Center For Security Policy Assesses The Damage To US Security From The Malta Summit

Following a meeting with President George Bush today to discuss the Malta summit, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., director of the Center for Security Policy, released a paper that analyzes the summit and details the adverse impact it is likely to have on U.S. security.

The Center’s paper, entitled The Malta Summit: An Assessment of the Damage Done to U.S. Security Interests, critiques the premises upon which President Bush evidently has based his commitment to "do everything [he] can to help" Gorbachev succeed. The paper also considers the likely political, military and economic consequences of the resulting Administration policy approaches to three areas of U.S.-Soviet relations: Central America, economic ties, and arms control.

In releasing this analysis, Gaffney said, "It is clear that the President held all the high cards in his meeting with Gorbachev. It is incredible that he chose to spend the first full hour of his meeting turning them in. Gorbachev, the quintessential riverboat gambler, simply pocketed them."

Gaffney added, "Mr. Bush has precious little to show for his new commitment to a ‘partnership’ with the Soviets — except the promise of new financial liabilities for U.S. taxpayers in rescuing Moscow’s failed economy, a continuing Soviet-sponsored effort to destabilize the Western Hemisphere and the looming prospect of a raft of arms control agreements that will be neither carefully prepared, nor effectively verifiable nor in the interest of the United States."

It is all the more ironic that the Administration is embarking upon such an approach to the Soviet Union at the very moment when events there and in Eastern Europe suggest that the West has an opportunity to bring about an end to the Soviet threat once and for all through the restructuring of the Soviet Union — provided the United States and its allies are able to maintain a disciplined and vigilant posture and to exploit the considerable leverage they enjoy. The American people appear to appreciate the folly of bailing out the Soviet Union better than the White House as evidenced by an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll released today. It reveals overwhelming public opposition to providing direct economic aid to the USSR (26% in favor, 66% opposed) or selling high technology products with potential military applications (17% in favor, 77% opposed).