ustxtxb_obs_1988_01_29_50_00012-00000_000.pdf

Life Insurance and Annuities SV1, Life Martin Elfant, CLU 4223 Richmond, Suite 213, Houston, TX 77027 isn’t much good if you can’t read it. Our production department is packed with experience in getting your ideas on paper. From design to full service computer typesetting, we can put the power of the pen to work for you. Call us at 442-7836. AUSTIN, TEXAS 1714 S. Congress 442-7836 Data Processing Typesetting Printing Mailing 12 JANUARY 29, 1988 VI WHEN SENATOR Paul Simon breezed into Austin December 27, he intended to impress a select audience of Austin liberals with his dovish stance on the arms race. But the Austin newspaper the next day had him threatening Western Europe with nuclear weapons. Simon had been presented with a difficult question from the audience after his speech: “Can you conceive of any situation in which you would justify the use of nuclear arms?” The candidate paused, then began, “It is very hard. . . . And I don’t think . . . I think the only way that it would be used, whether it’s Paul Simon or anyone else sitting in the White House, is if there were a direct assault by conventional forces of the Soviet Union in Western Europe. I think that at that point there would be the danger of using nuclear warheads.” Simon was quick to add that such an assault was, in his view, extremely unlikely, and that the nuclear threat is only one more reason to emphasize “the tools of diplomacy” to a greater extent than the Reagan administration has. In contrast to his invoking the spectre of using nuclear weapons in Western Europe, Simon’s speech \(to about 100 members of a plea for peace and de-escalation of the arms race. Simon began his speech by talking about “this nuclear cloud that hangs over all of us.” “We have the ability in a matter of hours to create a world where never again will the laugh of a child be heard, never again will a blade of grass grow,” he said. Drawing his only interruption for applause, Simon said the first thing he would do upon moving into the White House would be to tell the Soviet Union, “If you will stop all nuclear warhead testing, we will stop all nuclear warhead testing.” Simon complained that “defense policy leads foreign policy today rather than the other way around.” He said the Reagan administration has been “extremely shortsighted” in Central America and he criticized the Administration’s mining of Nicaraguan harbors. “What if one of those mines had sunk a Soviet ship? . . . And before long, that . .. that thing that none of us can even comprehend might have happened.” “We are preoccupied with Nicaragua, with three million people,” said Simon. “Right next to us is Mexico, with 83 to 85 million people.” While not intending to suggest that Nicaragua is unimportant, the candidate said, “We are spending at least 10 to 20 times as much attention on Nicaragua as we are on Mexico.” Simon repeatedly described his ideal foreign policy as one that is based on “caring much more.” He invoked, as he often does, Hubert Humphrey as an example of a Democrat who cared about Latin America. Simon spoke of redirecting money from the more than $300 billion currently spent on the military. “If we could spend ten percent of that or five percent of that on lifting the lot of people in the most depressed nations in the world, what a vastly finer world we’d be living in,” he said. V JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT it was safe to say chile con queso, they’re back. Lou Zaske and those glib English Firsters are after the Governor and others who oppose making English the official language. “They are out of step and they have been duped,” Zaske said at a Capitol press conference. An Official English newsletter assured those concerned about the movement that their intent was not to influence the choice of language in private conversations or in the privacy of the home. Official English spokesperson Roy Ontiveros predicted that 85 percent of the Republicans voting in the Texas primary will endorse the official language proposition on the Republican ballot. He described it as an important issue in the 1988 election. The Texas Observer is prominently displayed for purchase at these locations: Old World Bakery 814 W. 12th Street Austin Whole Earth Company 2410 San Antonio Street Austin Paperbacks y Mas 1819 Blanco Road San Antonio