Nixon's World: Facing Up to Realities

HANDED a final draft of the radio address summarizing President Nixon's 180-page report to the Congress on "U.S. Foreign Policy for the 1970s," Presidential Special Assistant William Safire read it through, pronounced it "fine," but predicted that it "would not set the world on fire." The President smiled and replied: "The whole point of our foreign policy is not to set the world on fire." Indeed, the full report is a refreshingly cool and realistic appraisal of the current state of world politics. A sweeping outline of the evolving Nixon foreign policy, it is the most detailed (and should be, at 65,000 words) presidential document yet issued on world affairs. It expresses the current confidence of the Administration in its ability to cope with new realities. Says Nixon: "We have set a new direction. We are on course."

In preparation for months by Presidential Assistant Henry Kissinger and his staff, the report is essentially an elaboration of the Nixon Doctrine, first announced on Guam 19 months ago and more formally enunciated in the President's first "State of the World" report last year. This year's report avoids the vagueness of last year's, and applies that doctrine more specifically to world trouble spots and to other powers, particularly the Soviet Union. It combines a tough-minded analysis with a flexibility in approach that should aid the quest for peace.

Candor with Moscow. The report concentrates on explaining that the Nixon Doctrine--which calls for a more realistic meshing of United States commitments with actual capabilities--has a stern side and is not a sophisticated rationalization for a new isolationism. Its core philosophy is that "no nation has the wisdom, and the understanding and the energy required to act wisely on all problems, at all times, in every part of the world." Nixon shows the importance he attaches to the doctrine by mentioning it in his report no fewer than 35 times. Still, critics have claimed that the concept can serve as a convenient catchall explanation for any expedient national act--or failure to act--in any international crisis.

Nixon admits that "the American people have grown somewhat weary of 25 years of international burdens," and that this weariness was "hastened by the anguish of the Viet Nam War." But he warns that "we cannot let the pendulum swing in the other direction, sweeping us toward an isolationism which could be as disastrous as excessive zeal." Nor can U.S. policy change too precipitously. "We cannot abandon friends, and must not transfer burdens too swiftly. We must strike a balance between doing too much and thus preventing self-reliance and doing too little and thus undermining self-confidence."

The Nixon approach thus combines a conciliatory acceptance of new conditions with a firm stance in dealing with them. Coming out more candidly than any other U.S. President has ever done, Nixon concedes that the Soviet Union is a world power with legitimate self-interests beyond its own borders (see box). In the Middle East, Nixon admits, "the U.S.S.R. has acquired important interests and influence, and a lasting settlement cannot be achieved unless the Soviet Union sees it to be in its interest." In the Pacific, "the U.S.S.R. has a vital strategic desire to secure herself and her territories against China." In Eastern Europe, the U.S. does not intend to exploit its ties of friendship with Communist nations in any way that would "undermine the security of the Soviet Union." (Nixon says that he will "ask the Congress to provide authority to extend guarantees to American private investment" in Yugoslavia and Rumania.) And in the vital field of limitations on strategic arms, the U.S. acknowledges that "no nation will maintain an accord which it believes jeopardizes its survival." When the legitimate interests of the two superpowers collide, the President suggests, restraint and mutual concession are the only rational ways to accommodate their differences.

That acceptance of the facts of international life is a major theme of the report, and represents a welcome shift away from Nixon's earlier fondness for rhetoric that sometimes bordered on the superpatriotic or on cold war atavism. Even on the long-sensitive topic of Communist China, the report is conciliatory. For the first time, Nixon refers to China by its formal name, the "People's Republic of China," and he describes its residents as "750 million talented and energetic people." While still committed to the defense of Taiwan, the President hints that the U.S. may welcome China to membership in the United Nations if Taiwan is not excluded. Moreover, referring to Peking, he declares that the U.S. does not "wish to impose on China an international position that denies its legitimate national interests."

Freeze the Fear. The Nixon report is candid in other ways. Discussing U.S. attitudes toward South Africa, Nixon asserts that "racism is abhorrent to the American people, to my Administration, and to me personally--we cannot be indifferent to apartheid." But he argues that "resort to force would freeze the prejudice and fear which lie at the heart of the problem" and that rather than trying to isolate white regimes, "a combination of contact and moral pressure" is the best tactic. Throughout the report, Nixon repeatedly admits that his foreign policy options are severely limited by domestic opinion in the U.S.

On its tougher side, applied to specific situations, the Nixon Doctrine means that the U.S., despite domestic pressures, will not reduce its conventional forces in the NATO defense of Europe or renounce the use of tactical nuclear weapons there. While encouraging efforts at a detente between Western Europe and the Soviet Union, the U.S. will insist upon a harmonious Western approach--a warning to West Germany and France that the U.S. is suspicious of separate deals with the U.S.S.R. The imminence of "a momentous advance" in European economic unity pleases the U.S., says Nixon, but he demands that the European Community also accommodate U.S. trade interests. Similarly, the U.S. applauds the revival of Japan as a world economic power, but urges Japan to open its own markets to more U.S. exports.

Beyond the eventual impact of the Nixon Doctrine, the President claims, "in the long run, the most significant result of negotiations between the superpowers in the past year could be in the field of arms control." The report says that the Administration has painstakingly prepared for the present SALT talks and has explored multiple options; unlike previous weapons negotiators, its team is "not the prisoner of bureaucratic jockeying to come up with an agreed response" whenever the Soviet Union takes a new position. The talks, Nixon observes, have thus proceeded in "a thoughtful, nonpolemical manner" with "calm, reasoned dialogue."

Both powers, the report states, have reached a condition of nuclear "sufficiency" in which neither is clearly superior and either can devastate the other. The Soviet Union has surpassed the U.S. in intercontinental ballistic missiles (1,440 to 1,054) and is expected to catch up in submarine-launched missiles within three years (the current U.S. lead is 656 to 350). Says Nixon: "The U.S. and the Soviet Union have now reached a point where small numerical advantages in strategic forces have little military relevance. The attempt to obtain large advantages would spark an arms race which would, in the end, prove pointless."

U.S. experts fear that the new Soviet S59 missiles, with accurate multiple warheads, could knock out land-based U.S. ICBMs and give the Russians an advantage. Deployment of the SS-9s has been slowed, but the Nixon paper expresses concern that this may be only a pause while improvements are being made. Meanwhile, the U.S. is installing its own multiple-targeted missiles, but they are said to be too inaccurate and too small for pinpoint destruction of Soviet missile sites and are only retaliatory weapons against cities. Nixon is insisting that the U.S. must continue to protect its own sites with the Safeguard ABM system until agreement is reached on the limitation of both offensive and defensive weapons.

More generally, Nixon argues, "there is an absolute point below which our security forces must never be allowed to go. For it serves no purpose in conflicts between nations to have been almost strong enough."

Humane Position. Too much has been said too often for a new report to give a fresh perspective to the long debate over U.S. policy in Indochina. "If winding down the war is my greatest satisfaction in foreign policy, the failure to end it is my deepest disappointment," Nixon said. "We will not be content until all conflict is stilled." Yet Nixon cast new doubt on just how far away that day may be. He pledges that the U.S. will not remove all of its forces from Viet Nam until the Communists release all U.S. prisoners of war--an understandably humane position but one complicating further the ending of the war. He thus once more plainly rejects demands for a specific withdrawal date put forth by both Democratic and Republican critics of his policy.

Nixon nevertheless restates his confidence in the eventual success of Vietnamization. He notes that the policy was largely forced by U.S. public opinion and was "the only policy available once we had rejected the status quo, escalation and capitulation." Unlike his foreign policy report of last year, Nixon's statement carefully avoids scolding the Soviet Union for supplying arms to Communist troops in Viet Nam. Yet the difficulty of reaching Soviet leaders was demonstrated anew on the same day that Nixon's report was released. The Soviet government attacked Vietnamization as an effort to prolong the war and announced that it would "continue giving all necessary aid" to Hanoi.

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