another example:
Moscow abstained in the September 1989 vote to expel Israel from
the General Assembly, in contrast to previous years when it had
voted with the Arab bloc to expel Israel.
However, Moscow continues its traditional policies of opposing U.S.
efforts to promote human rights and democracy. For example, the
Soviets voted on March 6, 1990, against the U.N. Human Rights
Commission's resolution condemning human rights violations in
Cuba. The U.S. supported this resolution. Another example: At the
last U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization General Conference in
Rome in November 1989, the Soviet Union refused to support
Western efforts to correct administrative abuses and political biases
in the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Gorbachev still has much work to do to improve his country's
abysmal record at the U.N. Further steps he could take include:
Putting an end to double standards in the U.N. Human Rights
Commission. Moscow continues to oppose any attempt to
investigate human rights abuses by its clients in the Third
World.
Becoming a contributing member of the U.N. High Commission
for Refugees. So far, the Soviet Union has not contributed a
single kopeck to helping refugees around the world, most of
whom have been driven out of their homes by Moscow's clients
and allies.
Supporting U.S. efforts to repeal the infamous November 10,
1975, U.N. General Assembly resolution equating Zionism to
racism.
28
5) Asia
Moscow remains committed to Gorbachev's December 7, 1988, pledge to reduce its
troop strength in the Asian U.S.S.R. by 200,000 and to its obligation to remove 400
intermediate-range missiles from the region, under the terms of the 1987 INF Treaty. Most
troop reductions, however, have come from the Sino-Soviet border and have not reduced
the overall military threat to Japan or South Korea. Moscow continues to modernize its
Pacific forces, including the deployment of new MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters in the eastern
reaches of the Soviet Union and the addition of new Sovremeny and Udaloy destroyers and
Akula submarines with the Pacific fleet. This buildup is occurring at a time when the U.S. is
uncertain about the future of its Subic Bay naval base and Clark air base in the Philippines,
and when the U.S. has announced that it will withdraw about 15,000 military personnel
from Asia within the next three years. 17 Further, Moscow last year provided several
hundred million dollars in military aid to the Vietnamese-backed regime in Cambodia,
where Vietnam still stations up to 5,000 troops. 18
U.S. Objectives
Obtain Soviet commitment to further reduce its military forces
in Asia, particularly ground and air forces threatening Japan.
End Soviet military support for the Vietnamese-backed
government of Cambodia.
Have Moscow play a constructive role in bringing peace to the
Korean peninsula.
What Bush should say to Gorbachev
In Soviet discussions on Asia, Bush should ask Gorbachev to:
Reciprocate the reduction of naval forces. The U.S. is in the
process of cutting back on the size of its Navy in the Pacific. The
U.S.S.R. should do likewise.
Cooperate in reducing Indo-Pakistani tensions. The recent flareup
in tensions over the disputed territory of Kashmir could precipitate
another Indo-Pakistani war. Washington and Moscow each should
publicly urge India and Pakistan to refrain from provocative action
that could trigger such a war.
17 See testimony of Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz before the Senate Armed Services
Committee, April 26, 1990.
18 Heritage Foundation discussions with Pentagon officials.
29
Understand that the U.S. remains unalterably committed to
deterring a North Korean attack against South Korea. The U.S. will
keep combat forces in South Korea and match Soviet efforts to
modernize the North Korean armed forces with U.S. military aid to
the South.
End all military aid to the government of Cambodia. Soviet
military advisors train the Cambodian communist regime's security
forces, and Moscow provides substantial military aid directly, or
indirectly through Vietnam. All such assistance should be
terminated. Also, Bush should let Gorbachev know that the U.S. will
continue to back forces opposing the Cambodian regime.
Condition the estimated $3 billion in annual Soviet aid to Hanoi on
economic and political reform and the full withdrawal of
Vietnamese forces from Cambodia.
The U.S. will not tolerate any Soviet military support for the
Communist rebels in the Philippines and will act in concert with the
Philippine government to interdict any such aid. Although the
Communist Party of the Philipines (C.P.P.) has sought Soviet
military support since the mid-1980s, Moscow has not yet given
siginificant material support to the C.P.P.
6) Strategic Arms Control
Agreement on a Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) at the
summit could be a public relations success for Bush. But obtaining a
START Treaty is not nearly as important to U.S. interests as many
think. START will reduce each side's strategic arsenals by 30
percent. These reductions will, by themselves, neither improve nor
hurt U.S. security. U.S. security, however, could be hurt if the treaty
could not be adequately verified. The Senate will have to scrutinize
the verifiability of a START Treaty once it has been signed and
officially submitted for ratification. U.S. nuclear security will rest
ultimately not on whether a START Treaty is signed and ratified, but
whether the U.S. deploys strategic defenses (SDI). Arms control
alone can never be a substitute for deterrence.
30
U.S. Objectives
Downplay START.
Shift the focus of U.S.-Soviet strategic nuclear arms talks from
Start to the Defense and Space Treaty (DST).
What Bush should tell Gorbachev
In summit discussions of strategic arms control, Bush should ask Gorbachev to:
Understand that the U.S. will not sign a START Treaty until all
verification details have been worked out to U.S. satisfaction. While
the major outlines of a START agreement now are in place, details
remain to be worked out, including precisely how mobile missile
deployments will be verified and how many of these weapons will be
permitted. These details are critical, because they could make the
difference between a treaty which is relatively harmless to U.S.
security and one which is damaging.
Shift the focus of strategic arms negotiations from offensive
strategic forces to strategic defenses. Now that a START agreement
is near, the U.S. should focus more on getting Soviet agreement on a
Defense and Space Treaty (DST). DST negotiations have been
underway in Geneva for almost five years. Bush should ask
Gorbachev to accelerate the DST negtiations and to agree to the
deployment of strategic defenses. Recent articles in such Soviet
journals as the December issue of Military Review indicate that
important Soviet military thinkers and policy makers are arguing that
the Soviet Union should abandon its oppostion to strategic defenses.
These Soviet supporters of SDI favor an agreement at the DST talks
that would combine START cuts in offensive arms with deployments
of strategic defenses. A DST treaty could create a more stable and
safe nuclear balance in which the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. would be
well-protected against accidental or limited attacks by nuclear-
armed ballistic missiles.
Accept that the U.S. remains committed to SDI. Bush should
reiterate the pledge made during his presidential campaign to deploy
SDI when it is ready, whether or not Moscow agrees. But he should
also convey his preferences for deploying defenses in cooperation
with Moscow in a way that will benefit the safety of U.S. and Soviet
citizens.
31
PROVIDING INCENTIVES AND DISINCENTIVES TO GORBACHEV
Bush will be bargaining with Gorbachev from a position of strength. The catastrophic
failure of the Soviet economy leaves Gorbachev in desperate need of Western economic
and technical support. Bush needs little from Gorbachev, while Gorbachev needs much
from him and his Western allies. Bush should convey to Gorbachev that nothing further will
be granted without continued momentum toward reform in Soviet foreign and domestic
policy.
Incentives for Progress
Incentives Bush can hold out as potential rewards for further cooperative behavior
include:
Membership in the GATT. The General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade (GATT) is a Geneva-based, 97-member international
organization devoted to promoting global free trade. Moscow was
granted observer status in GATT on May 17 after the U.S. agreed to
drop its objections. This status will enable Moscow to attend monthly
meetings of the GATT council, and participate in the organization's
standing committees, such as the Committee on Trade and
Development. Full membership in the GATT would bring lower
tariff rates on Soviet exports to other member countries; the right to
vote on GATT issues; and the right to attend multilateral
negotiations, such as the current Uruguay Round, which is devoted
to liberalizing global trade.
Most-Favored-Nation Trade Status. Under the 1974
Jackson-Vanik Amendment to the 1974 Trade Act, a country with a
non-market economy that restricts the right of its citizens to
emigrate is ineligible for Most-Favored-Nation status (MFN) unless
the President grants a waiver. Such waivers must be renewed
annually, with the consent of Congress.
Most-Favored-Nation status, which Bush might promise Moscow at
the summit, entails no preferential treatment for Soviet goods. It
merely allows Soviet exports to qualify for the same import tariffs as
other U.S. trading partners. The Soviet Union now pays tariffs ten
times higher than most countries trading with the U.S. Since the
Soviets have very little that anyone in the U.S. would want to buy,
granting MFN status to Moscow is unlikely to increase U.S. trade
with the Soviet Union to more than $5 billion a year. U.S. trade with
the Soviet Union amounted to only $3.417 billion in 1989. By
comparison, U.S.-Mexican trade last year totaled $44 billion.
Membership in the International Monetary Fund, the World
Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. Gorbachev will try to
obtain a U.S. commitment at the summit to help the Soviet Union
gain membership in such international financial organizations as the
World Bank and the IMF. Such membership today would be
injurious to the security of the U.S. and its allies. For example, the
32
Soviet Union may use membership in the World Bank for further
expansion of the Third World by rewarding its clients with loans. Or
it could try to resuscitate its own moribund economy with infusions
of Western cash, thereby further postponing necessary economic
reforms.
Following through the economic promises made at Malta. At
the December 2-3, 1989, Malta summit Bush promised Gorbachev
U.S. cooperation and assistance in a number of areas. Among them
were: Expanding U.S.-Soviet economic cooperation in the fields of
finance, agriculture, statistics, small business development and
setting up stock exchanges; Negotiating an investment treaty which
would protect American investors in the Soviet Union; Lifting U.S.
restrictions on export credits and guarantees.
If Gorbachev wants these and other concessions from the U.S., he will have to continue
to work for them. For example, Bush should:
Tie membership in GATT to Soviet economic reforms. Full
Soviet membership in the GATT should be contingent upon the
establishment of market prices, the creation of a ruble convertible
on the international currency market, and a full accounting of the
Soviet budget, including military spending, and the opening of the
Soviet economy to foreign competition.
Tie Most-Favored-Nation status to the peaceful resolution of
the Lithuanian crisis and to continued high levels of emigration.
This emigration should continue at or above the 1989 level of
190,000, and the right to emigration should be institutionalized by
adopting legislation that would permit unrestricted emigration and
travel. Bush should not grant MFN to Moscow if it continues its
economic crackdown on Lithuania or mounts similar economic or
military pressure on the other Baltic states.
Link the further relaxation of restrictions on high-technology
exports to the Soviet Union to a total withdrawal Soviet troops from
Eastern Europe; to the end of Soviet military support for
anti-Western regimes in the Third World; and to real declines in
Soviet military capabilities. The Soviet military seeks to expand its
strength by obtaining "force multipliers," sophisticated military
technologies that enable it to do more with less. The U.S. should
continue to work within COCOM to deny Moscow such technologies
until the Soviet military threat to COCOM members is eliminated.
Link U.S. support for Soviet membership in the IMF, the
World Bank or the Asian Development Bank to the following steps
in Soviet domestic and foreign policies:
Compliance with the international agreements that uphold the
political and economic rights of individuals and peoples,
including the right to self-determination as spelled out in
Article VII of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act;
33
Complete disclosure of the basic financial information
required of all IMF members, including precise data on the
Soviet budget, budget deficit, military expenditures, gold
holdings, Soviet debts to the West, and the terms for
repayment of those debts;
Soviet financial contributions to the World Bank, which could
amount to as much as $500 million annually;
A cutoff of Soviet military aid to Afghanistan, Angola, Cuba,
Ethiopia, Libya, Syria and other anti-Western dictatorships.
Offer to help Gorbachev to remove his troops from Eastern
Europe. Gorbachev is complaining that he cannot quickly
withdraw Soviet forces from Eastern Europe because of the
economic hardship of transporting, demobilizing, and housing
hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers. Bush should offer to
help integrate these soldiers into the Soviet non-military
economy, for example, by helping to build some housing for
them, if Gorbachev agrees to withdraw them all within two
years.
Disincentives Against Reversing Reforms
In addition to these incentives, Bush also should tell Gorbachev that recent U.S.
concessions to Moscow are not irreversible. He should firmly and unambiguously spell out
the consequences of a slow-down, halt, or reversal in what the U.S. considers positive
momentum in Soviet domestic and foreign policy.
Bush should promise as retaliation for a reversal of Soviet policy:
A return to a confrontational policy against Moscow.
Gorbachev should be told that U.S.-Soviet relations will be badly
damaged if Moscow uses violence against Soviet independence and
democratic movements, attempts to recover its political or military
role in Eastern Europe, or steps up military aid to Third World
clients.
If the Soviets reverse course, Bush should tell Gorbachev that the U.S. will:
Reverse the May 2, 1990, decision to relax COCOM
restrictions on high technology sales to the Soviet Union.
Oppose full Soviet membership in the GATT.
Terminate bilateral scientific and cultural exchanges.
Accelerate U.S. military modernization programs and restore
the U.S. military budget to levels at or above those at the height of
the Reagan buildup.
34
CONCLUSION
Since the wartime summits of Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam, the
U.S.-Soviet relationship has gone through cycles of confrontation
and cooperation. It appeared at times as if Moscow held the upper
hand in superpower relations. It seemed then that the Soviet Union
was a power on the rise, on its way to military equality and perhaps
superiority, over America. Soviet clients were winning battles all
over the globe: in Angola, Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Nicaragua. The
Soviet empire reached its high-water mark in 1979 as Soviet tanks
rolled into Afghanistan.
Ronald Reagan's presidency reversed this seemingly inexorable
march toward ascendancy. The U.S. rebuilt its military and economic
strength in the 1980s, fought back the global wave of Soviet
expansion, and fostered a democratic revolution inside the Soviet
bloc. Reagan's effort broke the back of Soviet communism. Shackled
by an inefficient centralized economy and stunned by the power of
the democratic idea, Moscow began losing its grip internally and
throughout its empire.
Bush has continued the Reagan revolution in global affairs, and as a
result the Soviet empire has begun to break apart. Bush comes to the
1990 Washington Summit as the confident leader of a victorious
NATO alliance, squaring off against perhaps the last communist
dictator of the Soviet Union. He is dealing from a position of
strength.
Much has changed in the Soviet Union. Some democratic reforms
have been made and the Soviet constitution has been revised to end
the communist party's monopoly on political power. Minor
economic reforms have been put in place to allow private enterprise
in some service sectors of the economy. Most travel and emigration
restrictions have been removed. Moscow has relinquished political
control over Eastern Europe and has begun to withdraw its forces
from its former client states there. Virtually all Soviet military forces
are out of Afghanistan.
But much has not changed. Gorbachev remains an unelected leader
in charge of a dictatorial Communist Party. The state controls most
of the Soviet economy. Gorbachev is denying self-determination to
the national republics of the U.S.S.R., including the Baltic states.
Moscow continues its support of communist regimes abroad,
including Afghanistan, to the tune of about $15 billion a year. And
the Soviet military continues to modernize its strategic nuclear
forces aimed at the U.S. and its allies.
Bush's objective at the summit should be to maintain the
momentum of revolutionary change. Gorbachev is facing many
pressures from reform and reactionary wings of the Communist
35
party, from new parties and political organizations springing up
around the Soviet Union, from restless nationalities, and from the
Soviet Army. Bush's task is to persuade Gorbachev to take into
account U.S. preferences and interests. Bush should use this meeting
with Gorbachev to inform him of these interests and to advance
them by providing incentives for further positive change and
disincentives against a reversal of Soviet reform.
Bush should also press Gorbachev to abandon Eastern Europe
entirely. He should convey to Gorbachev his support for peaceful
and democratic self-determination for the imprisoned nationalities
of the Soviet Union, and tell Gorbachev that continued economic
and political support from America and its allies will depend on
Gorbachev's commitment to a peaceful resolution of the
nationalities crisis. He should demand an end to Soviet support for
its client regimes in Afghanistan, Angola, Cuba, and Ethiopia. He
should stress that U.S. economic aid to the Soviet Union will be tied
to major structural reform of the Soviet economy, including the
legalization of private property, and to continued progress toward
genuine democracy. Moreover, Bush should downplay the Strategic
Arms Reduction Talks (START), which have become the focus of
the media's attention at the summit, and focus more on such critical
matters as the Defense and Space Talks (DST). Finally, Bush should
remind Gorbachev of his commitment to deploy strategic defenses
and his hope that strategic defense can be deployed cooperatively
with the Soviet Union.
Success at this summit will not be measured by whether Bush and
Gorbachev initial a START agreement, but by whether Bush is able
to convince Gorbachev that continued progress on Soviet domestic
and foreign policy is necessary before U.S.-Soviet relations will
further improve. Gorbachev currently is facing many pressures from
the Communist Party, new political forces within the Soviet Union,
and the Soviet military. Bush needs to make his own voice heard
above the din. He should convey to Gorbachev precisely what the
U.S. expects from him, what the consequences will be if he fails to
deliver, and the tremendous potential for U.S.-Soviet cooperation if
Gorbachev is willing to lead his own country down a more humane,
peaceful, and democratic path.
36
The T Backgrounder
Herîtage Foundation
773
No.
The Heritage Foundation 214 Massachusetts Avenue N.E. Washington, D.C. 20002 (202) 546-4400
June 7, 1990
FULFILLING AMERICA'S PROMISE:
A CIVIL RIGHTS STRATEGY FOR THE 1990S
INTRODUCTION
The U.S. Congress currently is considering legislation that its proponents
claim will help to create equal opportunities for blacks and other minorities
and reduce the racism that persists in America. Far from that, however, the
proposed Civil Rights Act of 1990 will preserve and expand America's apart-
heid-like system of racial hiring quotas and do nothing to promote the eco-
nomic opportunities for what is becoming a permanent under class of minor-
ity Americans. Ironically, the plight of these poor is used to justify the new
civil rights law, yet the remedies proposed do not address their condition. In-
stead, the racial quotas encouraged by the Act at best may benefit only edu-
cated and upper income minorities.
Despite the civil rights gains of the last 25 years, one-third of the nation's
black population remains in poverty and one-fourth of all Hispanic Ameri-
cans live in poverty. What is needed is a civil rights bill that advances the op-
portunities of these and other poor Americans.
Outdated Thinking. The Civil Rights Act of 1990 represents an outdated
view of how minority Americans can gain equality of opportunity. Sponsored
by Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Representative Augustus
Hawkins of California, both Democrats, the bill offers 1960s-type solutions to
a problem that requires a progressive new strategy for the 1990s. To be sure,
many of the civil rights strategies employed in the 1950s and 1960s made cru-
cial strides toward equal opportunity for minority Americans. That civil rights
movement and the landmark statutes it achieved broke down barriers and
won widespread support among Americans. But many of the veterans of
those early battles still are locked into the thinking of that era. They focus on
racial quotas, preferences, and statistical-base racial balancing mechanisms as
Note: Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of The Heritage Foundation or as an attempt
to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before Congress.
a weapon for advancing minorities, rather than on crafting strategies to give
minorities the basic tools needed to take advantage of the opportunities hard
won by Martin Luther King and other leaders of the original civil rights move-
ment.
Fortunately, however, a new generation of minority Americans is beginning
to question the relevance today of those old remedies. These Americans are
proposing new solutions to propel civil rights beyond the old formula and
into a new era of expanded opportunity and true equality of opportunity. The
debate in Congress challenges conservatives and liberals alike to fashion a
civil rights agenda that goes far beyond the outmoded approach of Ken-
nedy/Hawkins.
Ending a Paternalistic View. What is needed are not racial quotas and set-
asides, but an empowerment strategy that will unleash the capacity of individ-
uals who have been excluded from the mainstream. This will require lawmak-
ers to view differently those whom they wish to help. For too long govern-
ment in practice has treated low-income Americans as people who do not
have the capacity to make choices to better themselves. This paternalistic
view has had a devastating effect on minority communities because it has en-
couraged entire racial groups to believe that they cannot succeed without dis-
crimination in their favor and continuous aid from government. That has
spawned a generation dependent on government, with low self-esteem and lit-
tle hope for effecting change in their lives. With it has come broken families,
soaring crime and school dropout rates, and shattered community institutions
that once played a vital role in holding minority communities together.
The liberal civil rights agenda now being advanced in Congress perpetuates
the myth that the poor and all minorities are somehow handicapped and must
be given special preferences and handouts to succeed. This approach neces-
sarily embraces racial quotas and the massive social welfare programs that
have failed to create opportunities for the economically disadvantaged.
Unfilled Capacity. The conservative vision of progress, however, rests on a
very different premise: that low-income and minority Americans actually
have enormous unfilled capacity for achievement. By removing regulatory
barriers to economic opportunity and creating an environment in which these
individuals are empowered to take charge of their lives, conservatives believe
that capacity for achievement will be realized.
This conservative view of progress suggests a two-pronged civil rights strat-
egy. The first prong is vigorous enforcement of civil rights laws. Discrimina-
tion remains an all-too familiar fact of life for many Americans. Government
must prosecute cases of discrimination against individuals to the full extent of
the law. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, moreover, should be strength-
ened to include a remedy of damages against those who willfully discriminate.
Building on this enforcement strategy, the conservative civil rights strategy
would call for aggressive court and legislative action to challenge modern-day
Jim Crow laws that stifle minority business development. Examples include
the 1931 Davis Bacon Act, which freezes out minority firms from government
construction contracts, and onerous occupational licensing laws for profes-
2
sions ranging from cosmetology to child care. These barriers to economic op-
portunity, seemingly neutral in their impact on the races, actually dis-
proportionately harm minority entrepreneurs trying to use the opportunities
promised by the civil rights statutes. These remaining legal barriers, more-
over, pose the greatest hurdles to the poor - the very people who have been
left behind by today's civil rights movement.
-Attacking Quotas. This enforcement strategy also would attack racial quo-
tas that act as a ceiling to housing and educational opportunities for minori-
ties. Strict adherence to racial and ethnic composition ratios in public
schools, for example, has capped the number of minority students who can at-
tend magnet schools, even when those schools are operating far below capac-
ity. These and similar racial quotas that limit the number of Asian Americans
admitted to universities should be challenged by all who genuinely believe in
civil rights.
The second prong of the conservative civil rights agenda is individual em-
powerment to control one's own life. In many respects this is the essence of
civil rights and the key to true independence. As Robert Kennedy stated in
1966, "reliance on government is dependence - and what the people of our
ghettos need is not greater dependence, but full independence. ,,1 Conserva-
tives thus want to fulfill the promise of the civil rights movement by pursuing
a legislative strategy designed to remove government-imposed barriers that
stifle economic opportunities for the poor. Such barriers prevent the poor
from making such fundamental decisions as where they will live and who will
educate and care for their children.
The conservative empowerment strategy calls for enterprise zones in low-
income minority communities to reduce tax and regulatory impediments now
frustrating the entrepreneurial spirit of those communities. It calls for a rejec-
tion of the public education double standard that condemns poor, primarily
minority students to second-rate schools, by injecting competition into the
American education system. Parental choice and education vouchers for low-
income families are needed to empower parents as consumers with the ability
to make choices in a market that now is open only to those who are not poor.
This strategy also means vesting community groups with the power and re-
sponsibility to deliver services currently managed by bureaucrats. Public hous-
ing tenants, for example, should be allowed to manage and eventually to own
their own housing units, building on the successes of such efforts in Boston,
St. Louis, and Washington D.C. Empowerment also means that government
must make good on its fundamental responsibility of protecting its law-abid-
ing citizens from crime, creating an environment in which they can prosper.
Thus innovative ideas like a police ROTC for students from low-income com-
munities can be an important element of the conservative civil rights strategy.
1 Quoted from "Empowerment: A Vision for the 1990s," Task Force on Empowerment, House Republican
Research Committee, U.S. House of Representatives.
3
George Bush has a tremendous opportunity to forge a new civil rights
agenda that fulfills the equal opportunities promised by the original civil
rights movement. He should start by vetoing the Kennedy/Hawkins bill and
the destructive racial quotas that it promotes. The President already has
made a solid step in this direction, promising in a May 17, 1990, speech to
veto any civil rights bill "whose unintended consequences are quotas." Next,
he should propose new policy initiatives that express his vision of civil rights,
rooted in empowerment and a firm commitment to prosecute actual discrimi-
nation. In what may prove to be a historic speech on civil rights, Bush on May
17 first articulated the critical connection between civil rights and empower-
ment, proclaiming that any changes in civil rights law must embrace "a
broader agenda of empowerment." As John F. Kennedy did in 1961, Bush
should issue an executive order that puts forth his vision of an empowerment
civil rights agenda. This executive order should instruct the federal govern-
ment to implement Bush's civil rights strategy of removing racial and eco-
nomic barriers to individual independence.
THE STATE OF CIVIL RIGHTS
Since its origins in the American revolutionary era, the quest for civil rights
always has meant securing for individuals the power to control their own des-
tinies. The past quarter-century has witnessed both major triumphs and seri-
ous setbacks in this quest. The civil rights laws of the 1960s opened the doors
of opportunity to millions of previously excluded Americans in such crucial
areas as employment, education, voting, and public accommodations.
Indeed, Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy, who is black, has writ-
ten that "black Americans are probably America's greatest success story. En-
slaved a little more than a hundred years ago, there are now 2 million of them
living affluently. ,,,2 Milloy notes that between 1967 and 1987 the number of
black households. earning $50,000 or more grew from 212,000 to 764,000, an
2 Michael Novak, "The Invisible Man," American Enterprise Institute, On the Issue, from Forbes, February 19,
1990.
4
increase of 360 percent. The total income of America's 28 million blacks is
larger than the gross domestic product of all but ten nations. 3 Since the mid-
1960s, moreover, the number of African-American elected officials has quad-
rupled. And black politicians now govern four of America's six largest cities.
In recent years, however, the focus of many civil rights policies has shifted
from securing equal opportunity to securing equal outcomes among racial
and ethnic groups, through quotas, set-asides, busing, and welfare. Though ad-
vocated as temporary measures necessary to undo rapidly the lingering ef-
fects of past discrimination, these devices have grown increasingly en-
trenched. 4 Indeed, many "establishment" civil 6 rights leaders 5 demand adher-
ence to this agenda as a civil rights litmus test.
Little Help for Disadvantaged. This agenda is destructive for many rea-
sons, but the most damning indictment - delivered by critics spanning the
philosophical spectrum from Charles Murray to William Julius Wilson - is
that it hasn't worked. 7 Sociologist Wilson, of the University of Chicago, notes
that while many blacks have enjoyed economic progress in recent years, for
millions of others "the past three decades have been a time of regression, not
progress." As Wilson explains, "[R]ace-specific policies , although benefi-
cial to more advantaged blacks , do little for those who are truly disadvan-
taged. ,,8 Adds Robert Woodson, President of the Washington, D.C.-based Na-
tional Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, a grass roots organization that
promotes self-help solutions to local community problems, "Affirmative ac-
tion does not help the black dishwasher or the untrained black youth. ,,,9 A
3 Ibid.
4 See, e.g., Clint Bolick, Changing Course: Civil Rights at the Crossroads (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction
Books, 1988), P. 53-78.
5 See, e.g. Clint Bolick, In Whose Name? The Civil Rights Establishment Today (Washington, D.C.: Capital
Research Center, 1988).
6 National Urban League President John E. Jacob, for instance, asserts that "[t]he goal of parity is the one
constant that must be shared by anyone who presumes to hold a leadership position in the black community."
John E. Jacob, "Black Leadership in a Reactionary Era," The Urban League Review (Summer 1985), p. 42-43.
7 See Bolick, Changing Course, pp. 84-91. As economists James P. Smith and Finis R. Welch recently
concluded, "[A]ffirmative action apparently has [had] no significant long-range effect" on the wage gap between
blacks and whites. Closing the Gap: Forty Years of Economic Progress for Blacks (Santa Monica, California: The
Rand Corporation, 1986), p. 95. Rather, the principal effect of race-conscious strategies, according to William
Julius Wilson, is a "growing economic schism between lower-income and higher-income black families." William
Julius Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 110.
8 Ibid., pp. 110 and 42. Wilson's dismal economic prognosis was largely confirmed by the recent report of the
Committee on the Status of Black Americans. Gerald David Jaynes and Robin M. Williams, eds., A Common
Destiny (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1989).
9 Robert L. Woodson, "Race and Economic Opportunity," NPI Policy Review Series, National Center for
Neighborhood Enterprise, 1989, p. 3.
5
civil rights agenda that promotes racial set-asides for the middle-class, writes
Washington Post columnist William Raspberry; "is like demanding that the so-
ciety supply aspirin for your uncle because your nephew has a headache. Isn't
it time to abandon this bait-and-switch game in favor of truth in labeling?"
The Victims of Racial Politics
The failure of race-specific assistance programs to arrest the growing cleav-
age between disadvantaged and more successful blacks is borne out by census
data. There has been, as Harvard political economist Glenn Loury has shown,
"significant improvement in the earnings of employed black workers over the
period 1940-1980.' ,,11 But, says Loury, the average gains in black workers'
earnings have not been "enjoyed equally by all black workers." In fact, earn-
ings inequality within the black population has increased during the last 25
years, and remains greater than income differentials among white workers.
Fact: In 1959, the bottom 40 percent of black men earned 8 percent of the
total earnings of all black men. By 1984 that bottom 40 percent earned only 4
percent of total earnings. Conversely, the top 20 percent of black men in 1959
earned 50 percent of total black male earnings. By 1984 this same 20 percent
12
earned 60 percent of the total.
Fact: From 1970-1986, the proportion of black families with incomes over
$35,000 grew from 15.7 percent to 21.2 percent, and the proportion with in-
comes over $50,000 nearly doubled, from 4.7 percent to 8.8 percent. Yet dur-
ing the same period, the proportion of black families with incomes of less
than $10,000 also grew, from 26.8 percent to 30.2 percent.
What is the cause of such disparities? If racism were the answer, it would
present a barrier for all blacks. And as Loury concludes, "[E]mployment dis-
crimination is not a major factor." Rather, he points out, such practical fac-
tors as education contribute significantly to income differentials among
blacks as well as between blacks and whites. Annual earnings of college-edu-
cated black males, for example, rose by 6 percent relative to whites between
1969 and 1984. The disintegration of the traditional family among poor
blacks, however, accounts for much of this disparity: The poverty rate for
black families headed by a single mother is 50 percent - more than four times
the rate for intact, two-parent black families. The median income of two-par-
ent black families now is 88 percent that of comparable white families, and
13
the disparity is closing at a rate of 5 points a year.
10 "Playing on White Guilt," Washington Post, May 14, 1990.
11 Testimony of Professor Glenn C. Loury, before the Committee on Labor and Human Resources of the U.S.
Senate, concerning S. 2104, the Civil Rights Act of 1990, February 23, 1990.
12 Ibid.
13 "Restoring the Black Family," Family (The Family Research Council), September/October 1989. Woodson,
op. cit., p. 11.
6
Fact: Between 1960 and 1988 the percentage of black women aged 15-44
married with a spouse present in the household declined from 51.4 percent to
29.1 percent. For whites, the decline was 69.1 percent to 54.5 percent. Be-
tween 1960 and 1988 the percent of black children living with a black married
couple fell from 67 percent to 38.6 percent, while the number of black chil-
dren living with a never-married person rose by more than 1400 percent,
from 2.1 percent to 29.3 percent. By 1988, 61.2 percent of black children were
born to an unmarried woman. 14
Liberal solutions of quotas, forced integration, and other race-based ap-
proaches to civil rights clearly do not empower most blacks. Black men, par-
ticularly, are even more alienated from the economic mainstream. The last 25
years, for example, have witnessed a pronounced downward trend in the num-
ber of black men participating in the labor force. Fact: In 1962, almost 60 per-
cent of young black males were employed, but by 1985 only 44 percent were
employed. 15 The reason for this dramatic decline was not that jobs disap-
peared - in fact, it was a period of remarkable job creation. Nor is racism the
culprit. The principal destructive influence was a burgeoning welfare system
that subsidized family breakups and nonemployment.
Victim Identity. Liberal civil rights policies also have had a more insidious
effect on the economic advancement of blacks. Shelby Steele, Associate Pro-
fessor of English at San Jose University, has written that the prevalence of ra-
cial quotas and preferences has ingrained in blacks an identity of themselves
as victims. This identity as victim, argues Steele, who is black, perpetuates a
sense of low-self esteem among blacks and a feeling of powerlessness, which
stifles individual initiative and responsibility. Writes Steele:
Social victims may be collectively entitled, but they
are all too often individually demoralized. Since the
social victim has been oppressed by society, he
comes to feel that his individual life will be
improved more by changes in society than by his
own initiative. Without realizing it, he makes society
rather than himself the agent of change. The power
he finds in victimization may lead him to collective
action against society, but it 16 also encourages
passivity within his own life.
Steele notes that after the death of Martin Luther King, the civil rights
movement's message of equal opportunity was supplanted by a focus of
blacks as victims entitled to special reparations from white society. "The 1964
civil rights bill," writes Steele, "was passed on the understanding that equal
14 Loury. op. cit.
15 Novak, op. cit.
16 Shelby Steele, "I'm Black, You're White, Who's Innocent," Harpers, June, 1989.
7
opportunity would not mean racial preference. But in the late 1960s and early
1970s, affirmative action underwent a remarkable escalation of its mission
from simple anti-discrimination enforcement to social engineering by means
of quotas, goals, timetables, set-asides and other forms of preferential treat-
,,17
ment.
These policies remain the agenda of the liberal civil rights establish-
ment.
Recent Supreme Court rulings, however, may signal a turning point for the
future direction of civil rights policy. In a series of decisions last year, 18 the
Court called squarely into question the use of racial quotas as well as the as-
sumptions on which race-conscious measures are based. 19 Yet old guard civil
rights leaders and their congressional allies reacted to these rulings swiftly
and predictably, condemning them and urging "corrective" legislation. Sena-
tor Kennedy and Representative Hawkins introduced legislation to overturn
most of the rulings and further expand the scope of the civil rights laws.
WHY THE KENNEDY/HAWKINS BILL FAILS MINORITY AMERICANS
Undergirding the Kennedy/Hawkins legislation is the assumption that
every significant difference in statistical outcomes among racial or, ethnic
groups is attributable to discrimination and curable by quotas. 20 This as-
sumption is flawed. While discrimination remains a serious obstacle for mi-
norities, it is not the primary barrier to opportunity afflicting the economi-
cally disadvantaged. Observes the National Center for Neighborhood
Enterprise's Woodson, "Vague cries for 'peace, jobs, and freedom' are mean-
ingless when a permanent (and growing) underclass of more than one-third
of all black Americans, unskilled and undereducated, remains untouched by
civil rights gains, the war on poverty, increased black political power, and a
mammoth social welfare industry.' Civil rights policies that fail to recog-
nize this fact and to confront real obstacles to progress are doomed to repeat
the failures of the past.
At the heart of the Kennedy/Hawkins bill are provisions that will make it
all but impossible for employers to defend themselves against a claim of dis-
criminatory hiring practices. Under the proposed law, a business that fails to
17 Shelby Steele, "A Negative Vote on Affirmative Action," New York Times Magazine, May 13, 1990.
18 City of Richmond V. J.A. Croson Co., 109 S.Ct. 706 (1989) (striking down Richmond's minority contract
set-aside program); Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Antonio, 109 S.Ct. 2115 (1989) (making it less difficult for
employers to defend employee selection practices against discrimination charges that are based solely on
statistics without evidence of discrimination); Martin V. Wilks, 109 S.Ct. 2180 (1989) (allowing challenges to racial
quotas contained in consent decrees by those who are affected); and Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 109
S.Ct. 2362 (1989) (holding that the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which prohibits discrimination in the making of
contracts, does not cover instances of racial harassment).
19 See Clint Bolick, "The Supreme Court and Civil Rights: A Challenge for George Bush," Heritage Foundation
Backgrounder No. 728, September 28, 1989.
20 See Bolick, Changing Course, pp. 56-60.
21 Woodson, op. cit., p. 3.
8
meet certain racial and ethnic percentages in the composition of its work
force must prove that such disparities are not due to discrimination. This is a
reversal of normal legal standards. Usually, a claimant must prove that a de-
fendant has violated some legal standard in order to prevail. Under the pro-
posed legislation, however, the claimant need only show that racial hiring per-
centages have not been met, and the burden then shifts to the employer to
prove the absence of discrimination. Thus the employer is presumed guilty un-
less innocence is proved.
Insurmountable Standard. In addition to this shifting of the burdens, the
legislation proposes another hurdle that will make it impossible for an em-
ployer actually to prove that he or she does not discriminate. Under the Ken-
nedy/Hawkins bill, if the work force of a business fails to meet the prescribed
racial composition, the only way that an employer can rebut the presumption
of discrimination is by proving that his or her hiring criteria bears "a substan-
tial and demonstrable relationship to effective job performance." This is an
insurmountable legal standard, and a reversal of the Supreme Court's 1989
ruling in Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Antonio that a business need only show
that a challenged hiring practice "serves, in a significant way, the legitimate
goals of the employer." Under the elevated hurdle proposed by the Ken-
nedy/Hawkins bill, such reasonable and non-racial hiring criteria as requiring
a high school or college diploma could fail to meet the "substantial and de-
monstrable" test necessary to rebut a claim of discrimination. A company
that merely shows that it applies the same standards to everyone, regardless
of race, will be found guilty of discrimination.
Faced with such hurdles, rational employers will turn to racial quotas as the
only reasonable means to protect themselves from lawsuits. To avoid litiga-
tion, employers will have no recourse but to hire a certain percentage of their
employees based not on merit or qualifications, but solely on the basis of
race. Indeed, writing in the weekly lawyers' newspaper Legal Times, liberal
columnist Stuart Taylor, Jr. notes that the bill would "pressure employers sur-
reptitiously to use quotas to improve their statistics." This is not a positive di-
rection for civil rights. As George Bush said in his May 17 Rose Garden
speech on civil rights, "The focus of employers in this country must be on pro-
viding equal opportunity for all workers, not on developing strategies to avoid
litigation."
Presumption of Discrimination. Another adverse impact of the Ken-
nedy/Hawkins bill would be to establish "quota ceilings" on the number of
minorities employed in low-skilled jobs. One of the issues in the Wards Cove
case was a disparity in the company's work force between the number of mi-
norities employed in low-skilled factory jobs and upper-level management po-
sitions. Under the proposed Kennedy/Hawkins bill, such a disparity would
create the presumption of employer discrimination. The result: rather than
hiring more minorities for management level positions, many employers sim-
ply would reduce the number of minorities employed in low-skilled positions
so as to avoid the unequal percentages that would result in liability.
9
By its narrow focus on statistical disparities and racial quotas, the Ken-
nedy/Hawkins bill would codify the racial divisions that continue to fuel racial
tensions between whites and minorities. Rather than equal opportunity for
all, the bill would offer racial entitlements for a select few. What is needed in-
stead is a positive civil rights strategy geared toward empowering all individu-
als with the independence they need to make the choices necessary to suc-
ceed. The two key elements of this new civil rights agenda are vigorous en-
forcement of anti-discrimination laws and progressing from the old agenda of
affirmative action to a new strategy of affirmative empowerment.
CONSERVATIVES AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS LAWS
The conservative civil rights agenda must be more than opposition to racial
quotas. Conservatives must assert a strong affirmative commitment to enforc-
ing civil rights laws and prosecuting discrimination. Civil rights law enforce-
ment officials should take their lead from U.S. Appeals Court Judge Clarence
Thomas, who served as chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) from 1982 to 1990. Thomas demonstrated that vigorous
civil rights law enforcement need not mean quotas. He reorganized and
streamlined a previously ineffective agency; he established a policy of full re-
lief for victims of discrimination (the EEOC previously settled for quotas,
which employers were happy to accept); and he shifted the agency's focus
away from cases involving statistics to those involving individual victims - the
very people who could not find help elsewhere. As a consequence, Thomas
was able to secure more relief for more victims of discrimination than ever
before had been obtained.
The new civil rights strategy should reject quotas as an unfair and racially
divisive remedy, and instead seek tough penalties against discriminators and
full relief for victims of actual discrimination. This would require amending
the employment provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to strengthen dam-
age remedies, 22 an approach supported by Clarence Thomas, former Attor-
ney General Edwin Meese, and former Assistant Attorney General William
Bradford Reynolds. In the desegregation context, conservatives should push
for monetary damages instead of busing. Rather than merely reassigning stu-
dents to achieve racial balance, damages in the form of education vouchers
should be a remedy available to successful plaintiffs. Currently, the preferred
judicial remedy in desegregation cases are such "equitable remedies" as bus-
ing and racial quotas. These forms of relief advance "group" rather than "indi-
vidual" remedies. Yet as Clarence Thomas demonstrated during his tenure at
the EEOC, remedies that focus on individual relief are possible and far more
effective. A remedy of education vouchers would secure better the goal of
equal opportunity by enabling parents to choose the best education opportu-
nities available for their children.
22 See Bolick, "The Supreme Court and Civil Rights," p. 8.
10
Economic Barriers. Aggressive enforcement of civil rights laws also means
pursuing litigation and legislation to remove regulatory barriers to economic
opportunity. In the courts and legislatures, conservative civil rights advocates
should join with members of minority groups to challenge on civil rights
grounds such economic barriers as the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act, which prevents
minority firms from securing government construction contracts. This law re-
quires that inflated "prevailing wages" be paid on all government construc-
tion contracts. In practice, this has meant that only firms willing and able to
pay union scale wages can secure government construction contracts. Such
firms typically are large, established, white-owned businesses that can afford
to pay inflated wages. Smaller, more competitive minority firms that cannot
absorb such costs thus are prevented from securing the contracts, even
though they can perform the work at lower cost. The law also discourages the
hiring of low-skilled workers by establishing high entry-level wages. The pre-
dictable combined impact of these restrictions is the disproportionate exclu-
sion 23 of minority entrepreneurs and laborers, which was an explicit goal of the
bill.
Limiting Competition. Occupational licensing laws and regulations that re-
strict the formation of new businesses also should be confronted for their dis-
parate impact on minorities. Many of these restrictions are unrelated to pub-
lic health or safety objectives, and in fact often are promoted by the profes-
sions themselves to limit competition. Like the Jim Crow laws of an earlier
era, these laws often impede minority participation in professions and busi-
nesses. Taxicab regulations, for example, strictly limit the number of entrepre-
neurs in a business that otherwise would be easily accessible to minorities. Li-
censing laws also exclude from professions those who are demonstrably quali-
fied, but who cannot satisfy arbitrary and formalistic requirements. These li-
censing restrictions commonly are prevalent in such entry-level trades and
professions as cosmetology, barbering, photography, stenography, interior
decorating, and pool cleaning.
More rigorous enforcement of civil rights laws also requires: confronting
quota "ceilings" in education and housing. To achieve racial balance in public
schools and housing, government authorities set rigid quotas that operate to
exclude minorities. Example: In California universities, Asian American stu-
dents are excluded from admission because they are "overrepresented"
among eligible candidates for admission. 24 Example: In Kansas City magnet
schools, black youngsters are denied admission so the school district can hold
seats empty for white students. 25 These experiences illustrate how race-based
23 See Congressional Record-House, February 28, 1931, pps. 6504-6521.
24 See Dan C. Heldman, "Ending College Admission Quotas Against Asian-Americans," Heritage Foundation
Executive Memorandum No. 240, June 30, 1989; Representative Dana Rohrabacher, "College Admission Quotas
Against Asian-Americans: Why Is the Civil Rights Community Silent?" Heritage Lectures No. 236.
25 See "Blacks sue over KC desegregation plan," The Washington Times, July 17, 1989.
11
policies, however well-intentioned, can ultimately harm the very individuals
they are purported to benefit.
Affirmative Action
If one term exists in the American lexicon that conservatives need to recap-
ture, it is "affirmative action." Conservatives generally have been perceived
to be "opposed" to affirmative action. If affirmative action means quotas,
such opposition is warranted. But "affirmative action" need not be synony-
mous with quotas; conservatives, therefore, should not be considered adver-
saries of affirmative action as it was originally intended.
Affirmative action as practiced in the mid-1960s recognized that many indi-
viduals were ill equipped, for reasons of past discrimination, to take advan-
tage of the equal opportunities secured to them for the first time by the newly
enacted civil rights laws. Affirmative action thus meant providing tools to en-
able those who had been held back by discrimination to compete effectively
in the market. It did not mean racial hiring quotas.
Origin of a Term. The term first was used by John F. Kennedy in his Execu-
tive Order No. 10925, issued in 1961. As Hoover Institution economist
Thomas Sowell has noted, Kennedy's order specifically provided that affirma-
tive action was not intended as a system of racial quotas or hiring prefer-
ences. Instead, it was an effort to disseminate information about federal jobs
to encourage previously excluded groups to apply, and to insure fairness in
hiring and promotion regardless of race. Thus, Kennedy ordered federal con-
tractors to "take affirmative action to ensure that the applicants are em-
ployed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to
their race, creed, color, or national origin. ,,26
Senator Hubert Humphrey, the Minnesota Democrat and architect of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, also took pains to distinguish affirmative action
from racial quotas. During Senate debate on the civil rights bill, Humphrey
instructed his colleagues that the bill "does not require an employer to
achieve any kind of racial balance in his work force by giving preferential
treatment to any individual or group. ,,27 But Thomas Sowell recounts that
"the original meaning of 'affirmative action,' as a general attempt to inform
and recruit applicants from groups long excluded from employment and
other opportunities, quickly gave way to its current meaning - choosing
among applicants on the basis of numerical group results.
The firm opposition to racial quotas expressed by most liberals in the 1960s
was well founded. Quotas (sometimes called "goals and timetables") could
26 Thomas Sowell, Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? (New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1984) p. 39.
27 Ibid.
28 Thomas Sowell, "Weber and Bakke, and the Presuppositions of 'Affirmative Action," in W.E. Block and M.A.
Walker, eds., Discrimination, Affirmative Action, and Equal Opportunity (Vancouver: The Fraser Institute,
1982), p. 61.
12
not accomplish the original - and still salient - objectives of affirmative ac-
tion. All quotas do is to redistribute opportunities as part of a zero-sum
game: every person's gain means another's loss. Quotas, moreover, do not
help the economically disadvantaged gain the skills necessary to compete ef-
fectively. Thus affirmative action comprised solely of quotas has aided better-
qualified minority candidates while not addressing the real-world needs of
people outside the economic mainstream. As William Julius Wilson argues,
future affirmative action must consist of efforts "targeted to truly disadvan-
taged individuals regardless of their race or ethnicity. ,,29
CONSERVATIVES AND EMPOWERMENT
The second element of a new civil rights agenda is individual empower-
ment. This empowerment means giving individuals the opportunity to realize
their potential and achieve economic independence by giving them the power
to choose the conditions under which they live - such as how their family will
be educated and where they will live. Liberal social welfare programs do not
empower the poor. Rather they empower government and an industry of so-
cial service providers that prospers by managing the lives of the poor. The
conservative idea of empowerment, by contrast, derives from the movement's
roots in market economics and classical liberalism - power not as control
over others but as the freedom to control one's own affairs, the essential in-
gredient of liberty.
A civil rights strategy based on empowerment focuses on enabling individu-
als to choose how they will improve their condition. The aim is to help low-in-
come Americans by expanding opportunities rather than by merely redistrib-
uting them. The impetus for such efforts is not the coercive power of govern-
ment, but consumer choice in the market. To achieve empowerment, the new
civil rights strategy must confront remaining systemic obstacles that prevent
individuals from controlling their own destinies. At least four such obstacles
exist: stifling regulation of entrepreneurial opportunities, poor public schools,
the welfare system, and crime. All of these barriers disproportionately bur-
den people outside the economic mainstream, who disproportionately are mi-
norities.
An empowerment strategy to unlock the pent-up capacity of lower-income
minority Americans requires many actions on several fronts. Among them:
1) Remove obstacles to entrepreneurs. Economic liberty is a fundamental
civil right. Yet this liberty to pursue a livelihood free from excessive or arbi-
trary interference is the forgotten civil right. This right was destroyed by the
1873 Slaughter-House cases³⁰ in which the Supreme Court ruled erroneously
that economic liberty was not included among privileges or immunities of citi-
29 Wilson, op. cit., p. 117.
30 83 U.S. 36 (1873).
13
zenship protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. As a consequence, entre-
preneurial opportunities are burdened by a pervasive array of regulations at
every level of government, from the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act and federal mini-
mum wage laws to local occupational licensing laws and government-con-
ferred business monopolies. These laws, most of which were enacted not to
promote public health or safety but to limit competition, stifle the tradition of
bootstraps capitalism that is America's beacon to the enterprising poor. In es-
sence, these restrictions cut off the bottom rungs of the economic ladder, so
vital to the poor and those who have suffered discrimination, thereby destroy-
ing traditional methods for upward mobility. 31
Conservatives should champion an Economic Liberty Act, which would re-
quire governmental entities to limit regulations restricting entry into trades
or businesses to demonstrable public health, safety, or welfare objectives.
Conservatives also should challenge as civil rights violations the most arbi-
trary and oppressive economic regulations. 32 In this way, conservatives not
only would help complete the legal work of the original civil rights move-
ment, but would open the most important door to economic independence:
self-employment and business creation.
2) Introduce parental choice into education. Education is the key to prog-
ress. It is the great equalizer of the races, the most powerful tool for eliminat-
ing racism. But interposed between precious educational opportunities and
those who need them the most stand America's often substandard public
schools. And the greatest number of victims of that system are those who
have no other choice - the inner city schoolchildren whose opportunities for
advancement are crushed at schools that seem answerable to no one. Minori-
ties disproportionately are the victims of America's dismal public school per-
formance. Dropout rates for black and Hispanic students exceed those for
whites, especially in urban areas. In the Chicago public schools, for example,
the 1988-1989 school year dropout rate for whites was 13.9 percent, com-
pared with a 23.3 percent rate for Hispanics and a 60.9 percent rate for
blacks.
33
These young dropouts may in one sense be making a rational
31 See Bolick, Changing Course, p. 94-104.
32 Landmark Legal Foundation's Center for Civil Rights last year successfully challenged a District of
Columbia ordinance prohibiting street corner shoe shine stands, and is currently challenging Houston's
"anti-jitney law" and a National Park Service regulation that has destroyed the native Virgin Islander charter
boat industry.
33 Chicago Public Schools, Board of Education. Chicago defines a dropout as any student, sixteen or older,
who has been removed from the enrollment roster for any reason other than death, extended illness, graduation,
or completion of an equivalency program. Also included are transferring students whose records have not been
requested by another public or private school.
14
choice: why stay in a substandard public school? But the tragedy is that unlike
individuals of moderate and upper incomes, these low income students and
their families have no opportunity to transfer to better schools.
America needs to empower low-income minorities and others as consum-
ers with a choice of schools, by providing to parents a portion of the dollars
spent on schooling in the form of a tax credit or voucher to purchase the edu-
cation that best suits their children's needs. Studies show that choice and com-
petition in education work, particularly for those who have lacked the most
basic educational opportunities. 34 Moreover, polling shows that vouchers are
especially popular among inner city minority parents. 35 Returning to parents
choice of, control over, and responsibility for the education of their children
is the first step in expanding educational opportunities.
The successes of educational choice initiatives in such states as Minnesota
and in low income communities, like East Harlem, New York, should con-
tinue to be highlighted and serve as a model for expanded efforts. Conserva-
tives, too, should craft educational empowerment strategies that support and
build on such educational voucher plans as that achieved in Milwaukee, Wis-
consin, owing to the efforts of State Representative Annette "Polly" Wil-
liams, a black Democrat who represents low-income inner city constituents.
3) Make welfare a ladder, not a permanent crutch. The welfare system has
fueled a self-perpetuating cycle of dependency, which has influenced minori-
ties disproportionately. Intended as a temporary helping hand in the case of
the able-bodied, the welfare system not only has encouraged millions to re-
main on its rolls, but also in most instances has rewarded destructive behavior
and penalized those who sought to become independent. Example: if a father
walks out on his family, they become eligible for welfare. If instead of leaving,
he takes a low-paying job to try to fulfill his responsibility, the family often is
financially worse off.
The welfare system is particularly damaging to minorities because many of
these families are at the margin, where welfare is an attractive option. More-
over, the "official" leadership of the black and Hispanic communities has
added to the problem by urging government to increase benefits for those on
34 See Clint Bolick, "A Primer on Choice in Education: Part I - How Choice Works," Heritage Foundation
Backgrounder No. 760, March 21, 1990.
35 Alec M. Gallup, "The 18th Annual Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools," Phi
Delta Kappan, September 1986, pp. 58,59. A 1989 Gallup/Phi Delta Kappan poll found that 67 percent of
non-whites favor educational choice.
15
the rolls, while doing little to support proposals to reward those who strive to
become independent.
The federal government should encourage economic emancipation by re-
ducing dependency on welfare and rewarding those who work. This strategy
requires a major reform of the welfare system and anti-poverty programs to
encourage independence and reward those who take their responsibilities se-
riously. Among the key reforms needed: 36
Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, which supplements the earn-
ings of very low-paid workers through the tax code. 37 This would reward
work, encourage many on welfare to climb the ladder of employment, and en-
sure that families would move out of poverty if they joined the work force.
Make some form of work mandatory for all welfare programs serving
the able-bodied.
Attach a portion of the earnings of all absent fathers, married or un-
married, if their family is on welfare. If the father claims to be unemployed,
require him to enroll full time in a government work program.
Encourage home ownership among the poor through "urban home-
steading" programs, and an acceleration of tenant management of public
38
housing.
Enact "enterprise zone" legislation, which would reduce tax and regu-
latory barriers to job creation in the inner city.
4) Crack down on Crime. The new civil rights agenda should emphasize
the most fundamental of civil rights: freedom from crime. Personal security is
the primary justification for government. Government, however, is failing to
protect its law-abiding minority citizens against crime.
Crime falls disproportionately on minorities, creating an additional barrier
to those striving for economic independence and social responsibility. Black
households in 1988, for example, were 60 percent more likely.to be burglar-
ized and three times more likely to be robbed than white households. Black
households suffer more than twice the number of motor vehicle thefts and al-
36 See also, Stuart M. Butler, "Razing the Liberal Plantation: A Conservative War in Poverty," in National
Review, November 10, 1989, p. 27; Stuart M. Butler, "Welfare," in Charles L. Heatherly and Burton Yale Pines,
eds., Mandate For Leadership III: Policy Strategies for the 1990s (Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation,
1989) p. 253; Stuart M. Butler and Anna Kondratas, Out of the Poverty Trap (New York: The Free Press, 1987).
37 See Stuart M. Butler, "The Peace Dividend: It Belongs to the People, Not Congress," Heritage Foundation
Backgrounder No. 752, February 9, 1990.
38 See John Scanlon, "People Power in the Projects: How Tenant Management Can Save Public Housing,"
Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 758, March 8, 1990.
16
most 65 percent more incidents of aggravated assault than whites. 39 The prob-
ability of being murdered is six times greater for blacks than for whites. 40 His-
panics, too, are far more likely than whites to be victims of crime. From 1979-
1986, for example, Hispanic Americans were victims of violent crime at a rate
41
twice that of non-Hispanics.
If conservatives and the inner-city poor can make common cause on any
issue, it should be crime. Strong anti-crime measures directed toward urban
centers, along with meaningful protection of victims' rights, form the founda-
tion of an effort to better secure vulnerable individuals in their persons and
their property. Creating a crime-free environment in poor communities will
require several changes in the law to favor the victim over the victimizer.
Among them: "victim's rights" laws that compel criminals to make restitution
to their victims, and require prosecutors to take the victim's interests into ac-
count in sentencing and probation. Government also should reprioritize its
law enforcement strategy in poor communities. Law enforcement should
focus on preventing and prosecuting crimes against persons and property in
the ghettos, and increasing penalties for such crimes.
Ridding America's minority communities of the source of crime also will
require empowerment strategies to involve communities in the fight. One
idea that merits study is a proposal currently before Congress to create a po-
lice ROTC program for poor communities. 42
Under the plan, students would receive college tuition in exchange for
serving on the police force of their community after graduation. Such addi-
tions to urban police forces would free more officers to perform such vital
functions as foot patrol on the streets of poor communities.
WHAT GEORGE BUSH SHOULD DO
Obviously, George Bush can do a great deal to advance a conservative strat-
egy on civil rights - one that will do far more to advance civil rights than the
Kennedy/Hawkins legislation. He enjoys enormous popularity among both
white and minority Americans. The time is ripe for a Bush-led civil rights
strategy that would build on the foundation laid in the 1960s. The President
thus should draw on his popularity and credibility by restoring momentum to
a quest for civil rights that has strayed off course for the past generation. Al-
ready, Bush has taken an important step in this direction with his May 17
Rose Garden speech on civil rights. In that ground-breaking speech, he
vowed to veto any civil rights bill that would promote racial quotas, and he re-
39 See Joseph Perkins, ed., A Conservative Agenda For Black Americans (Washington, D.C.: The Heritage
Foundation, 1987, 1990) pps. 31-32.
40 Bolick, Changing Course, pp. 116-118.
41 "Hispanic Victimization," Bureau of Justice Statistics, January 1990.
42 S. 1299, "The Police Corps Act of 1989." Sponsors include Republican Senators Specter, Heinz, Rudman,
Coats, and Lott. Democrats include Senators Sasser, Bradley, Lieberman, and Dodd.
17
defined civil rights to include empowerment strategies for the poor. Next, the
President should:
1) Veto the Kennedy/Hawkins bill. To sign into law a civil rights bill that
promotes racial quotas would be to surrender to racism. And to sign a civil
rights bill that fails to include empowerment initiatives for the poor would ig-
nore the civil rights of those who are struggling the most. The Kennedy/Haw-
kins bill champions a failed policy agenda and does little to solve the most
pressing civil rights problems. If the bill passes Congress, Bush should veto it
and immediately shift the terms of the debate from quotas to empowerment.
2) Issue an Executive Order on Empowerment. In 1961 President John F.
Kennedy issued Executive Order 10925 that mandated affirmative action
throughout the federal government. Now, nearly three decades later, George
Bush should issue a new executive order building on Kennedy's vision and
propelling government into a new era of civil rights action.
This executive order should require all federal agencies, departments, and
offices to review existing policies and regulations and eliminate those that sti-
fle the economic empowerment of minorities. Like Kennedy's executive
order, Bush should require the federal government to take affirmative action
to recruit minorities and also to break down barriers to their economic lib-
erty. Bush should order the federal government to restructure affirmative ac-
tion to encourage empowerment efforts aimed at increasing human capital
and removing obstacles to the economically disadvantaged.
The Bush executive order also should require that every new government
regulation be accompanied by an "Empowerment Impact Statement" that ad-
dresses how the regulation would help to empower low-income Americans to
manage their own affairs and attain economic liberty.
3) Establish a Commission on Economic Mobility. In his 1961 Executive
Order, Kennedy established the President's Committee on Equal Employ-
ment Opportunity to "scrutinize and study employment practices of the Gov-
ernment of the United States, and to consider and recommend additional af-
firmative steps which should be taken by executive departments and agencies
to realize more fully the national policy of nondiscrimination Bush like-
wise should appoint a presidential commission to examine contemporary ob-
stacles to minority opportunities, and to recommend within a specified time
period legislation designed to eradicate those obstacles. This effort should be
similar to that which preceded the development of the Age Discrimination in
Employment Act of 1967. By establishing this Economic Mobility Commis-
sion Bush would lay the groundwork for opening far more opportunities for
economically disadvantaged minorities than would the Kennedy/Hawkins
bill.
4) Strengthen Damage Provisions of the Civil Rights Act. Under the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, an employer found guilty of discrimination need only pro-
vide a job and back pay to the aggrieved party. This penalty is not sufficient to
deter future discrimination. To remedy this, Bush should propose to Congress
18
amendments to the law to allow recovery of treble punitive damages against
employers who willfully or persistently violate the law.
5) Propose a Comprehensive Welfare Reform. Congress in 1988 enacted
the Family Support Act. Touted as a major reform of the welfare system that
would reduce welfare dependency, the legislation in fact is little more than an
expansion of existing programs. Moreover, a Congressional Budget Office
analysis of the statute predicts that it will actually add people to the welfare
rolls.
Bush should explain to Americans that there will be no progress in the war
against poverty until there is a change in the strategy used to fight the war. He
should assemble a cabinet-level task force, led by Housing and Urban Devel-
opment Secretary Jack Kemp, to develop a comprehensive series of welfare
reforms to promote the empowerment of poor Americans.
6) Coordinate Empowerment Efforts. The beginning of an empowerment
infrastructure already exists. In addition to public policy organizations dedi-
cated to self-help, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Jack Kemp
and Education Secretary Lauro Cavazos are pushing empowerment strategies
in their agencies. In Congress, Representative Steve Bartlett, the Texas Re-
publican, has formed an empowerment caucus comprised of conservative and
moderate Republicans. And the moderate Democratic Leadership Council
last month endorsed a policy plank calling for equal opportunity rather than
equal results. These developments reflect a growing determination among
conservatives to confront civil rights issues, and a growing receptivity to what
conservatives have to say.
Outside of Congress, organizations and individuals are showing what can
be accomplished by poor Americans if they are given the opportunity to use
the capacities they have. The public housing tenant management movement,
for example, has brought dignity and hope to dozens of once crime-ridden
and blighted projects. An education reform movement has spawned more
than 300 new black independent schools, most of them created by parents
and community groups in poor neighborhoods. Robert Woodson's National
Center for Neighborhood Enterprise has helped to highlight the successes of
numerous additional empowerment efforts nationwide, and provided techni-
cal assistance to self-help groups in minority communities. And the National
Association of the Southern Poor, headed by Donald Anderson, has carried
the self-help message to rural Southern communities, sparking a rejuvenation
of formerly crime-ridden and depressed communities.
George Bush needs to draw greater attention to the movement for minority
empowerment. He needs to give this movement at least equal standing in the
debate over civil rights, and to instruct agency officials to do likewise. As long
as the perception exists that only minority leaders espousing the tired liberal
agenda are legitimate spokesmen for black and Hispanic Americans, the eco-
nomic emancipation of these groups will be painfully slow.
7) Repeal the Davis Bacon Act. The 1931 Davis Bacon Act is the federal
equivalent of local Jim Crow laws that prevent minorities from competing for
19
economic opportunities. The law's requirements that federal construction
contracts pay the "local prevailing wage" inflates wage rates. The result: many
small minority firms that cannot afford to pay such inflated rates are excluded
from government construction contracts. The law also discriminates against
minority tradesmen who are willing to work for less than union wages. In fact
discriminating against black workers seems to have been one of the reasons
for passing the 1931 law. Said Alabama Congressman Miles Allgood during
the February 28, 1931, floor debate on the bill, "That contractor has cheap
colored labor and it is labor of that sort that is in competition with white
labor
This bill has merit
it is very important that we enact this mea-
,,43
sure.
Despite its devastating impact on black firms and tradesmen, and its effect
of increasing federal construction costs by $1.5 billion annually, the 60-year-
old Davis Bacon Act remains law. The reason: Congress refuses to abolish it
out of fear of offending organized labor. George Bush should launch a cam-
paign to convince Congress to repeal the Act. As part of this effort, he should
instruct Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole and other appropriate executive
branch agencies to conduct a thorough examination of the Act's impact on mi-
norities. Bush should make repeal of the Davis Bacon Act the centerpiece of
his civil rights strategy to eliminate the remaining vestiges of America's Jim
Crow laws.
8) Require that Congress be Subject to Civil Rights Laws. Congress rou-
tinely exempts itself from the laws it passes, including the nation's major civil
rights statutes. Although the executive branch is subject to the provisions of
the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Congress is not. Thus the 37,000 employees of the
legislative branch are without the civil rights protection guaranteed to all
other Americans. This has led some observers to describe Congress as the
"last plantation." Undeterred, however, Congress is attempting to exempt it-
self from new civil rights laws. The Kennedy/Hawkins bill, for example, fails
to require that Congress comply with its provisions.
George Bush, in his May 17 Rose Garden speech, called on Congress to
apply to itself all existing and proposed civil rights laws. This is sound policy.
Bush should hold Congress to that standard, and refuse to sign any civil rights
bill that fails to subject Congress to its provisions.
43 Congressional Record - House, February 28, 1931, p. 6513.
20
CONCLUSION
In his February testimony before the Senate Labor and Human Resources
Committee, Harvard's Glenn Loury summed up the current civil rights chal-
lenge:
Today the nation faces a challenge different in
character though perhaps no less severe in degree
than that which occasioned the civil rights
revolution. It is important, though, to be clear about
just what that challenge is, and what it is not. The
bottom stratum of the black community has
compelling problems which can no longer be
blamed solely on white racism, which will not yield
to protest marches or court orders, and which force
us to confront disquieting aspects of lower class
black urban society. The profound alienation of the
ghetto poor from mainstream American life has
continued to grow worse in the years since the
triumphs of the civil rights movement, even as the
successes of that movement has provided the basis
for an impressive expansion of economic and
political power of the black middle class. Finding
ways to effectively address the problems of the
inner-city poor, of all races, is the challenge which
44
confronts us today.
The abandonment of employment and educational objectivity and the re-
flexive use of quotas exacerbate racism and fail to address the serious prob-
lems faced by America's truly underclass. What is needed are efforts to con-
front remaining obstacles so that minorities can take advantage of the oppor-
tunities secured by the civil rights laws. The economic barriers separating mi-
norities from the American mainstream are the type of barriers that affirma-
tive action originally was intended to overcome: practical obstacles, some the
result of discrimination and some not, that prevented individuals from secur-
ing the opportunities promised by civil rights laws. By pursuing an affirmative
action strategy of redressing problems of economic mobility and human capi-
tal development, the unfinished business of the civil rights movement can be
completed.
Conservatives since the 1960s have consigned themselves to a marginal
role in the civil rights debate, acting as opponents to civil rights or passive by-
standers while liberals dictated the terms of the debate. Many civil rights poli-
cies of the past quarter century have failed to aid the most disadvantaged indi-
viduals in our society. These policies also have perpetuated racial divisions
44 Loury, op. cit.
21
among Americans. This dismal status quo can change only if conservatives re-
claim the moral high ground and assume a positive leadership role in civil
rights issues in the coming decade. This leadership can be achieved by pursu-
ing a strategy of vigorous law enforcement and individual empowerment.
Prepared for The Heritage Foundation by
Clint Bolick
Director, Landmark Legal Foundation Center for
Civil Rights
and
Mark B. Liedl
Director of Special Projects
The Heritage Foundation
All Heritage Foundation papers are now available electronically to subscribers of the "NEXIS" on-line data
retrieval service. The Heritage Foundation Reports (HFRPTS) can be found in the OMNI, CURRNT, NWLTRS,
and GVT group files of the NEXIS library and in the GOVT and OMNI group files of the GOVNWS library.
22
The T Backgrounder
Heritage Foundation
No.
780
The Heritage Foundation 214 Massachusetts Avenue N.E. Washington, D.C. 20002 (202) 546-4400
The Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies
July 25, 1990
WHILE TALKING ABOUT A DEFICIT CRISIS,
CONGRESS PROPOSES BILLIONS IN NEW SPENDING
INTRODUCTION
The Bush Administration and congressional leaders involved in the cur-
rent budget deficit reduction summit claim that the deficit is such a crisis that
American taxpayers must give even more of their money to help pay Uncle
Sam's bills. Some taxpayers may assume that before policy makers decided
on a tax hike, they did everything possible to cut wasteful spending, to elimi-
nate pork barrel projects and to shut down programs that serve no overriding
national interest.
Such an assumption would be wrong.
Neither Congress nor the Bush White House has tried seriously to cut
spending. Quite the contrary. At this very moment, while they wring their
hands about a "budget deficit crisis," policy makers are proposing to spend
more money on existing programs and to launch costly new programs. They
are pushing federal spending to record high levels. As Washington veterans of
the budget process could have predicted, the convening of the budget summit
and Bush's broken no-new-taxes promise have opened the floodgates for this
spending spree.
Congress's Bad Faith. George Bush betrayed his campaign pledge of no
new taxes reportedly as a good-faith measure to convince congressional lead-
ers of his sincere desire to reach an agreement in the budget summit. In the
four weeks since then, the liberal-dominated House of Representatives has
responded to Bush's gesture by passing six appropriations bills totalling
$182.3 billion. This is $18.75 billion over 1990 appropriations levels, a 11.47
percent increase.
Note: Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of The Heritage Foundation or as an attempt
to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before Congress.
If the House continues this trend for the remaining seven appropriations
bills required by the Budget Act of 1974, and if these spending levels are
matched by the Senate and accepted by the President, total appropriated
spending will increase by $75 billion in fiscal 1991. At the same time, the
House soundly defeated a series of amendments that would have reduced
these proposed spending increases, in some cases reducing these huge in-
creases by as little as 2 percent.
Costly New Programs. The House has not merely increased current spend-
ing in appropriations bills. With members smelling blood in the water, the
House Ways and Means Committee okayed a new foster care entitlement pro-
gram which will cost taxpayers more than $4 billion over the next five years.
The House Agriculture Committee has approved legislation to expand Food
Stamp and nutrition entitlement programs by $7.5 billion over five years.
At the same time that many House members have been congratulating
Bush for his "statesman-like" betrayal of his no-tax pledge, they have been
quietly adding spending to the budget that could cost every American house-
hold $750. Yet, nowhere in any of these bills have members of Congress at-
tempted to cut spending.
The message is clear.
Congress does not want new taxes for deficit reduction.
Congress wants new taxes for new spending.
CONGRESSIONAL BETRAYAL
In April, Bush invited congressional leaders to a "budget summit" to negoti-
ate a good-faith deal to bring the projected fiscal year 1991 deficit of $168 bil-
lion down to the $74 billion level¹ required by the 1985 Gramm-Rudman-
Hollings deficit reduction act, a level that does not include the cost of bailing
out ailing savings and loans.
Rather than trying to cut wasteful spending, many congressional leaders
pressured Bush to betray his no-tax pledge. On June 26, he obliged by stating
that it was clear to him that "tax revenue increases" would be needed to bring
the deficit in line. What followed has been a spurt of new federal spending in
the first six appropriations bills.
Table 1 compares the first six FY 1991 appropriation levels with totals from
previous years.
1 The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit target for FY 1991 is $64 billion plus a $10 billion "margin for error."
2
Table 1
Appropriations Bills
($billions)
FY '91
FY '89
%
%
BILL
FY '90
FY '91
Bush
$ Change
Approps.
Approps.
Proposal
Approps.
'90-'91
Change
Change
'89-'91
'90-'91
Commerce/
Justice
14.85
11.70
11.10
10.50
-1.20
-29.30
-10.20
Energy/Water
17.83
18.43
20.20
20.77
+2.40
+ 16.52
+ 12.70
Foreign
14.29
15.52
Operations
15.52
15.78
+ 0.30
+ 10.46
+ 1.69
VA/HUD
59.39
71.28
78.78
83.57
+ 12.30
+40.72
+ 17.25
Transportation
25.67
28.17
26.73
30.94
+2.70
+ 20.54
+ 9.50
Treasury/P.O.
16.02
18.45
20.71
20.72
+ 2.27
+ 29.34
+ 12.30
TOTALS
148.05
163.55
173.34
182.31
+ 18.75
+ 23.14
+ 11.47
CONGRESS REFUSES TO TRIM INCREASES
When some lawmakers attempted to slow the proposed increase in spend-
ing, Congress ignored them. By substantial majorities, the House of Repre-
sentatives soundly defeated a series of amendments that would have rolled
back proposed spending increases at various levels. Defeated were amend-
ments to the Energy and Water Appropriations bill as well the Housing and
Urban Development-Veterans Administration (HUD-VA) Appropriations
bill offered by Representative Bill Frenzel, the Minnesota Republican, that
would have nullified the proposed increases and returned spending to infla-
tion-adjusted 1990 levels. The HUD-VA bill, just passed by the House, con-
tains $12.6 billion in new spending.
Congress also has been averse to amendments that would roll back the ap-
propriated increases by much smaller amounts. Representative William Dan-
nemeyer, the California Republican, for instance, unsuccessfully offered
amendments for 5 percent across-the-board reductions in appropriations for
the Energy and Water bill, Commerce and Justice bill, and the HUD-Veter-
ans Administration bill. And of the five attempts by Representative Timothy
Penny, the Minnesota Democrat, simply to reduce appropriated levels 2 per-
cent across-the-board all but one, which amended the Treasury/Post Office
bill, were defeated. Even had these amendments passed, however, spending
would have increased over fiscal 1990 levels (Table 2).
3
Table 2
($ billions)
FY '90
Frenzel
BILL
Dannemeyer
Penny
FY '91
1
2
3
Appros.
Amendment
Amendment
Amendment
Approps.
Energy
18.43
18.54
19.74
20.36
20.77
HUD/VA
71.28
71.46
79.39
81.90
83.57
Commerce/Justice
11.10
N/A
9.97
10.29
10.50
Transportation
28.17
N/A
N/A
30.33
30.94
Treasury
18.45
N/A
N/A
20.31
20.72
TOTALS
147.43
152.16
160.77
163.18
166.51
1. Representative Frenzel introduced two amendments. One would have cut Energy and Water appropriations
by 10.53 percent across the board. The other would have cut HUD/VA appropriations by 14.5 percent across
the board, except for VA medical benefits.
2. A 5 percent across-the-board cut.
3. A 2 percent across-the-board cut, except for VA medical benefits and HUD Section 8 housing.
BIG SPENDERS AT THE WHITE HOUSE
Bush cannot blame Congress solely for the alleged need for new taxes. His
Administration also has been seeking higher federal spending. Table 3 shows
a sample of higher spending requested for current programs.
The Bush Administration is seeking spending authorization for new pro-
grams as well. Table 4 offers a sample of these requests.
For years critics of high government spending have pointed to the need to
cut or eliminate programs. Yet as Congress looks for ways to increase taxes, it
refuses to address the $424 billion in government waste reported by the
"Grace Commission" six years ago or the more than $150 billion in program
waste, fraud, and financial mismanagement found earlier this year by
Congress's own General Accounting Office (GAO). Moreover, nowhere is
there evidence that members of Congress attempted to enact the roughly $60
billion in program saving measures recommended this year by the Congres-
sional Budget Office or the $130 billion in program savings recommended by
analysts at The Heritage Foundation.
Table 3
Bush Administration Proposals for Spending Increases
Program
1991 Request
Increase over 1990
National Endowment for the Arts
$175 million
$4 million
National Endowment for the Humanities
$165 million
$8 million
Smithsonian Institution
$308 million
$41 million
Institute for Museum Services
24 million
$1 million
National Gallery of Art
49 million
$7 million
Historical Preservation Fund
$ 34 million
$1.4 million
4
Table 4
Bush Administration New Authorization Requests
Program
Requested Amount
Magnetic Levitation Techology
$10 million
Airport Grants
$1.5 million
Global Change Research
$1 billion
Environmental Protection Agency Operating Budget
$230 million
Goverment Research and Development
$4.5 billion
Manned Missions to the Moon and Mars
$408 million
PROSPECTS OF ENTITLEMENT EXPANSIONS
The serious economic damage that could result from Congress's spending
increases is exacerbated by the fact that these 13 appropriations bills repre-
sent only about 60 percent of federal budgetary spending. The remainder of
the budget is driven by interest on the national debt and, more important, by
"automatic" spending such as entitlement programs, which congressmen
rarely consider as targets for spending cuts. These programs are expected to
grow in 1991 by roughly 6 percent, or $33 billion, to $606 billion. There is the
possibility, moreover, that overall entitlement programs will balloon to even
higher levels. Since the President broke his no-new-taxes promise, Congress
has voted out of committee new entitlements: A Foster Care bill, the Con-
gressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates, will cost $4.2 billion over five
years, and expanding the Food Stamp and Nutrition programs will cost $7.5
billion over five years, according to CBO.
The six appropriations bills that the House already has passed are not
"bare bones" programs. They are larded with wasteful spending, pork barrel
programs, and outdated agencies. If the pork and fat were eliminated and if a
spending freeze were imposed on the remaining spending, the budget would
be near the $74 billion Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit target without harm-
ing entitlements.
Congress should analyze each program and spending item by asking:
1) Does the program serve the nation as a whole? If it does not, then Con-
gress must ask if the program supersedes the responsibilities of state and
local officials. Filling potholes on Main Street and fixing a railroad crossing in
Springfield are not roles for Congress.
2) Does the program or service have an identifiable user? If so, then the
user should be charged a sum equal to the cost of the service, or the service
should be "shed" to the private sector as a competitive enterprise. In reality,
this means that landlubbers should not have to subsidize Coast Guard ser-
vices to wealthy yacht owners or that folks in rural America should not have
to subsidize the mass transit costs of urban dwellers.
5
3) Has the program failed, fulfilled its mission, outlived its usefulness, or
simply become irrelevant? If so, then these programs should be abolished.
Too often Congress continues to fund a program even when Congress's own
research groups determine that a program is a failure. If a program has out-
lived its usefulness or even fulfilled its mission Congress finds new activities
for the program to do. Congress hates to abolish programs.
4) Is Congress engaging in central planning or attempting to set "national
priorities" that should be left to communities or individuals? Example: the
more than $1 million appropriated in this year's Transportation bill to estab-
lish a national bicycle program and to encourage safe bicycle riding. Certainly
the decision to commute by bicycle or car is an individual one. Moreover,
most local park districts already conduct classes for children in bicycle safety.
Before Congress makes another move toward higher levels of spending it
owes it to American taxpayers to take a critical look at its spending habits. If
Congress simply answers the four questions outlined here it will go a long
way toward streamlining federal spending and freeing up sufficient funds to
solve today's problems.
CONCLUSION
Congress has sent a clear message to American taxpayers that it wants
more money for new spending, not for serious deficit reduction. After passing
just the first six of the required 13 appropriations bills, Congress is exceeding
last year's spending levels by nearly 12 percent. If this pace continues for the
remaining seven appropriations bills, the "controllable" portion of the fed-
eral budget will balloon by at least $75 billion over fiscal 1990 levels.
Congress also is sending a clear message to Bush by enacting these in-
creases in addition to the more than $11 billion in entitlement program ex-
pansions it has approved. This message is: Spending cuts have been taken "off
the table" at the budget summit. Congress will accept nothing less than
higher taxes. If Bush needs additional evidence of Congress's intentions, he
need but look the fact that Congress refused nine of the ten opportunities it
had to simply roll back the proposed increases in the appropriations bills.
Congressional action leads to only one conclusion: The only way to reduce
the deficit is for Congress to reject new spending and to trim some existing
programs. New taxes will not reduce the deficit. As Congress demonstrates al-
most every week, new revenues will be used for new spending.
Scott A. Hodge
Grover M. Herman Fellow
in Federal Budgetary Affairs
Heritage Foundation research interns John Gurney, Angela J. Hulsey,
Geoffrey Manne, and Matt Rawlinson assisted in the preparation of this study.
6
APPENDIX
THE FIRST SIX 1991 APPROPRIATIONS BILLS
DEPARTMENTS OF COMMERCE, JUSTICE, AND STATE, THE JUDICIARY,
AND RELATED AGENCIES
As this appropriations bill is not yet complete, it is difficult to compare to
previous spending levels. Nearly $9 billion in authorized program spending
remaining to be appropriated by the House Appropriations Committee. But
if the spending levels for Commerce Department technology programs re-
cently appropriated by the House are any guide, spending for the finished ap-
propriations bill will outpace last year's levels. For fiscal 1991, the House ap-
proved $290 million in spending for these programs and $468 million in fiscal
year 1992. The fiscal 1991 spending level marks an 82 percent increase over
the $159 million spent this year.
Congress and the budget summiteers should give serious consideration to
terminating or reforming the following spending programs within this bill;
this list is far from complete.
Department of Commerce
Programs for which funds have not yet been authorized: The Economic De-
velopment Administration, the Export Administration, the International
Trade Administration, the U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration, the Mi-
nority Business Development Agency, and the Technology Administration.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA)
Fishing Vessel and Gear Damage Fund: $1,202,000
Fisherman's Contingency Fund: $1,000,000
Zebra Mussel Research: $1,000,000
Stuttgart, Arkansas Fish Farm: $2,850,000
National Telecommunication and Info.
Administration
Grants for public TV & radio: $20,833,000
7
Department of State
Contributions to 52 International Organizations: $787,605,000
Examples:International Jute Organization: $69,000
International Lead and Zinc Study group: $36,000
International Office of Epizootics: $62,000
World Meteorological Organization: $6.6 million
International Sugar Organization: $261,000
Fisherman's Protective Fund: $500,000
Related Agencies
Total Spending: $1,901,419,000
Board for International Broadcasting: $192,586,000
Christopher Columbus Quincentenary Jubilee
Commission: $214,000
Commission on Agricultural Workers: $1,457,000
Commission on the Bicentennial of the
Constitution: $14,973,000
Federal Maritime Commission: $15,894,000
Marine Mammal Commission: $1,003,000
Small Business Administration: $437,700,000
ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIATIONS
Appropriations levels for 1991 Energy and Water programs are $2.4 billion
more than fiscal 1990 levels, an increase of 12.7 percent. By comparison, fis-
cal 1990 levels were only $600 million over fiscal 1989 levels, an increase of
3.4 percent.
The Energy and Water Appropriations bill is a case study in pork barrel
spending, federal involvement in local affairs, and federal involvement in ac-
tivities that should be entirely left to the private sector. Congress should con-
sider terminating many programs in this bill, such as the following:
8
Army Corps of Engineers
*
General Investigations: $167,847,000
Examples of Feasibility Studies and Investigations:
Red River Basin Comprehensive Study: $425,000
Red River Waterway, Index, Arkansas: $500,000
Red River Waterway, LA: $1,900,000
Rancho Palos Verdes Landslide, CA.: $500,000
Beaver Creek, Floyd County, Kentucky: $200,000
Clinton River Spillway, Michigan: $225,000
Howard Hansen Dam, Water Storage, Washington:
$200,000
Waikiki Beach, Hawaii: $100,000
*
General Construction: $1,362,025,000
Examples:
McClellan-Kerr, AR, River Navigation System, Locks and Dams:
1991 Cost: $9,900,000
Total Federal Cost: $584,800,000
Santa Ana River Mainstem, CA:
1991 cost: $65,000,000
Total Federal Cost: $908,000,000
Melvin Price Lock and Dam, IL & MO:
1991 Cost: $29,000,000
Total Federal Cost: $742,400,000
Melvin Price Lock and Dam, Second Lock, IL & MO:
1991 Cost: $75,000,000
Total Federal Cost: $230,000,000
Red River Waterway, Mississippi River to Shreveport, LA:
1991 Cost: $61,636,000
Total Federal Cost: $1,724,000,000
9
*
General Operation and Maintenance: $1,457,488,000
Examples:Beaver Lake, AR: $14,718,000
Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, AL & MS:
$18,000,000
McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System,
AR: $22,403,000
Ohio River Locks and Dams, KY, IL, IN, OH, PA,
WV: $41,060,000
Keweenan Waterway, MI.: $664,000
East River, NY: $1,410,000
Bureau of Reclamation
General Investigations: $12,926,000
Examples:American River Folsom South Optimization Study, CA: $50,000
Upper Gunnison-Uncompahgre Basin Project, CO:
$280,000
Josephine Co. Water Management Improvement
Study, OR: $200,000
Technical Assistance to States: $1,350,000
Construction Program: $649,697,000
Examples:Colorado River Basin Project: $201,966,000
Ogden River Project, Utah: $1,954,000
Operation and Maintenance: $231,516,000
Department of Energy Supply, Research and
Development Activities: $2,703,272,000
Examples:Solar Energy Programs: $130,430,000
Geothermal and Hydropower: $23,600,000
Electric Energy Systems and Storage: $41,253,000
Nuclear Energy Programs: $313,490,000
Biological and Environmental research:
$371,394,000
Magnetic Fusion: $325,300,000
10
Super Conducting Super Collider: $317,866,000 (Total Estimated Cost of
the Program: $5 billion to $8 billion)
Uranium Enrichment Facilities: $1,406,018,000 (Could be sold to the pri-
vate sector for $1.8 billion.)
The Five Power Marketing Administrations: $326,387,000 (Each could be
sold to the private sector for over $1 billion.)
Appalachian Regional Commission: $150,000,000
Delaware River Basin Commission: $681,000
Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin: $200,000
Susquehana River Basin Commission: $501,000
Tennessee Valley Authority: $135,000,000 (Could be sold to the private sec-
tor for over $5 billion.)
TREASURY, POSTAL SERVICE, AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT
APPROPRIATIONS
Appropriations for the Treasury and the Postal Service are $2.27 billion
higher than 1990 levels, a 12.3 percent increase.
Postal Service: Although the U.S. Postal Service is technically "off bud-
get," the taxpayer will nonetheless spend over $522,734,000 to subsidize the
Postal Service.
National Critical Materials Council: $235,000
Advisory Committee on Federal Pay: $207,000
Administrative Conference of the United States: $2,079,000
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND RELATED AGENCIES
Appropriations for the Department of Transportation and Related Agen-
cies will climb $2.7 billion in fiscal 1991 to a total of $30.9 billion, a 9.5 per-
cent increase.
This bill provides an excellent example of how the federal government sub-
sidizes "gold-plated" local projects, fails to require those who use services to
pay for what they receive, and pays for projects which clearly are the responsi-
bility of local governments. Among the many spending items that should be
terminated, Congress should consider the following:
11
Department of Transportation
Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization: $3,500,000
Transportation Policy and Planning: $6,748,000
Including:$50,000 for a national bicycle program manager
Research on sleep and fatigue in transportation
Coast Guard
Boat Safety: $35,000,000
Federal Aviation Administration
Grants-in-Aid for Airports: $1.4 billion
New Denver Airport: $25,000,000
Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport: $12,500,000
L.A. Basin Facility Consolidation: $76,100,000
$117,509,900 total for airport grants
Federal Highway Administration
Research Programs:
Intelligent vehicle/highway systems: $12,000,000
National bicycling and walking study: $1,000,000
University Transportation Centers: $5,000,000
Railroad-Highway Crossings Demonstration Projects: $14,845,000 Includ-
ing projects in: Elko, NV, Wheeling, WV, Matamoros, Mexico.
Federal Funds to complete Substitute Highway Projects: $1,646,832,472. In-
cluding: San Francisco, Washington, Atlanta, Chicago, New York City, New
York City-Trenton, New York City (New Jersey).
Baltimore-Washington Parkway.: $9,900,000
Intermodal Urban Demonstration Projects: $10,000,000
Indiana Industrial Corridor Safety Demo. Project: $3,000,000
Alabama Highway Bypass Demonstration Project: $10,000,000
Kentucky Bridge Demonstration Project: $4,000,000
Virginia HOV Safety Demonstration Project: $8,500,000
Bicycle Transportation Demonstration Project, Macomb County, MI:
$1,000,000
Local Rail Service Assistance: $7,000,000
12
Orange County, CA Monorail System: $1,000,000
Long Island Railroad Intermodal Project: $250,000
Amtrak: $482,000,000
MAGLEV/High Speed Rail: $12,000,000
Urban Mass Transit Administration:
Local Construction Projects: $440,000,000
Including, Los Angeles, Jacksonville, Honolulu, and Atlanta.
Washington, D.C. Metro: $108,000,000
Washington Metro Interest Payments: $51,663,000
St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corp.: $10,500,000
Interstate Commerce Commission: $45,844,000
DEPARTMENTS OF VETERANS AFFAIRS AND HOUSING AND URBAN
DEVELOPMENT, AND INDEPENDENT AGENCIES
The $83.58 billion appropriated in this bill represents a massive 17.25 per-
cent increase over 1990 levels and a 40.72 percent increase over 1989 levels.
Programs within this bill too often duplicate private sector services, prevent
the private sector from operating efficiently, or simply compensate for restric-
tive regulatory policies at the local level. Congress should consider terminat-
ing the following programs:
Department of Veterans Affairs
Construction, Major Projects: $575,456,000, an increase of $45,456,000
above budget estimate
Examples:$7,000,000 new hospital at Detroit
$8,900,000 for nursing home care unit at Lake City,
FL
$3,400,000 for a laundry and warehouse at Mountain
Home, TN
$8,000,000 for a clinical, outpatient, research,
parking and central air conditioning project at Ann
Arbor, MI
$800,000 for the advanced planning of a
modernization project at Wilkes-Barre, PA
13
$4,800,000 for the contract documents of a
replacement for the ambulatory care facility in El
Paso.
$3,100,000 for the design of a psychiatric and
outpatient facilities modernization project at
Northport, NY
$3,200,000 for the design and site preparation of a
clinical addition project at Wilmington
$1,450,000 for planning and site acquisition for a
new national cemetery at Albany, NY
$1,506,000 for planning and site acquisition for a
new national cemetery in the Chicago area.
$1,690,000 for planning and site acquisition for a
new national cemetery in the Cleveland area.
$2,385,000 for planning and site acquisition for a
new national cemetery in the Seattle area.
Parking Garage Revolving Fund: Total '91 $28,900,000
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Management and Administration Salaries and Expenses: $816,466,000
Including:
$10,000,000 more staff - FHA
$2,000,000 more staff - In-house Program
Evaluation and monitoring
$1,750,000 more staff - Public and Indian Housing
programs
Public Housing Reconstruction/New Development: $550,320,000
Independent Agencies
American Battle Monuments Commission: $15,900,000
Consumer Product Safety Commission: $37,109,000
Including:
$950,000 for transfer to the National Institute on Standards and Technol-
ogy for the Technical Study Group on Cigarette and Little Cigar Safety to de-
sign and implement a study to collect data about the characteristics of those
cigarettes, ignited products, and smokers that are involved in fires.
14
$50,000 for travel expenses of individuals in the above mentioned study by
the Technical Study Group on Cigarette and Little Cigar Safety.
Environmental Protection Agency: $6,012,175,000
Research and Development: $254,900,00
Including:$1,500,000 to establish solar and renewable energy demonstration
projects
$250,000 for research on control of the "Zebra mussel"
Abatement, Control, and Compliance:
$1,006,525,000
Including:$1,000,000 for the Rouge River basin non-point source control
demonstration
$3,000,000 for lead-based paint studies and support
$1,225,000 for continued work on the Spokane
Aquifer
$200,000 for a Southwest Arkansas/Southeast
Oklahoma Millwood Basin Water Quality Study.
$1,000,000 for the EPA National Training Center at
West Virginia University
$275,000 for the Lake Pontchartrain new wetlands
creation demonstration project
Construction Grants/State Revolving Funds: $2,000,000,000
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Research and Development $6,458,625,000
Including: Space Station: $1705,000,000
Search for Extraterrestrial Life: $6,100,000
National Aerospace Plane: $114,000,000
Consumer Information Center: $1,540,000
National Science Foundation: $2,337,000,000
National Institute of Building Sciences: $250,000
15
FOREIGN OPERATIONS APPROPRIATIONS
Fiscal 1991 appropriations for Foreign Operations inched up by 1.69 per-
cent over 1990 levels, but were 10.46 percent higher than 1989 appropriated
levels.
Even though last year saw discussions in both the Administration and Con-
gress about the failures of U.S. foreign aid, appropriations are up again for
1991. This is due in part to a desire to help the emerging Eastern European
and Central American democracies. The U.S. agreed, for example, to contrib-
ute $70 million to a new development bank for Eastern Europe despite the
failures of similar institutions such as the World Bank and the Inter-Ameri-
can Development Bank.
Multilateral Aid: $1.95 billion
Examples:Inter-American Development Bank: $78,000,000
Inter-American Investment Corporation:
$13,000,000
World Bank: $50,000,000
International Development Association: $1.06
billion
Asian Development Fund: $243,900,000
African Development Fund: $105,452,000
European Development Bank: $70,021,000
Bilateral Aid: $7.7 billion
Examples:Agricultural Aid: $491,635,000
Private Sector, Energy, Selected Development Aid:
$152,223,000
Sub-Saharan African Development Aid:
$800,000,000
Agency for International Development (AID)
Operating Expenses: $435,000,000
Economic Support Fund: $3.46 billion
Anglo-Irish Accord: $20,000,000
Multilateral Assistance Initiative:
Philippines: $160,000,000
Eastern Europe: $418,675,000
16
Other:Export-Import Bank: $785,000,000
Trade and Development Program: $35,000,000
Overseas Private Investment Corporation:
Direct Loan Limitation: $40,000,000
Guaranteed Loan Limitation: $250,000,000
17
The Backgrounder
Heritage Foundation
785
No.
The Heritage Foundation 214 Massachusetts Avenue N.E. Washington, D.C. 20002 (202) 546-4400
August 24, 1990
AMERICA'S OPTIONS
IF IRAQ USES CHEMICAL WEAPONS
INTRODUCTION
Following the August 2 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, George Bush ordered
American military forces to the Middle East to deter further aggression by the
Iraqis. This brought American forces to within range of Iraqi chemical weapons.
Since Iraq has used chemical weapons not only against Iran during the 1980-1988
Iran-Iraq War but against its own Kurdish citizens, the Iraqi chemical threat must
be taken seriously. United States troops last faced chemical warfare in World War
I when chemicals were responsible for 27 percent of all U.S. battlefield deaths.
Chemicals were not used widely in battle by any of the combatants in World War
II, the Korean War, or in Vietnam.
The Iraqis have both mustard gas and nerve agents. They can deliver these with
aircraft, artillery, and rockets. In confronting this threat, military forces now in
Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf region have a variety of options. These range
from passive defenses, such as protective suits and gas masks, to active defenses,
such as air defenses and preemptive strikes. Preferable to these, of course, is the
option of deterring an Iraqi attack by threatening retaliation against key targets in.
Iraq, or on the battlefield, with U.S. conventional weapons, chemical weapons, or
- in the extreme - tactical nuclear weapons. U.S. air defense missiles, ground-at-
tack aircraft and artillery could all be used in U.S. operations to counter an Iraqi
chemical attack.
SADDAM HUSSEIN'S CHEMICAL ARSENAL
Iraq's chemical weapons threat is a diverse one. Iraqi strongman Saddam Hus-
sein has at his disposal mustard gas, used widely in World War I, and two types of
nerve agents, called sarin and tabun.
Note: Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of The Heritage Foundation or as an attempt
to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before Congress.
Mustard gas is known as a "blistering agent" that can be inhaled or absorbed
through the skin. It causes severe skin irritation and lung damage about two to six
hours after exposure. Sarin and tabun interfere with the transmission of nerve im-
pulses to the brain, causing heart failure or asphyxiation. A single drop on the skin
can be enough to kill. Reaction to these agents starts within minutes.
It is estimated that Iraq can produce over 700 tons of mustard gas a year and 50
tons a year each of sarin and tabun. This is enough to produce thousands of chemi-
cal bombs and artillery shells. A typical shell would kill or injure at least half of all
IRAQI CHEMICAL AGENTS
Agent
Type
Persistence
Production
Mustard
blister
days or weeks
720 tons per year
Tabun
nerve
minutes or hours
50 tons per year
Sarin
nerve
minutes or hours
50 tons per year
Sources: "Chemical Weapons in the Middle East" by W. Seth Carus, December 1988 and U.S.
Soviet Military Balance 1980-1985 by John M. Collins, Senior Specialist, National Defense with
the Congressional Research Service.
MAIN IRAQI DELIVERY SYSTEMS FOR CHEMICAL WEAPONS
Delivery System
Payloads
Range
BM-21 rocket
42 lbs.
6 miles
Al Hussein missile
600 lbs.
500 miles*
Scud-B missile
1,200 lbs.
185 miles
Mirage F-1
7,700 lbs.
265 miles
MiG-23 Flogger
6,600 lbs.
800 miles
Su-25 Frogfoot
9,920 lbs.
350 miles
Tu-22 Blinder
22,000 lbs.
1,800 miles
152mm. artillery
20 miles
*The Iraqis are not known to have armed these missiles with chemical warheads.
Sources: "The Sword of the Arabs:" Iraq's Strategic Weapons by Michael Eisenstadt of The
Washington Institute for Near East Policy, The Middle East Military Balance 1987-1988 by Zeev
Eytan and Aharon Levran, Jane's Armour and Artillery and Jane's All the World's Aircraft.
2
The Iraqis could employ chemical weapons under a variety of circumstances. If
Iraq anticipates a ground attack by American forces in Saudi Arabia, the Iraqi
command could try to create a chemical barrier against U.S. land forces to slow
their advance or stop them. If the Iraqis launch an offensive along an established
front, they could try to break through by using artillery or aircraft to fire chemical
weapons at the American front line forces, although problems would arise since
the Iraqis would have to pass through contaminated territory. Finally, the Iraqis
could launch missile or air attack on U.S. naval vessels or operational bases,
military bases in Saudi Arabia, or even against Saudi cities.
Iraqi scientists also are researching biological weapons at a facility in the town of
Salman Pak, 20 miles southeast of Baghdad. It is not known whether they have suc-
ceeded in developing a biological weapon. Biological weapons spread microor-
ganisms that cause such diseases as anthrax, botulism, cholera, and typhoid. The
only defense against biological weapons is inoculation against the diseases they
cause. U.S. forces are not routinely inoculated against all these diseases, although
they could be. The fear is that scientists could engineer microorganisms against
which there is no known vaccine, although it is unlikely that the Iraqi program has
progressed to this point.
AMERICA'S MILITARY RESPONSES
U.S. forces have several options for defending themselves against a chemical at-
tack. The first line of defense is what is known as passive measures. These include
protective clothing and masks, cleansers, and antidotes. U.S. soldiers deployed in
the Middle East are equipped with protective suits and gas masks. Protective cloth-
ing covers a soldier from head to toe. It consists of charcoal-impregnated nylon
and cotton trousers and a jacket. The charcoal neutralizes the deadly chemicals.
Rubber gloves, boot covers, and hood protect other exposed areas. Protection also
includes a mask and a respirator which filters poison gas to allow the soldier to
breathe safely.
This protective gear can be effective if worn properly, provided a soldier is
washed down with a decontaminating bleach solution, which neutralizes the chemi-
cal agents, after exposure to chemicals. Though the suits are not leak-proof, they
can be overwhelmed only by massive surface contamination.
The main problem for soldiers wearing protective gear is heat. The suits are
designed for combat in Europe and thus intentionally give some insulation against
an often chilly or cold European climate. In the desert, where temperatures
regularly rise above 100 degrees, soldiers can operate in full protective gear for
only short periods before risking heat stroke. The suits also impede vision and
movement and make it difficult for soldiers to communicate. American soldiers
carry auto-inject syringes containing atropine, an antidote to sarin and tabun.
Atropine, however, has its own debilitating effects, including dehydration, nausea,
and disorientation.
Highly Trained Americans. American forces train regularly for chemical war-
fare. A typical U.S. Army division has 215 chemical warfare specialists trained in
4
UNITED STATES CHEMICAL AGENTS
Agent
Type
Persistence
Production
Binary
nerve
minutes or hours
classified
Mustard
blister
days or weeks
none
Sarin
nerve
minutes or hours
none
Tabun
nerve
minutes or hours
none
VX
nerve
days or weeks
none
*While the U.S. maintains supplies of these agents, they have not been produced since 1969.
Source: U.S.-Soviet Military Balance 1980-1985 by John M. Collins, Senior Specialist, National
Defense with the Congressional Research Service.
MAIN U.S. DELIVERY SYSTEMS FOR CHEMICAL WEAPONS
Delivery System
Weapons/Payload
Range
F-15 fighter
24,500 lbs.
790 miles
F-16 fighter
12,000 lbs.
575 miles
FB-111 bomber
29,000 lbs.
1,100 miles
M-55 rocket
10 lbs.
6.75 miles
M-198 howitzer
11 miles
Sources: Poisoning Arms Control: The Soviet Union and Chemical/Biological Weapons, Mark C.
Storella, Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, The Military Balance 1989-90, by the International
Institute for Strategic Studies, Jane's Armour and Artillery and Jane's All the World's Aircraft.
chemical detection, decontamination, and chemical warfare tactics. A Marine
division has from 80 to 90 chemical warfare specialists.
Some American troops in the Persian Gulf area are equipped with British-made
mobile alarm units to detect the presence of harmful chemicals. West Germany is
rushing to the American troops some of its advanced Fox reconnaissance vehicles,
which use an instrument known as a "mass spectrometer" to analyze the air for
poison gases.
U.S. warships are vulnerable to chemical attacks. Lethal chemicals can be drawn
into shipboard ventilation systems and spread quickly. Sailors are issued protective
suits, but operating in the suits decreases their fighting ability.
U.S. military forces can defend actively against a chemical attack. Iraqi planes
and helicopters attempting to deliver chemical agents can be shot down by U.S.
5
Army Patriot and Stinger air defense missiles and the Navy Aegis air defense sys-
tem. U.S. aircraft carrier-based F-14 Tomcats F/A-18 Hornets, or Saudi Arabia-
based U.S. Air Force F-15 Eagles and F-16 Fighting Falcons can attack Iraqi planes
in the air or on the ground. These planes, along with U.S. carrier-based A-6 attack
jets and Turkey-based F-111 bombers, could strike preemptively against Iraqi
chemical weapon storage sites, production facilities, and delivery systems.
Preemptive attacks on Iraq also can be conducted by American missiles armed
with highly accurate conventional munitions. These include the Tomahawk cruise
missile, with a range of 1500 miles and a 1,000-pound conventional payload, and
the Multiple Launch Rocket System, which is able to launch surface-to-surface
rockets at enemy targets up to 18 miles away in rapid succession.
THE NEED FOR DETERRENCE
The fact that America possesses chemical agents and corresponding delivery sys-
tems is something that Iraqi military leaders must keep in mind. While the U.S. is
in the process of destroying its aging stock of chemical munitions, most of which
are not consider reliable, the Iraqis know that the U.S. has the capacity to respond
in kind to a chemical attack. The U.S. arsenal contains chemically-armed artillery
shells, bombs, and rockets including shells for the M-198 155 mm howitzer, a war-
head for the M-55 rocket, and Mk-94, Mk-116 and MC-1 aircraft-delivered
bombs. 5 These weapons generally contain nerve agents. The U.S. has started
producing a new generation of "binary" chemical weapons, which contain two
separate canisters of non-lethal chemicals that become lethal when the contents of
the two canisters are mixed after the weapon is fired. These shells are available for
use and can be fired by the M-198 howitzer.
It long has been U.S. policy that chemical weapons will not be used unless U.S.
forces are first attacked with them. Recent remarks by Defense Secretary Dick
Cheney, however, raise questions as to whether U.S. forces in fact will respond in
kind to a chemical weapons attack. 6 Cheney should clarify the U.S. position. The
U.S. should not rule out retaliating with chemical weapons if Iraq uses them, par-
ticularly since the threat to respond in kind could help deter Iraq from using
chemical weapons in the first place. The threat of retaliation also will force Iraqi
soldiers to don the same type of bulky protective gear U.S. soldiers will have to
wear.
Conventional Retaliation. The U.S, of course, need not automatically use its
own chemical weapons to respond to an Iraqi chemical attack on U.S. forces. Con-
ventional military retaliation, however, should make Iraq and Saddam Hussein the
main targets. These include Iraqi nuclear research facilities, chemical weapon
5 Mark C. Storella, Poisoning Arms Control: The Soviet Union and Chemical/Biological Weapons (Institute for
Foreign Policy Analysis: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984), pp. 85, 88.
6 Frank J. Murray and Paul Bedard, "Bush Threatens to Block Jordan Port," The Washington Times, August 15,
1990, p. A-1.
6
plants, ballistic missile research centers, as well as the key industrial targets (ex-
ample: electric generating plants) in and around Baghdad. While it serves no pur-
pose to forswear any response to Iraqi chemical attacks - if only to keep Saddam
guessing - the use of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons should be considered only as a
last resort if the Iraqi chemical attacks unexpectedly cause massive American
casualties and threaten the defeat of U.S. forces on the battlefield.
CONCLUSION
Iraq's arsenal of chemical weapons poses a special threat to the American forces
now deployed in the Middle East. But it is a threat that the U.S. may well be able
to deter. Iraqi military commanders know that the U.S. can respond to a chemical
attack by conventional means and by chemical weapons. The Iraqis also must reck-
on that American troops are better equipped and vastly better trained to fight in
an environment poisoned by chemical weapons than are Iraqi forces.
Main Target: Saddam Hussein. America should be prepared to order a massive
conventional military strike at the heart of Iraqi power should chemical weapons
be used against U.S. forces. This should include a preemptive strike against the
Iraqi Air Force and potential chemical delivery systems such as Scud B missiles.
Other targets should include Iraqi chemical weapon production facilities and bal-
listic missile research facilities - to prevent Iraq from building more weapons of
mass destruction. The main target of the retaliation should be Saddam Hussein,
who must be convinced that he, personally, will not survive a decision to use
chemical weapons against American Forces. This is the best deterrent against an
Iraqi chemical attack.
Baker Spring
Policy Analyst
7
unprotected people over an area about half the size of a football field. 1 Mustard
gas is a persistent agent, which can contaminate an area for days or even weeks.
Both sarin and tabun are non-persistent and will contaminate an area for minutes
or hours. 2 All three of these agents are debilitating even if not delivered in lethal
doses.
Production Facilities. The Iraqis are thought to manufacture chemical weapons
at several sites. The main facility is thinly disguised as the State Establishment for
Pesticide Production, located in the town of Samarra, northeast of Baghdad. Much
of the equipment for the Samarra plant was supplied during the 1980s by the West
German firm Karl Kolb GmbH, located in Areieich, outside Frankfurt.
Thiodiglycol, a chemical used in the manufacture of chemical weapons, was sup-
plied to the Iraqis in the early 1980s by the Phillips Petroleum Company. The
Bartlesville, Oklahoma, company has a plant in Tessenderlo, Belgium, that
produced thiodiglycol for export until the Belgian government blocked chemical
exports. The Iraqis continue to obtain chemicals from other sources by clandestine
means and on the open market. 3
The Iraqis have a multitude of systems for firing their chemical weapons. Chemi-
cal ordnance can include bombs dropped by aircraft, artillery shells, and warheads
carried by missiles. Chemical agents also can be sprayed from aircraft, airplanes,
or helicopters. Iraq possesses some 4,500 artillery pieces, of which many are
known to be capable of firing chemical shells.
Long-Range Delivery. The Iraqi arsenal also includes French and Soviet attack
aircraft and bombers which could deliver chemical bombs. These include the
French Mirage F-1 and Soviet MiG-23 Flogger and the MiG-27 Fulcrum fighter-
bombers, the Soviet Su-25 Frogfoot ground-attack planes, and the Soviet Tu-22
Blinder and Tu-16 Badger bombers. Iraqi surface-to-surface missiles include the
Soviet-built FROG-7 and Scud B missiles, as well as Iraqi-produced Al-Abbas and
Al-Hussein missiles, which are Scud Bs modified by the Iraqis to increase the range
from 185 miles to 550 miles and 370 miles, respectively. It is unknown whether the
Iraqis have produced or deployed chemical warheads for any of these missiles.
Finally, the Iraqis have French- and Soviet-built military helicopters that could
spread chemical agents. These include the French Alouette III and the Soviet Mi-
24 Hind. 4
1 W. Seth Carus, "Chemical Weapons in the Middle East" (Washington, D.C.: The Washington Institute for Near
East Policy, 1988), pp. 3-4.
2 John M. Collins, U.S.-Soviet Military Balance 1980-1985 (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service,
1985) p. 163. The persistence of a chemical agent depends in large part on how thick it is and how fast it evaporates.
Agents such as sarin evaporate rapidly, thus losing their lethal effects more quickly than a VX agent, which is a viscous
compound and slower to evaporate.
3 Gary Thatcher and Timothy Aeppel, "The Trail to Samarra," Christian Science Monitor, December 13, 1988, p. B1.
4 Zeev Eytan and Aharon Levran, The Middle East Military Balance 1987-1988 (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press,
1988), pp. 295-305.
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