ustxtxb_obs_1983_12_23_50_00010-00000_000.pdf

bureaucracies to see that taxpayers get their money’s worth. There is a much more significant level of that debate, which is the realization that there is no greater threat to our national security than the danger of nuclear war. It is a threat not only to our national security but to our very survival as a human race. The Reagan administration did not recognize that early on. They are motivated by a small clique of ideologues who genuinely believe that if we have enough shovels we’ll be able to survive a nuclear war. I disagree with that, and I think looking for a mutually verifiable reduction in armaments is a very significant national priority that we must shift to. And it would be a great concern of mine, were I in the United States Senate, to try to address that. Of course, there again the contrast in both addressing the concerns of the arms race and addressing waste in the Defense Department is significant between myself and the other people in this race. As I said earlier in the campaign, like John Tower, Bob Krueger never met a weapons system he didn’t like. Whether it was the neutron bomb or the B-1 bomber or the MX missile, Bob Krueger was right there voting with John Tower down the line, rubber-stamping whatever the Pentagon wanted to send over. We can have a strong national defense. I don’t have any misconceptions about the Soviet system. I don’t embark on the notion of arms negotiations on the basis that I trust the Soviets because I don’t. But I embark on it because I think we live on the same planet with a system very different from our own, and if we don’t do something to reduce the danger of nuclear war, we will, within our lifetimes, have one. Are you willing to say whether you would have voted for the nuclear freeze resolution? How would you have voted on nerve gas, on covert aid to Nicaragua, which was a voice vote? Well, I certainly have a record with reference to the nuclear freeze, so long as we’re talking about a mutuallyverifiable reduction, where both sides are involved in reducing armaments and it’s verifiable. I take the same position that John Glenn or Walter Mondale or any of the Democratic nominees have taken in supporting such a reduction. I don’t see how our national security has been improved by spending or voting to spend millions of dollars on nervegas production. I certainly agree with Stansfield Turner that we’ve not benefited by conducting a covert war against the government of Nicaragua. What we are doing there is, I think, very much to our national detriment. It’s not only wrong but it’s contrary to our 10 DECEMBER 23, 1983 selfish national interests. What about the U.S. role in Grenada and the U.S. role in Latin America and the Caribbean? Well, as with the rest of the world, the President lacks a foreign policy. Not unlike some of the positions he’s taken on domestic policy, he reacts to crises sometimes of his own making. He has a complete failure to define any kind i . . . Bob Krueger never met a weapons system he didn’t like. Whether it was the neutron bomb or the B-1 bomber or the MX missile, Bob Krueger was right there voting with John Tower down the line. of consistent foreign policy. If our foreign policy is to be based on a precedent established in Grenada, that we will invade a country whose government we don’t like, we will be in the invasion-of-the-week club, and that certainly cannot be our foreign policy. Unless there is far more information provided to the American people than we’ve had to date, one has great difficulty justifying the President’s action with reference to Grenada. Basically, what I would like to see our foreign policy be is one that draws a sharper contrast between the basic idealism, which I think our country embodies, with that of the Soviet system. I think we ought to be talking about human rights, not only in domestic policy but in foreign policy. The notion that the foreign assistance of the United States ought to be based on compliance with internationally-recognized human rights, that was advanced before the Carter administration and during the Carter administration it seems to me that ought to be the very essence of our foreign policy. That is one of those very basic philosophical disagreements I have with Bob Krueger, since he opposed conditioning our foreign assistance on compliance with basic human rights. We ought to be doing that in Central America, in South Africa, in Asia. So often what we’ve done is to consider our short-term interests to ally with whichever right-wing dictator seemed to be making the most pro-U.S. comments without any regard to where that might leave us five years or ten years from now in terms of our national interests and whether that person had any support or was just being propped up at the expense of millions from the U.S. taxpayer. In the eyes of the somewhat skeptical world, the differences between us and the Soviet Union, which ought to be sharp, have become blurred. What’s the relationship you see between our international stance and our domestic economy? Do you have any proposals for reviving the economy and how do you view Reagan’s efforts to do so? Well, one aspect of the stance we’ve taken under this administration, of course, which affects our economy dramatically, is the size of the defense budget. As Senator Bentsen put it, I think, quite well back during the regular session of the legislature, if you approve a Reagan type defense budget, then you have the strongest national defense anywhere and no economy left to defend. So that’s one impact of that international presence on the economy. There is a tendency at present to consider the solution to our position in the international economy of being one simply of erecting barriers to the rest of the world. I don’t believe that that is the approach that we need to take. I think we have been one of the strongest trade partners in the international economy in the past and that we ought to do all that we can to expand our trade, looking for a reduction of unfair barriers, whether they’re tariff barriers or non-tariff barriers that other countries erect. But we ought to be working to expand our position in the international economy rather than just to retrench. As far as what we do within this country economically in what might be viewed as purely domestic policy, a couple of things: first, we have a tremendous waste of human resources at the present time with the kind of unemployment that this administration is content with. After each of the last recessions, when recovery has occurred, it has been with a higher level of unemployment. Some people may speak very theoretically and coldly about structural unemployment, but we’ve got to do something about what that means in real human terms as a waste of human life. I would favor, first of all, additional jobs programs to build things that need to be built and to address needs that need addressing in this country, so people can be out working and contributing to our society, as well as the very personal meaning that is there in terms of having the pride of being able to go home as a breadwinner. You mean like the New Deal programs? Well, I mean like some of the programs that the Democratic majority 1