Why Hasn’t Senator Nunn Made This Speech? Asks The Center For Security Policy

The Center for Security Policy today called on Senator Sam Nunn to join other congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle in assessing critically Soviet leader Gorbachev’s economic and financial agenda towards the West — and its implications for Western security. Interestingly, the April edition of the Reserve Officers Association National Security Report, suggests at first glance that he has already done so. The ROA Report credits the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee with making a major address entitled "The ‘Whens’ of Mr. Gorbachev’s Perestroika" that raises serious questions about the wisdom of undisciplined Western economic, financial and technology assistance to the Soviet bloc.

"We were delighted to see that Sen. Sam Nunn had apparently endorsed an argument the Center has long made — that untied Western lending and incautious flows of high technology to the Soviet Union and its allies could only exacerbate the adverse effects of defense budget cuts on our national security," Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., director of the Center for Security Policy, said about the published speech.

Such a speech would have added one of the Senate’s leaders on defense matters to the growing list of congressional figures who believe a comprehensive evaluation of the security consequences of increased Western lending and technology transfer to the Soviet bloc is overdue. "The Center was poised to applaud Sen. Nunn’s association with Democratic Senators Bill Bradley, Jim Sasser, and Dennis DeConcini — as well as numerous Republicans like Senators Jake Garn, Steve Symms, Connie Mack, and Jesse Helms — who have already raised pointed questions about the implications for U.S. defense and foreign policy interests of imprudent economic and financial transactions with the East," Gaffney added.

Senator Bradley, for example, this week at the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Washington properly labeled "the bulk of those people now dealing with the Soviet Union as ‘romantic capitalists,’ eager to join the rush to Moscow because it’s the fashionable thing to do." "Bradley’s appraisal is right on target and sets the perspective that policy-makers should apply in evaluating the long-term implications of trade and credit deals now underway, or contemplated," says Gaffney.

"These security-minded perspectives emanating from Congress contrast sharply with the call for closer economic and financial ties with the East bloc advocated by former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger, former French president Giscard D’Estaing and former Japanese prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone in a Trilateral Commission report released this week," notes Gaffney. "While Giscard D’Estaing advocates putting Soviet entry into General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the Paris Economic Summit agenda in June, sentiment on the Hill is moving towards an urgent call for greater discipline and transparency in alliance financial dealings with the Soviet bloc," according to Gaffney.

Unfortunately, upon closer reading of Nunn’s speech, it became readily apparent that the ROA’s National Security Report had inadvertently misattributed the remarks delivered before the Conservative Political Action Conference. In fact, the critical assessment of perestroika was delivered by another senior Senator from the South, Jesse Helms.

"This rather amusing error, however, raises an important question," Gaffney noted. "When will the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee join the growing chorus of congressional leaders urging prompt consideration of and allied action on the defense implications of ill-advised economic, financial and technology security policies toward the Soviet bloc?"